As missile sirens went off in Kuwait, embedded reporters ritually donned their chemical gas masks, descended into bunkers, then emerged minutes later to announce that they'd been saved by the mighty Patriot missile.

The mobile missile batteries supposedly knocked down several Iraqi Scuds headed toward US Army positions and Kuwait City. Later, it turned out that the missiles weren't Scuds and they may have been brought down in the Kuwait desert on their own volition not by US missiles.

Then came the really bad news. On March 24, a Patriot missile battery near the Kuwait border locked onto a British Royal Air Force Tornado G-4 jet that was returning from a raid on Basra. Four Patriot missiles were fired and one hit the jet, destroying the plane and killing two British pilots.

Two days later, the radar for another Patriot missile battery locked on to a US F-16. The pilot of fighter jet located the radar dish and destroyed it.

Then on April 2 an U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet was shot down by another Patriot missile, killing the pilot.