Rob Jagodzinski ©Stars and StripesRed Sea, November, 1990: A Navy jet takes off from the USS Saratoga during Operation Desert Shield. Planes from the Saratoga undertook the first missions against military targets of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime when Operation Desert Storm began on January 17, 1991. By the time the carrier left the Middle East in March, 1991, its pilots had 12,700 sorties to their credit on the deployment.

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