Fighter Pilot

by Christina Olds

  I thought back to the night we buried Rapid Roger, our return from Bolo, Thai Nguyen, Kep, Hoa Lac, Bac Giang, Gia Lam, SAMs, MiGs, endless flak. I remembered Mu Gia and Dong Hoi, Banana Valley and the Y, Thud Ridge and the Elbow, the Loop and Yen Bai, Cricket and Brigham, Panama and Lion, Orange Anchor and Channel 97, Ban Ban and San Nuea, 2:00 A.M. mission planning, Doug Cairn’s face after the Valentine’s Day mission, and Phil Combies’s remarks on Easter Sunday. There was the BRIDGE, Aussie snow on Christmas Day, the navy commander who tried to close the stag bar, my birthday party on July 14, Bill Kirk’s request on May 2 over Hoa Lac. How could I ever forget Dick Pascoe and Tom Hirsch playing Recce Jock on January 6, Mother Baader and the Night Owls over Hoa Loc and Kep, J. B. Stone, Bob Pardo, Bill Kirk, McAdoo, Moore—some of the finest men on earth—Doc Broadway, J. D. Covington, and great guys like Clifton, Wetterhahn, Raspberry, Dunnegan, Croker, Wayne, Wells, and all the great backseaters. I remembered Chappie James, who was a friend for life and destined for greater renown, both good and bad. I’d never forget the first tactics conference, then practice reunions, Scrappy Johnson, elephants, and the welcoming parades for the new squadrons from Eglin. I’d never forget any of it.

  As the airplane touched down at Andrews AFB on October 2, I knew I was leaving a big chunk of my heart behind in Thailand. I would need a good chunk of my courage for what lay ahead.

  20

  The Painful Way Home

  I stepped off the plane in D.C. into glaring midday sunshine. Ella, Chris, and Susie ran into my arms at the bottom of the ramp. A group of photographers started a feeding frenzy. Chris said, “Daddy, you’re so skinny!” Susie curled her long hair from each side across her upper lip in imitation of a mustache, and a photo was taken that would be widely published in newspapers. It was very emotional to hold my children again. Now fully teenagers at fifteen and fourteen, they had changed greatly over the year.

  An aide to the chief of staff led us to an air force car parked on the ramp, and we piled into the back, the aide into the front. He swiveled back to tell me that I had to meet right away with McConnell at the Pentagon before going home. Ella’s plans had been for a private but elegant dinner at home with just the family. She started to protest this interruption but stopped when I put my hand on her knee and squeezed. Hard. The driver dropped me with the general’s aide at the Pentagon and took the girls to our house in Spring Valley.

  On the hallowed D Ring floor, the aide placed an eye against a small peephole, opened the door, then turned and said, “OK, you can go in now.” I stepped through, came to attention, and saluted. There sat General John P. McConnell, chief of staff of the United States Air Force. His huge desk fronted a window giving a panoramic view of the Mall, complete with the Washington Monument and the Capitol in the distance—just like a movie set. The office was huge, with a seating area and coffee table to my right. Paintings hung on the walls, and drapes were air force blue. The American flag, the air force flag, and the chief’s four-star flag stood in the corner. All of this was assimilated in a second, but there was one thing slightly wrong: The chief sat in his shirtsleeves, had a piece of Kleenex stuffed up one nostril, and was trying to light a cigarette with a flaming Zippo. I watched with horror, wondering what I would do if he set himself on fire. Luckily, there was a pitcher of water nearby on the coffee table.

  I dropped my salute as the boss walked toward me. He gave up on lighting the cigarette. With it dangling from the side of his mouth and Kleenex billowing from his nose, the general pointed a forefinger under my nose and said, “Take it off!” Just like that. He obviously meant my rather flamboyant mustache, which I knew somehow had outgrown all semblance of air force propriety. To tell the truth, I wasn’t all that fond of the damned thing by then, but it had become a symbol for the men in the 8th Wing. I knew McConnell understood. During his visits to Ubon over the past year he had never referred to my breach of military standards, just seemed rather amused at the variety of ’staches sported by many of the troops. His “Take if off!” was the most direct order I had received in twenty-four years of service.

  “Yes, sir!”

  We sat on the sofa and the boss chatted amiably, welcomed me home, and flattered me with some Well-dones.” Then came the bombshell: “You’re going over to the White House this morning. The president wants to see you.” McConnell continued, giving me advice on how to handle myself in the Oval Office, but I scarcely heard him. I was in a state of shock.

  He continued, “After that there are some people over on the Hill who want to say hello. My aide will go with you to help you find your way around. Any questions?”

  Any questions? Hell yes I had questions, but I could only manage to say “Yes, sir” again, wondering, Lord, why me?

  During the ride to the White House the aide chattered away, trying to put me at ease. I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention. My thoughts were someplace else. I was supposed to be on leave for most of October. I hadn’t seen my daughters for over a year, and the short visit with Ella in Bangkok back in March had been a disaster. I had a lot of personal catching up to do, to say nothing of the need for mental readjustment, time to try to get back on a civilized track. There were a lot raw nerves and tender edges to heal after twelve months of combat and putting my heart and soul into doing my best to be a good commander. Meanwhile, outside the car, D.C. and its inhabitants appeared completely foreign. The scruffily dressed hippies with long, dirty hair carrying peace signs, exchanging joints of marijuana as they walked down the street or lounged in groups in front of buildings near the Mall, thoroughly shocked and disgusted me. I finally tuned into what the aide was saying: “… and there’s going to be a peace march on the Pentagon over the October 21 weekend. Thousands of these kids have already descended on D.C.” This day was already too much. What had happened to my America? Now, I had to face the president?

  After passing through the White House gate, we parked under the West Portico. The president’s air force aide, Colonel James Cross, met us in an outer office. I didn’t have time to ask whether or not it was proper to salute the commander in chief, so taking no chances, I saluted as we entered the Oval Office. President Johnson stood ready to greet me and stepped forward to shake my hand. He was an imposing figure. Even slightly stooped, he was every bit as tall as I. His grip was firm and he was all smiles as he led me to a couch near the fireplace. He sat in an overstuffed chair on my left and Colonel Cross sat on the sofa to my right. Johnson made some very pleasant small talk, welcomed me home, asked about my family, and wished me well in my new assignment at the Air Force Academy. Then he asked my impressions of returning to Washington. I told him I had heard about but had never seen a so-called hippie before. It was something of a culture shock to encounter thousands of them on the drive over. The president frowned a bit as he said, “They jus’ don’t unnerstand what’s goin’ on and they raise hell about it. I got two hunnert and forty thousand boys over there in Vietnam and they’ll surely tell the American people what’s goin’ on when they get home.”

  This stunned me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A thought struck me hard: That’s your job, sir, yours and the Congress’s. I’m afraid my next remark lacked any tact and diplomacy. I blurted out, “Sir, I’ve been home for only about two hours but all my friends who’ve been back for a while tell me civilians aren’t even slightly interested in what we’ve been doing this past year. In case I do run into someone who’s curious, what do you suggest I tell them?” With that, Colonel Cross damned near jerked my right sleeve off, but I had the bit in my teeth and paid no attention to his warning.

  The president looked at me sternly, then relaxed and said, “Why, Colonel, you just tell ’em we’re preventin’ the North Vietnamese from interferin’ with the South Vietnamese so those good people can exercise their own democracy.”

  I guess I lost it, for I replied, “Sir, I can’t say that.”

  LBJ looked at me hard and asked, “Why not, Colonel?”

  The tugs
on my sleeve grew more intense as I responded, “Sir, if that’s the reason we’re over there I don’t want to be the one to spread the word.” There went my future in the air force! Robin, you dumb shit. Why can’t you keep your big mouth shut? The president’s words on top of a year of intense combat and frustration undid me.

  To my surprise, the president didn’t seem ruffled. He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, bridged his hands under his chin, and asked, “Well, what do you think we should be doin’?”

  OK, here it was. Colonel Cross had stopped yanking at my sleeve. I guess he was fascinated at the turn of events and was waiting to see how this would play out, sort of like the thrill of watching a guy at the circus put his head in a lion’s mouth.

  “Sir, it takes three things for a country like North Vietnam to wage war: manpower, willpower, and industrial power. They possess the first two requirements in abundance, but they have little if any industrial capacity and must rely totally on others for their matériel needs. The bulk of those needs arrive in ships at Haiphong and several minor ports. Our bombing pressure keeps very little coming by rail out of China. Let us attack those ports, stifle their will, bottle up their manpower, and the job will be done.” The president was looking at me hard this whole time but didn’t interrupt. I plunged on. “In other words, mine the harbors, drop the road and rail bridges on the Chinese border, get the supply dumps in Cambodia, and most important, totally destroy the seat of government in Hanoi. It’s simple, sir, and with all due respect, the way to end this war is just to win the damned thing!”

  Johnson was startled and frowned, but he didn’t kick me out of his office or even suggest my future in the air force was limited. He was pensive for a few moments, then said, “Tell you what, Colonel, tomorrow morning you come over and see old Walt, tell him what you told me. Thanks for coming by. It was a real pleasure.” He stood up.

  A real pleasure? This was a real lesson in top-level political diplomacy. The Man shook my hand and stepped back to his desk. What was supposed to have been a ten-minute “Welcome home, boy. You done well!” had turned into an intense thirty-minute outburst on my part.

  Colonel Cross led me out, closed the door to the inner sanctum, shook his head in disbelief, and said, “Robin, that was the dumbest session I’ve ever sat through. I can’t figure either one of you—you blurting out like that, or the president just sitting there listening. I’ve seen him bite heads off for a lot less. My God! Well anyway, I’ll set up the meeting with Walt Rostow for tomorrow morning. How does nine o’clock sound?”

  Did I have a choice? “Uh, sure, that’s great. What do I do, where do I go? And who is Walt Rostow?”

  The way Cross looked at me said volumes: Where have you been? How naive can you get? Don’t you guys at wing level know anything? He said none of that but explained, “Mr. Rostow is the president’s national security adviser,” as though that was supposed to mean everything to me. It helped, but I wondered if my impression was correct. National security adviser? Advice about what? Cross detailed the morning activity. “I’ll send a car for you. Your meeting will be down on the lower floor here in the White House. I’ll meet you at the West Entrance and see that you find your way to Mr. Rostow’s office. Now it’s time for you to go home and enjoy your family. I’m sure they’re anxious for private time with you.”

  I thanked him and wondered how I was supposed to find my way past all the White House security and back to General McConnell’s aide. There were more surprises in store. Colonel Cross found the aide in an outer office and led the two of us down to a room full of people. “These gentlemen want to ask a few questions. They are the White House press corps.”

  Holy mackerel, I wasn’t prepared for a press conference!

  The session went along easily for the first few minutes. Questions were mere banalities and fairly easily covered, or so I thought. I was asked about my trademark mustache and told the assembly that Johnson had no opinion but that General McConnell commanded, “Take it off.” I would, but not right away. Then one reporter asked what I thought of the aerial campaign in South Vietnam. The question vexed me and I responded somewhat testily, “I don’t have a clue, since my wing didn’t operate there. Our targets were only in Laos and in North Vietnam.”

  I tried to explain the difference and must have sounded patronizing. One angry individual interrupted, asking, “If that’s the case, why don’t we just pull out of the whole thing?”

  I was shocked at his inference. It wouldn’t be the last jolt of my day. I tried to be reasonable. “Well, sir, if we do that, we’ll lose the rest of Laos, then South Vietnam, then Cambodia.…”

  “Oh, so you believe in the domino theory?”

  “I’ve never heard the expression before, but it certainly sounds reasonably accurate. Yes, it’s my personal belief that’s what will happen.” It dawned on me that the situation had escalated far beyond any interest these hard-bitten members of the Fourth Estate might have had in me personally. I knew I was being asked to comment on issues far above and beyond my level of competence.

  Before I could backpedal any further, the same cynic almost snarled, “Well, Colonel Olds, how do you think we should end it?”

  “That’s easy!” I shouted back. “Win it!”

  I don’t remember much of the rest of the interview. When it ended I found myself back in the Pentagon standing in front of a three-star general’s desk. He was a fine gentleman from the West Point class of 1942 who had the odious job of public relations officer for the air force. We knew each other only by reputation, but it’s fair to say there was a bit of “ring knocking” going on in his decent treatment of me. My insubordinate behavior with LBJ and the press could have had serious disciplinary consequences. He very patiently explained that I couldn’t say things like that. “Like what, sir?” I asked. “Like, ‘Win it!’” he replied.

  So far, it hadn’t been my day. I figured I might as well just keep up the negative momentum as far as my air force career was concerned. “Sir, if I am asked that question again, just what am I supposed to say?” The general gave me some pointers on tact and diplomacy in dealing with the press and public. I respected the man but his words went right over my head. I thanked God I was just a peon and didn’t have to deal with Washington bullshit on a daily basis.

  Afterward, I was taken over to the Capitol to meet several congressmen, all of whom seemed surprisingly sympathetic and understanding. I wasn’t aware of any more major boo-boos on my part and enjoyed myself in those foreign surroundings. John Stennis, a Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the Senate Preparedness Committee, was particularly friendly. He praised my mustache and asked if I wanted a drink. I eagerly replied, “Yes, sir!” The offered drink was Coca-Cola. I hoped my disappointment didn’t show. South Carolina Democrat L. Mendel Rivers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, also said, “Looks good. Keep it.” The well was dry in that office, too.

  So ended the first day of my homecoming leave. The next morning I’d see what Mr. Rostow had in store for me. It was time to go home. The car took me back past the demonstrators. They glared in at me. I glared back at them. It was a good thing I wasn’t walking.

  When we approached the house just after dusk, my anxiety about Ella choked out all thoughts about the president, the Pentagon, and the press. My family were waiting for me, at least two of them with open arms. What could I do but be grateful for the love of my daughters and the dog? Everything else would work out. It had to. I was too tired to think of anything else.

  The girls bounced around me like puppies when I came through the door. Something smelled wonderful. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding? Great! Ella was in the living room, drink in hand. I joined her and poured one for myself. Chris and Susie stayed nearby, I thought somewhat protectively. Ella made a comment about me being late and dinner probably being ruined, but I ignored it and asked my girls how school was going. The two of them chattered happily as we trailed into the dining room. As much as I would h
ave preferred a casual dinner of macaroni and meat loaf with the family in the TV den, I accepted my homecoming as a special event.

  Ella had set the long dining table with white linen, our best silver, crystal, china, and tall silver candelabras, with a crystal vase of tall white flowers in the middle. We took our normal places and I sat down to a soup of some sort. It looked like squash. Was it supposed to be cold or was it deliberately not warmed up? Looking down the table, I couldn’t see Ella over the tall flowers and knew that was deliberate. OK, fine. Chris was on my left, Susie on my right, and both were watching me as Ella went on and on about some symphony tickets we had and whose box we’d be sitting in. Her voice droned in my head as I turned my concentration to the soup. Just lift the spoon, Robin, nice and slow, all the way up, control the shaking hand. Concentrate, damn it! The soup started trembling out of the spoon just above the bowl. By the time it reached my mouth, it had all spilled out. OK, try it again, this time more slowly, get a big spoonful, take a deep breath, lift carefully. I controlled the shaking of my right hand until about halfway up. The soup spilled out again. I ducked my head to slurp it up but got more on my mustache than in my mouth. God, I was exhausted. This was awful. I put the spoon gently down on the plate, wiped my mouth, and looked up. Chris was watching me closely. I looked back at her. She smiled at me and whispered, “It’s OK, Daddy, the roast beef will be easier.” I’d hoped she hadn’t noticed.

  Somehow we made it through the rest of dinner, and the girls went upstairs to finish homework. I took a glass of scotch into the den and stood looking at my desk. My briefcase was on my chair. The routine of years had been picking up little trinkets for the children and hiding them in the small drawers of the rolltop desk. When Chris and Susie were very little they’d sit on my lap after a trip, opening the drawers one by one to find treasures. Now both were too big for that, but the gifts would still happen. I sipped my scotch and unpacked little jade bracelets, Thai rings, small silk bags, miniature books, all neatly wrapped and tied with ribbon. I recalled how my hands shook when preparing the packages. Was I really that war-weary? Yes.