LtCol. Faizz Abdullah Al Reshidi was a Kuwait Air Force pilot, flying Gazelle anti-tank helicopter. He studied in a flight school located in Seattle, Tacoma, USA to become a commercial pilot. Once graduated he came back to Kuwait and applied to Kuwait Airways being rejected as at that time Kuwait Airways was hiring only british qualified pilots. Al Reshidi continued his studies in another flight school in Jordan and earned his private pilot licence from "The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Civil Aviation Authority" on June 23rd, 1984. After this licence he came back to Kuwait and decided to join the Air Force. Due to his skills and licences he had been selected to fly and operate the Aerospatiale "Gazelle" helicopter. August 2nd, 1990, Iraqi forces started the invasion of Kuwait and quickly overrun its defences. Iraqi fighters took off from their bases in Iraq crossing Kuwaiti airspace, trying to evade radars and ignoring autharizations from Kuwaiti tower controls of Ahmed Al Jaber and Ali Al Salem. At 11:00am scrambled the first group of Kuwaiti first line of quick alert fighters consisting of F-1CK Mirage being soon outnumbered and overrun. The second wave of fighters took off from Ahmed Al Jaber air base and consisted of A-4KU Skyhawks that intercepted and downed some Iraqi helicopters. At midnight Kuwait Air Force called at arms all the pilots, even those who were out for health reasons or out of the country. Among those pilots was LtCol. Al Reshidi. He was requested to join his squadron at 1:00am. At 2:00am he took off with his unit to intercept and attack enemy helicopters, tanks and troops invading Kuwait soil. His collegues said "He fought like a warrior" and also he was the only Kuwaiti pilot who operated the Gazelle in a way no one could even imagine and he was well known for his sharpshooting skills being able to fire in movement without hovering as most of helicopters do. He took down numbers of Iraqi helicopters and sniped out most of the tanks that was on his path. He came back to his airbase to refuel and rearm, but his squadron was requested to fuel and fly to the near kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi waves were non-stopping and Kuwaiti forces started to run out of ammunition with no chances to defende their country. LtCol. Al Reshidi refused to withdraw from the line, but his Gazelle was used to evacuate the Royal family members to Saudi Arabia. So he joined his colleagues in a Super Puma helicopter but soon realized there was no way to make it back home as Iraqi forces were taking partial control of the country. So they headed to Ahmed Al Jaber airbase to pick up pilots left behind and rejoin in Saudi. On the way to the airbase the ATC at Ali Al Salem and Ahmed Al Jaber lost contact with the SA-330H Puma - it was shot down by friendly fire of I-HAWK, one of Kuwaiti anti-aricraft battery, killing all 4 crew members.

Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian - On 27 February 1991, Iraqi ground fire brought down a UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter, killing all eight soldiers on board. One of those killed was Sgt. Lee A. Belas, an electronic warfare voice interceptor assigned to D Company, 1st Aviation Battalion (later redesignated D Company, 4th Battalion [Provisional], 1st Aviation Regiment), 1st Infantry Division. Born in Burbank, California, in May 1968, Lee Arthur Belas moved to Port Orchard, Washington, with his family while still a child. As an outgoing and high-achieving teenager, he was on the swim team, in the drama club, and played trumpet in the high school band. He studied the French language in high school also, but after graduation, while living as a Rotary Club exchange student in Belgium, he truly found his passion for learning languages. Before returning to the United States, he had studied German, Latin, and Flemish. With this love of languages, he dreamed of one day working for the State Department as an ambassador. On 14 October 1987, Belas enlisted in the U.S. Army, which promised him training at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey, California. He graduated from the forty-seven-week Russian basic course in February 1989. He then transferred to Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, where he was one of nearly one thousand Army students enrolled annually in the 98G electronic warfare voice interceptor course. Upon completing his advanced individual training and airborne school, Belas was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas. Initially in the division’s 101st MI Battalion, Belas learned about the QUICKFIX intercept and jamming systems mounted on EH-60A helicopters. Intrigued, he volunteered for QUICKFIX duty and was reassigned to D Company, 1st Aviation Battalion, and sent to Fort Huachuca for QUICKFIX flight training. Upon his promotion to sergeant in September 1990, he was serving in two positions. He was assistant team chief and jamming team crew member in the Collection and Jamming Platoon, A Company, 101st MI Battalion. He was also a crew member of the QUICKFIX Flight Platoon, D Company, 1st Aviation Battalion. (As in other active Army divisions, the QUICKFIX company was under the operational control of the division’s MI Battalion.) At this point in his short Army career, the ambitious 22-year-old Belas could not decide which he wanted more: to learn additional languages or to become a Black Hawk pilot. After Iraq’s invasion of neighboring Kuwait in August 1990, the U.S. Army began preparing for what would be known as Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. To prepare for deployment, in November, Sergeant Belas joined all Army linguists at Fort Riley in DLIFLC’s basic Arabic language training via teleconference. The 1st Infantry Division’s deployment came on 8 January 1991. Over the next six weeks, Sergeant Belas clocked forty-six flight hours in the QUICKFIX, monitoring Iraqi communications and movements for 1st Infantry Division and VII Corps ground forces. Around noon on 27 February 1991, just one day before a ceasefire was declared, he boarded a UH-60A in Kuwait that was transporting troops and supplies between assembly points. At about 1730, the helicopter inadvertently flew over Republican Guard forces and was shot down by an enemy ZSU-23-2 antiaircraft gun. All eight personnel on board were killed. In addition to Belas, three other members of his QUICKFIX platoon died in the crash, including platoon leader 1st Lt. Donnie Tillar (a UH-60 pilot), CWO Jack Morgan (a UH-60 pilot), and S. Sgt. Jonathan Kamm (a UH-60 repairman).