Former commander recounts critical event in wing history

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Joe McFadden
  • 1st Special Operations Wing Public Affairs
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. --  Dozens of Airmen and civilians braved cold and windy weather to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Operation Just Cause at the Hurlburt Field Airpark, Dec. 18.

Retired Brig. Gen. George Gray, who served as commander of the 1st Special Operations Wing during Operations Just Cause and Desert Shield, was guest speaker at the event attended by many servicemembers who participated in the operation in Panama.

"I'm proud to be the commander of a wing that is globally engaged in combat, but General Gray packed up this wing and took them to war in two of the most significant moments in special operations aviation history," said Col. Greg Lengyel, 1st SOW commander.

"It's hard to believe it's been 20 years," General Gray said.

Then-Colonel Gray first assumed command of the 1st SOW in June 1989 and was soon briefed about Operation Blue Spoon, a plan to use 14 PAVE LOW helicopters against Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega's comandancia, or headquarters, in downtown Panama City, Panama.

When asked for his opinion on the plan, General Gray suggested using two AC-130 gunships that were already stationed in Panama as part of an anti-drug trafficking program. After gaining approval, he and base leaders built their Panamanian targets on the Eglin range and rehearsed the plan.

"It was the first time we ever attempted to fly that many planes blacked out with night vision goggles. We flew for five days, and there was not a single incident, which is still amazing to me," he said.

With the influx of special operations Soldiers and Navy SEALs, the population of Hurlburt Field rose from 2,300 to 10,000.

"It was a significant feat to try to keep the media from figuring out the population had quadrupled overnight," he said.

Once the exercise was successfully demonstrated, General Gray detailed an important phone call between retired Army Gen. James Lindsay, then-commander of the United States Special Operations Command, and retired Army Gen. Colin Powell, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"General Lindsay got on the phone and said 'We're ready, and by the way, I don't know if I'd like to tell my grandkids that I fought in Blue Spoon. Isn't there another name?' So that's how we came up with Just Cause," he said.

The air component from the 1st SOW consisted of 500 personnel and 21 aircraft beginning Dec. 17, 1989. The wing suffered no casualties by the operation's end on Jan. 31, 1990.

"After we put Noriega on a C-130 and sent him to jail in south Florida, where he still resides, I had to get permission from the boss to come back to fly out to Texas to sit on a lieutenant colonel selection board the next day."

During his two weeks on the promotion board, General Gray said he was extremely pleased to have fellow panelists ask about applicants who recently served in Just Cause.

"On many occasions, the individual colonel would come up to me and say 'This guy works for you. Did he go to Panama? How'd he do?' I said 'He did great.' We came back from that and everybody got promoted. For the first time in history, as I recall, we got two people promoted below the zone in the 1st SOW. That's a regular and frequent occurrence here now, but it wasn't back then," he said.

Both a C-130 and CV-22 flew over the ceremony at the end of the general's remarks.

"Even though it is cold and windy out here, it means so much to have this event in this historic airpark than it would in an auditorium," Colonel Lengyel said.