by CDR Sterling Gilliam Jr., USN
Tailhook Association Board of Directors
As one of four active-duty members of your Tailhook Board of Directors, I am happy to be in a position to provide our members a direct view from the fleet. I’d like to share a bit of that view and relate it to why I feel that Tailhook is so important to our Navy today.
I recently returned from deployment on USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), where I was the executive officer of VAQ-141. I showed up on TR at the mid-cruise mark after a quick trip through the fleet readiness squadron. Though I was happy to be back in the fleet after a few years away, I was more than a little curious about what had changed in the several years since my last trip.
What I found was an air wing brimming with confidence after its absolutely eye-watering support to NATO in the Kosovo conflict. With only a small percentage for the forces in theater, Air Wing Eight aircraft were airborne for nearly 50 percent of all interdiction missions, and flew more than 3,100 combat sorties to deliver a wide variety of precision-guided weapons.
While U.S. Air Force and other Coalition aircraft lumbered in from Italy’s Aviano AB, hundreds of miles away, on numbing five- and six-hour missions, CVW-8’s Tomcats and Hornets flew cyclic ops from the Northern Ionian Sea to deliver their ordnance on time and on target in the Kosovo Engagement Zone (KEZ).
My Prowler squadron performed superbly. The theater commander directed that no aircraft would enter the KEZ without an EA-6B on station. Our trusty Prowlers kept the KEZ open 12 hours a day to provide crucial jamming and HARM missile support to the strike aircraft. More than once, a striker’s duel with a Serb SA-6 surface-to-air missile terminated early because of a well-timed HARM shot from a Shadowhawk Prowler.
After well-deserved liberty in Cannes, France, we sped through the Suez Canal to the Persian Gulf to enforce the Southern No Fly Zone in support of U.S. Central Command. Once on station, CVW-8 picked up where it left off in Kosovo to deliver punishing strikes in response to Iraqi violations of U.N. sanctions — one cruise, two combat operations in two different areas of the world.
The flexibility of the battle group shown by fighting conflicts in two dramatically different regions in the course of a single six-month deployment speaks volumes about the versatility of carrier-based aviation. In its five months on a combat footing conducting a heavy flight schedule under less-than-ideal conditions punctuated by high-speed transits, CVW-8 aircrews averaged nearly 100 traps each — half of which were at night. That all this was accomplished without mishap speaks for itself.
How does the Tailhook Association play in all of this?
The camaraderie and esprit de corps that ensured success in combat is the essence of the Tailhook Association. Nowhere else, inside our military or out, is there an organization quite like Tailhook.
Tailhook has been a large part of my Navy life, and the sense of fraternity it provides is a huge reason that I’m still in the Navy. Having joined Tailhook a few months after receiving my wings in 1985, I have been to many Hook reunions. Two that I remember particularly well were the 1990 and 1993 events.
Hook ’90 sticks in my mind not because of the well-attended professional presentations, but for what happened to me on the final evening after the banquet. I was enjoying a few sea stories in a hospitality suite when VADM James Bond Stockdale suddenly appeared. Quickly recognizing our opportunity, my buddies and I pulled the curtains, locked the door, poured the Medal-of-Honor winner a beer and said, “Admiral, just talk to us.”
For the better part of an hour we sat in the room and were enthralled by stories from one of our national heroes. We felt as if we had an audience with the Pope. Only at Hook could that have happened. I won’t soon forget that evening.
The 1993 convention in San Diego left a bigger impression. Many will recall that Hook ’93 was the first convention after Hook ’91. I was one of only a handful of active-duty aviators attending. Those at the annual membership meeting will remember the passionate debate about changing the name of the organization. Proponents of the idea had compelling reasons for a name change, but a host of grizzled old men came forward, one after another, to stand against a change. Their rationale was simple — our organization should stick with the name that represented us so well and defined our very existence.
I said to myself, “Hey, these are guys who didn’t just have planes shot out from underneath them — they had aircraft carriers shot out from underneath them! How can anybody tell them they have to change the name?”
That left me feeling good about Tailhook. Even though those were tough times for the Association, I knew that with a core membership like that, we would make it. My life membership paperwork was in the mail the following week.
As a member of the Board of Directors, my motivation for Tailhook to continue to thrive is so my junior officers may have the same opportunity that I had to experience the kinship and camaraderie that is so unique to Naval Aviation — and best personified by Tailhook.
Said another way, Tailhook embodies the Warrior Spirit, and for more than 40 years our Association represents all that is noble and good within that spirit. Being part of the legacy of Tailhook and its members’ contribution to our nation over the years is a crucial intangible that can never be replaced by a bigger bonus, more pay or the never-fulfilled promise of less sea duty and more spare parts.