"You're Getting Shot At"—The Story of My First Combat Mission in Afghanistan

On this episode of Our American Stories, Peter Braxton brings an eye-opening perspective on service to America in war-torn skies.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, this is Lee Habee with Our American Stories, the
show where America is the star and the American People.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

(00:23):
your podcasts. On the morning of September eleventh, two thousand
and one, Peter Braxton was the first military pilot in
the air over the burning Twin Towers in downtown New
York City. It was his first day on the job.
Not long after, he did multiple tours of flight combat
in the Middle East. Here's Peter with the story of
his first combat mission in Afghanistan.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Most people don't They spend their whole career and they
don't go to combat. And I was one of those,
like those kids that went to pre or kindergarten at
four because my birthday's in October. The next thing, now
I'm twenty two, I'm being shuttled off to the Middle
East and my first combat mission. You know, I'll never
forget it. You know, we're flying, you know, pushing into

(01:10):
Afghanistan and refueling all of these coalition fighters and F
sixteen's and marine F eighteens and one of our receivers.
You know, asked us to turn off the chaff, like
the the stuff that drops out of your plane if
you're being shot at, and and I was like, well,
you know, we don't have any of that. If that

(01:31):
gets stuck, we're a big gas tank in the sky. Well,
I don't know we'll blow up or it's not going
to end. Well, so they don't put it in. We
don't have any offensive or defensive threat detection or and
so I remember he radio, He's like, all right, well
you're getting shot at day one, first day and there's stuff,

(01:53):
you know, blowing up next to our plane and it's
a big casey, it's a big we you know, we're
fueling tanker. Look, we were briefed on every day before
your mission, you're briefed by the intel officers. You know
where the Service to air missile sites are, where the
activity is, what types of weapons they have, and you

(02:17):
know they have these shoulder fired kind of ancient missiles.
But you know, we called it, I guess the Golden Babie. Right.
They're not they're not that sophisticated, but they can take
you out. And you know the range on those things
are you know, I think they were nineteen thousand feet.

(02:37):
So here's the good news. Our er feeling outs dudes
twenty to thirty thousand feet. So you know, we stayed
towards the twenty seven thousand feet area, and you know
there's probably less chance of them being able to hit us.
But you know, as the war progresses, they obviously got
they got their own tactics, and what they would do
is strap these missiles to a mule and climb up

(03:01):
the mountain like chirpa, up the mountain to about you know,
twelve or fourteen thousand feet and then you can do
the math. They can reach you. And so you know
there were occasions where they were they were shooting at
us and again no offensive or defensive threat detection. So
how did we know are you know, we had contact

(03:22):
with command and control and they would tell us, you
know what quadrant or what's you know, you've got to
launch rifle rifle, So you know, there's not much tactics
that you can do. In the case ten, you could
do this kind of retrograde maneuver where you climb away
from the threat and you know, if you're still alive

(03:43):
in seven seconds, great. You know, it can be described
as hours of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror.
You know, that's that's kind of accurate actually, But I
mean I've had to do that before. I've had to
I've had to do that maneuver to climb away from
the threat. And it was it was a part of
my life. And at the time, it was tough. It

(04:06):
was really hard, really really hard. This is it's a
huge mental load emotionally to be twenty two, twenty three,
twenty four have this type of machine that you're responsible
for and the people to operate it and to motivate
and sentivize, and I actually bring them home alive. That's
that's what I would tell them. This machine flies itself,

(04:27):
and you know, my only job is to get you home.
And I remember landing and I was thinking that what
did what did I get myself into? Like what what happened?
It's so mentally taxing if you're not used to it
or you're not seasoned. I remember we landed around five
pm and you know, the sun was going down. It's late.

(04:52):
It's in November, early November, and the sun's going down,
and I just I passed out. I think it was
just mental exhaustion. I was in my unif, still my
boots on. We're in a tense on a cot. I
probably almost face planted. I was probably asleep before my
head hit the pillow. And you're supposed to be allowed
twelve hours of uninterrupted dress and so what seemed like

(05:16):
twelve hours later, somebody alerted me. I woke up. I
was still in my uniform, I still had my boots on.
It was five and I remember walking out of the
tent and I was like, this is what side of
the planet are we on? Why is the sun going down?
It's getting darker. I had slept for twenty four straight hours.

(05:42):
They woke me up at five pm. I was alerted
for my second combat mission, and the sun was going down.
I don't know too many people who can sleep for
twenty four straight hours, but it some type of mental
exhaustion for that to happen. I didn't get up, no food,

(06:05):
no water, no bathroom breaks, and I remember thinking, this
is this is not going to be easy. This is
not gonna be and that's you know again, I guess
that's what these troops go through, and that's why they
probably deserve some gratitude and latitude for what they do.
I know they're called to do it, it's their duty,

(06:25):
and they're trained to do it. But it's not easy.
It wasn't It wasn't easy.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
I had a terrific job on the production editing and
storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks
to Peter Braxton for sharing his story of his first
day up in the air as a pilot, a trained
pilot in the US Air Force in Afghanistan. On that
very first day, he hears the words you're getting shot at.

(06:54):
And he's flying a KC ten by the way, a
big refueling tanker, and every day he's briefed about the
perils of being in the air. The intel officers are
telling the kind of weapons the enemy has, where to go,
where not to go. But of course war and combat
well they're unpredictable. And in the end he had one task,

(07:16):
bring his crew home and bring them home. He did
the story of Peter Braxton's first day of combat in
Afghanistan here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib,
host of Our American Stories, the show where America is
the star and the American people, and we do it
all from the heart of the South Oxford Mississippi, but

(07:39):
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