By Kevin Seabrooke

Before the stealth bombers could fly from Middle America to the Middle East and back, there was the secret mission code-named “Senior Surprise”—also nicknamed “Secret Squirrel” after the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character. For this top-secret Black Ops mission, seven long-range B-52G Stratofortress aircraft well past their prime were chosen for a 35-hour, nonstop flight to deliver cruise missile strikes on high priority Iraqi power and communication targets that initiated the bombing campaign during Operation Desert Storm.

DOOM 34: A Firsthand Account of the Top-Secret Mission that Launched Operation Desert Storm (Trey Morriss, Foreword by Thomas A. Bussiere, Lyons Press/dist. Simon & Schuster, 256pp., March 3, 2026 $29.95 HC)