'It Was Very Intense All the Time'

April 7, 2003.

It’s a day Air Force Col. Kim “Killer Chick” Campbell will never forget.

Campbell was assisting U.S. ground troops with rocket passes near Baghdad when she felt a loud bang in the back of her A-10 Thunderbolt II.

“There’s no doubt in my mind. I know immediately I’m hit by enemy fire,” she said.

What ensued wasn’t panic and mass hysteria, though, but rather poise and practicality under the most dire of circumstances.

The Daily Coach continued its conversation with Campbell about how she calmed her nerves under life-threatening conditions, analyzing before taking action, and the three words that informed her decision-making process that day.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Part 1: 'It’s About Dusting Yourself Off and Getting Back in the Fight'

Col. Campbell, thank you again for doing this. Can you take us back to that day your plane was hit?

At this point in the conflict, we were up very close to Baghdad, a much higher threat. We flew up there to air-refuel and wait for a tasking. Clouds were covering Baghdad as far as we could see. We weren’t sure if we were even going to be effective.

We got a call over the radio, and they said, “Yard-05, this is Advance 3-3. We’re taking fire. We need immediate assistance.” The hair on the back of my neck stands up. Adrenaline is pumping. It’s go time.

We proceeded right over the top of the target area, found a hole in the clouds, and then just dove through as fast as we could to get down there. There was an intense firefight happening across the Tigris River. We could see bright flashes, smoke and tracers.

Then, suddenly we start to see these puffs of grey and white smoke and bright flashes in the air right next to our cockpit. Not only is there a firefight happening across the river, but now the enemy is shooting up at us, too. We decide we’re going to do a couple of passes over the target area, then climb up and re-assess. As I’m coming off target for my last rocket pass, I just feel and hear this loud explosion at the back of the airplane. The jet noses over and points down at Baghdad.

What thoughts start running through your head at that point?

I instinctively pull back on the control stick — and nothing happens. This is not going well. This is really bad. But then, it’s fall back on my training.

I immediately start analyzing the situation. Why is the airplane not responding to any of my control inputs? Our whole caution panel on the side of the cockpit lit up like a Christmas tree. Our hydraulic gauges are at zero. I realized I only had two choices, and one is to eject into the hands of the enemy, which is about the last thing I want to do. I’ve got to make every second count.

Thankfully, we have a backup emergency system on the A-10 that allows us to fly without hydraulics. i just flipped that switch hoping everything would work. Sure enough, the airplane slowly started to climb up and out of Baghdad. That was the first moment I thought I could make it out of there alive.

How close do you think you were to hitting eject?

I looked down at the handles and just thought, “Not yet. This is not what I want to do...”

It’s one of those situations in my life I never thought I’d have to deal with, I never thought I’d be in. It’s that invincible part of us. But there you are.

Are you ready? Have you put in the work? Can you get the job done when it matters most?

You’re in serious, life-threatening circumstances, and you’re able to default to your training immediately. Why do you think those instincts came so naturally to you?

We practice for these contingencies. We do practice emergency scenarios. We talk about the terrible things that could happen. We had talked about battle damage in our pre-brief. I had thought about what I would do in that worst-case scenario.

But we’re also taught something very early in our career that really helps us remain calm under pressure and prioritize our actions. It’s “aviate, navigate, communicate.”

Aviate means we focus on the thing that is most important first, which is flying the airplane. You can’t stop flying the airplane.

Then, we navigate. We need to make sure we have a clear path, clear goals and objectives, we know where we’re going.

Then, we communicate. We communicate with others if we need help. We communicate with our team to make sure they know the way forward.

What did “aviate, navigate, communicate” look like specifically in that context?

For me, at that moment over Baghdad, I had to focus on flying the airplane. I had to get it under control. Then, I had to make sure I had awareness of my surroundings because the enemy was still shooting at us. I also had to get over to the west side of the river in case I had to eject. And I had to communicate with my flight lead so he knew what had happened so he could help.

When you practice for the contingencies, when you think about the things that could go wrong, when you have a process in place to mentally deal with that stress in the moment, I think that’s what helped me remain calm under pressure.

Was I terrified? Yes. It was completely and totally terrifying. But I was also able to not even think about the fact I was terrified and really just focus on the task at hand. I almost felt like I had been in that situation before.

When did you finally realize you were going to survive?

I had initial thoughts of survival when I first got the airplane under control. When it started climbing away, I was like, “O.K. I might actually get out of this alive.” But then I had this very long, 300-mile flight home, and the airplane still wasn’t flying well. There are no guarantees here.

Now, it was a discussion of do I get it back to friendly territory and eject or do I try to land the airplane? I didn’t really like either option.

I’m not sure I really had that complete sense of relief until all three wheels were on the ground and I was slowly rolling down the runway after landing, just feeling an intense sense of relief, of “I made it.”

You’re on critical assignments. You have what’s literally a life-and-death experience. How did you come back to the States after and re-acclimate to normal life?

I think there’s a reason they give us two weeks off after a deployment (laughs).

There’s a little bit of decompression that happens. You’re in a very intense environment. For us, that deployment was six months. You’re very focused. In our case, we were being rocketed by the enemy. It was very intense all the time.

Granted, we’re also a group of fighter pilots who love to have fun and make the most of situations, so we found our ways to relax while we were there. But you still need a little bit of reintegration with your family and getting back to normal life. How do you just tone it down and relax a little bit? It’s taking time for yourself, getting away a little bit.

In some ways, I think the hardest thing for me was I knew there was still a war going on. I knew there were troops on the ground and difficult things going on. It was hard to walk away from that. Part of it was letting yourself have confidence that the next team had it, that they would take it from here.

Then, it was just a re-prioritization of life. I was married at the time. I didn’t have kids. But it was up to us to really remind ourselves what was most important in life having been through something fairly traumatic where I wasn’t sure I was going to survive to having some really good conversations with my husband about what was important for us. There was goodness in that.

Was there anything from the Air Force you found you had to unlearn?

I think there are things that are situation-dependent. In a certain environment, if we have to be intensely focused on the task at hand, on what we are doing, it is a good idea to compartmentalize those kind of doubts, or worries, or things that are creeping in. But at some point, you have to be able to deal with that. You have to be able to open that back up again and acknowledge it.

As fighter pilots, we compartmentalize all the time. When I’m flying a mission, I can’t think about something that’s bothering me with my kids. I can’t. I have to be intensely focused on the mission. But at some point, we have to deal with those things as well.

I actually think that works pretty well in business and in life. There are going to be moments where you have to be intensely focused. Compartmentalization can be good. It can also be really unhealthy if we don’t deal with those things.

You do keynote speaking and consulting now. Are there misconceptions you hear about your experiences and military leadership in general?

The thing I commonly hear from people about the military is, “Why do you have to build trust and connection on a team? If you’re the leader, you can just tell people what to do and they’ll follow you.”

Maybe in certain moments, but if you really want to lead a team successfully, whether you’re in the military or not, you have to do more than tell people what to do. It’s creating buy-in, building trust and connection. Are there moments where things are happening fast and there’s a crisis and I just want people to do what I tell them? Absolutely.

But they’ll do it and do it well because I’ve built the trust and connection. I’ve built those relationships so in that crisis moment, they already know they can trust me.

Col. Kim “KC” Campbell ― Website | Book: Flying in the Face of Fear | Speaking | X | LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram

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