Budgetary, political, and organizational changes left the USAF unprepared for the combat search and rescue (CSAR) mission going into Desert Storm. Colonel Whitcomb relates his and others b2 s experiences from CSAR in Southeast Asia and examines the organization that was established to provide CSAR services in the Iraq-Kuwait theater of operations. He traces each incident from beginning to end along with the tactical and sometimes strategic implications. Scores of interviews, e-mails, and published works provide a compendium of lessons learned and recommendations gleaned from those who flew the missions and made the decisions in Iraq.