Sometime during the last decade, Two Harbors native Craig Moe was carrying 56 Marines in the back of his C-130 aircraft and was attempting a night landing at a dirt airfield in Iraq when he saw every military pilot’s nightmare screaming toward the plane.
A surface-to-air missile was corkscrewing toward him, fired from close range. The crew was flying in black out conditions with night vision goggles, The plane deployed its defensive measure, essentially flares that burn much hotter than the aircraft engines, and Moe and his crew were left to hope the missile locked onto the flare.
