Originally Posted by
Asturias56
I guess the options were to move them out of country (which would have been seen as "quitting" and win for the bad guys) or dispersing them locally - bu t then you have to protect each one and you have small scattered detachments all over the shop just as Iranian backed militias are looking for Americans to attack................................
Or you simply go flying and stagger your refuels to minimize your exposure.
In the past I have done exactly that in a Chinook on more than one occasion when we had reliable intelligence indicating an attack was imminent.
You do realize there are Operational needs that would probably have had some of the aircraft "working" that night.
No need to make things more complicated than they need to be.....which shoots down so many theories offered at pprune by some.