Let me set the scene that Semper JJ was talking about. We are a three unit group pushing way south in the Helmand Valley. All 3 units are on the east of the green zone. My buddy WW43 is about to enter the green zone of foot from the east,I am acting as ''anchor JTAC'' slightly further north and operating from a ''Jackal'' vehical.Anyway WW43 pushes into the green zone and they instantly come under sporadic SA/RPG/PKM fire,nothing too much but enough to keep you busy and warrent an ''airtic'' call. Bone arrives and eventually drops a GBU-38 followed by a GMLRS (we have to keep the brit arty happy) Bone then has to check out and is ripped by a pair of Brit harriers,good news for us as I had just spent a week or so with the Harrier det in Kaf,anyway on check in the lead pilot had an american accent,obviously after check-in and AO update a slightly less formal hey is that N___a how are you doing buddy, your brit accent is getting worse by the day etc etc from myself. WW43 and myself had started to operate as buddy/buddy Jtac's with who ever was in the best position to control working the jet whilst the other is moving or fighting for his life so to speak. Semper then his wing both put SoF's along the green zone on a NtoS or S to N. On both occasions the jets were fired upon by PKM and SA. Anyway. I had passed the jets to ww43 as my unit were about to hook around way south to get eyes and some fire onto a known Taliban firing point/compound. I we crested the ridge line the green zone erupted with SA/RPG/PKM fire aimed at my group. I passed to the jets '' look mate no chance of a nine line here help me out please'' or a slightly stronger version.We lasted a minute in to before we had to withdrawl, this was hindered by ww43 screaming down UHF to me that we were engaging innocents.(this turned out not to be the case however fog of war etc).Semper and his buddy managed to get a nice paveway4 on the target area after tracking them to the west and allah had 7 more guests to be furnished by his ever decreasing number of virgins.
In short a bloody scary episode for me,highlighting the lack of air awareness at coy commander level,and no matter what happens in the war films in real life its not all fun.And having pilots/aviators that will fly that bit harder,that bit lower and that bit faster makes all the difference( even he does wax his tash)