The operations center at Kandahar Air Base had a tense atmosphere that went beyond the normal hum of military bureaucracy. Captain Delaney Thomas, a lady whose small stature and gentle Dublin accent had frequently caused her superiors to misinterpret her intense preparation for emotional instability, stood in the middle of the storm. Delaney has been the target of dismissive briefings and quiet scoffs for months. In the hyper-masculine world of the A-10 Thunderbolt II squadron, she was often confined to the “safety” of logistics and inventory because she was too young at twenty-six. Major Rick Sanderson had stated unequivocally that Delaney was a liability in the air because she was too likely to allow her “feelings” to control her flight path, but an asset on paper.
However, the “feelings” Sanderson detested were the only things keeping Delaney’s gaze fixed on the distant radio intercepts as the sun rose over the rugged peaks of the Hindu Kush that fateful morning. Delaney had noticed an enemy movement pattern in the Korengal Valley that pointed to a disastrous encirclement, while the rest of the squadron concentrated on normal patrols. Her cautions had been disregarded because they were thought to be the “over-analysis” of a pilot in dire need of a combat seat. However, the room became chilly about 0900 hours as the hurried, fragmentary signals started to seep through the encrypted lines.
An entrenched enemy group had enticed 381 Navy SEALs and support staff from a Special Operations Task group into a “kill box,” which is a narrow valley floor surrounded by high rocks. It was a tactical nightmare of a landscape. The valley had become a bowl of gray soup due to a sudden, low-hanging cloud deck, and the enemy maintained the high ground with powerful machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons. The command was immobilized. Under these circumstances, close air support (CAS) was not feasible, according to standard Air Force doctrine. The Joint Operations Center came to the sad decision that the 381 soldiers should be written off due to the danger of striking friendly forces in such a small area and the zero-visibility ceiling.
Knowing that the order would never come, Delaney Thomas didn’t wait for it. Delaney was already running across the tarmac while Sanderson debated with high command the “unacceptable risk” of a rescue operation. She had spent hundreds of unapproved hours living this identical scenario in the simulator, so she didn’t need a briefing. She was familiar with the Korengal’s blind turns, heat pockets, and every rock. She disregarded the yelling orders from the tower and the desperate cries of the ground crew. She taxied onto the runway with a single, “reckless” intent after bringing her A-10’s twin General Electric TF34 engines to a thunderous scream.
The Warthog, also referred to as the A-10 Thunderbolt II, is not a graceful aircraft. With its titanium-armored hull and terrifyingly powerful armament, the GAU-8/A Avenger, it is a flying tank. The heart of the aircraft is this seven-barrel Gatling gun, which can fire 30mm depleted uranium bullets in a two-second burst that can level a defended bunker or shred a main battle tank. The Warthog was the only creature on the planet that could survive the ordeal that locked the SEALs below.
The landscape disappeared behind a wall of gray mist as Delaney reached the top of the Korengal’s ridgeline. When enemy radar focused on her, her instruments screamed. Delaney pushed the stick forward, whereas most pilots would have pulled up to avoid the mountain sides. She dove into the soup, navigating the small openings with the help of her “emotional” intuition and her compulsive terrain research. Her altimeter was whirling as she dropped to a suicidal two hundred feet over the valley floor, flying by memory and grit.
The SEALs on the ground were prepared for the conclusion. Before they saw the Warthog, they heard its characteristic low-pitched whine. Delaney’s A-10 suddenly burst through the roof like a malevolent spirit, causing the gray clouds to erupt. In defiance of the laws of physics, she executed a surgical “danger close” strafe in addition to firing. She brought the GAU-8 down on the enemy ridgelines by banking the enormous aircraft until her wingtips almost touched the canyon walls.
That was the sound of the ridgeline being physically demolished, a bone-shaking “BRRRRRT.” Delaney was eliminating the positions that kept the SEALs pinned, in addition to repressing the enemy. Every critic back at base was silenced by the precision with which she moved. In order to avoid missiles, she used a secretly-perfected maneuver known as the “Terrain-Masking Pop-up,” in which she stayed below the cliff line and only briefly rose to deliver a devastating burst of lead before plunging back into the shadows.
Delaney Thomas used 1,170 rounds of 30mm ammo in three passes. The 381 SEALs were able to break their encirclement and get at the extraction location after she destroyed fourteen strong bunkers and established a “corridor of fire.” The gray clouds closed behind her like a curtain as she made one final bank over the valley when her ammunition ran out and her fuel light blinked red.
Her aircraft had more than a hundred holes from small arms fire and shrapnel when she landed back at Kandahar. On the tarmac, Major Sanderson was waiting for her, his expression a mask of shock and rage. He had the military police prepared to take her into custody for violating a direct command and grand theft of an aircraft. However, the arrest never took place. A fleet of transport helicopters started to land as the MPs approached. The SEAL Commander, covered in blood and dust, emerged from the first bird. He silently passed Sanderson, went up to Delaney’s cockpit as she descended, and gave the most acerbic salute anyone had ever witnessed on that base.
There was a flurry of controversy and joy in the following. The fact that 381 lives were spared made her untouchable, even though the “system” intended to court-martial her for insubordination. Using a 30mm cannon, Delaney Thomas had broken the glass ceiling. She demonstrated that her greatest strength—her reluctance to let her brothers-in-arms to be left to a “statistical impossibility”—was actually the “empathy” that her superiors ridiculed.
In the end, she received the Silver Star, and the “Thomas Maneuver” was incorporated into the A-10’s normal mountain warfare training. Delaney altered the Air Force to match a world in which a single pilot’s resolve may be the difference between a catastrophe and a miracle, not the other way around. No one ever again referred to her as “too emotional,” but she was still the 5’4″ Irish pilot with the defiant red hair. 381 guys in the Korengal Valley were familiar with the sound of such emotion: it sounded like home and thunder.