Fighter Pilot

by Christina Olds

  It wasn’t long before the wing’s mood seemed to shift into high gear. I did what I could to encourage it. For the senior class dining-in, I invited Chappie James from his new post as vice CO for the 33rd TFW at Eglin, suggesting he fly his F-4 over the academy to give the kids a show. Chappie had no idea I had “borrowed” an F-4 of my own to greet him. When I pounced on him at 1,000 feet, the ensuing dogfight was the damnedest thing the cadets had ever seen—that is, until another infamous flyby at the end of May.

  To honor the academy and its many graduates serving in SEA, the air force sent a decommissioned F-105 to be placed on static display at the northeast corner of the Terrazzo. The F-105 was to be dedicated to the wing in a ceremony during noon-meal formation. Chairs were set up for attending dignitaries and a podium was placed next to the aircraft. The entire Cadet Wing was assembled in parade formation. Academy staff members stood close to the F-105. After speeches by General Moorman; Don Strait (head of Fairchild-Hiller the parent company of Republic Aviation, the builder of F-105s); General Gabe Disosway (by then TAC commander); and me, there would be a flyover of four F-105s from McConnell AFB.

  The F-105s made their first pass in diamond formation in full burner and the entire Cadet Wing cheered. Then the F-105s swung around for a second pass and the leader separated to come in low again. As he approached from the east, I could see the rippling shock wave in front of him and thought, Oh shit! This time, there was absolutely no sound as he passed overhead. Two seconds later: kaboom! The sonic wave hit the Cadet Area. A roar went up from the cadets. Then boom! Huge windowpanes on Vandenberg Hall bulged in, then out, exploding in slow motion. All the forward-facing windows of the other buildings shattered in turn as the wave hit. Boom! Boom! BOOM! Glass flew, spectators scattered, dignitaries dove for any available cover, cadets yelled and ducked to the ground. Then came the ominous sound of shards raining down. Glass fell like a dumpload of gravel onto the top of Moorman’s staff car parked below Vandenberg Hall. Glass rained on top of the static F-105. “Goddamn it to hell!” I roared. Chaos ensued. My ears were ringing. Moorman was shouting at me. Cadets scrambled up off the ground; many broke formation and ran for Vandenberg. I looked up and saw the remaining three aircraft pass safely high overhead. Thank God for that small blessing.

  Cadet Wing Commander Ralph “Ed” Eberhart quickly called the wing to order and readied them to march through the broken glass into Mitchell Hall for the noon meal. As the first squadron approached the doors, personnel came running out, yelling, “Don’t go in. Don’t go in!” The first two to three squadrons rushed to the doors to see why. The shock wave had completely shattered the south glass wall of the dining hall, blasting shards back into the hall. Everything—the floor, tables, plates, glasses, and food—was covered with broken glass. There would be no lunch. Some upper-class cadets formed a barrier to keep others from entering. The cadet commanders ordered the troops to return to their rooms and check the damage.

  Out on the Terrazzo, staff mobilized to call ambulances. Moorman was apoplectic. I wasn’t far behind him. How many were hurt? It turned out fifteen. Most were superficial cuts. One officer was badly cut and was hauled off to the hospital. There would be hell to pay. I stormed back to my office to commence damage control. Moorman cornered Gabe Disosway in his staff car and set in on him about the damage to the academy, the press ramifications, injuries, congressional investigations, backlash from parents, bad impression on the cadets, on and on. Gabe reportedly grinned at Moorman and said, “Tommy, if I recall, you requested that flyby!”

  The pilot of the F-105 claimed that “inaccurate instrument reading” had caused him to go supersonic. All four F-105s were impounded and inspected but no defects were found. The resulting investigation led by Moorman turned up a variety of reasons, including poor judgment by the pilot, poor planning procedures by the academy flyby staff, and broken fight regulations. The pilot was grounded. Some press attention occurred for two days in national newspapers and TV but quickly died down. Back at the Pentagon, Disosway, with only a few months left before he retired, filed the report in his bottom desk drawer. Months later, since the war was gobbling up F-105 pilots, the pilot returned to flight status. The academy graduated the Class of 1968 in a stadium infected by new spirit, electrified by the raw power all had witnessed. Over one thousand new lieutenants shook my hand with gusto, every one of them defiantly proud to be officers in the United States Air Force.

  There was a brief respite in June before the next class of Doolies arrived, but no real break for those of us on staff. This assignment had even more paperwork to handle than all previous years put together, and it made me hungry to get back into the air. TAC HQ had forbidden me to fly as commandant and in my new rank as brigadier general. I would sneak up with the Doolies for their intro flights in T-33s occasionally, but I often found myself instructing them from the front seat to climb to safe altitude, airspeed, and heading, then letting them take over while I had a quick snooze. More than one cadet endured the sound of my snoring as they flew “alone” for the first time, proud as punch of themselves, embarrassed to wake me up. Hell, I’d be awake in an instant if the pitch of the engine or altitude changed! I knew that. They didn’t.

  To get in some real flying, I’d sneak down to San Diego and fly with the navy at Miramar. Damn—those guys were for real! It was dog-eat-dog, no pussyfooting around. Their air-to-air program was realistic and aggressive. They had their act together for training. If I didn’t need to stay under the radar with admission of my flight time, I’d have been bugging TAC no end to ramp up our own training. But I managed to make a nuisance of myself in other ways.

  People weren’t learning that they shouldn’t invite me to speak. Requests to attend civilian events poured in and I accepted as many as I could. One, more than any other, got me into a lot of trouble, slamming me back into the national news and getting my hands slapped by Congress. It was an address to the ROTC cadets at a midwestern university.

  The place had been torn apart by a monthlong riot and feelings were at a fever pitch. My presence as a military man did not help matters. Except for a handful of ROTC cadets, the student body was seething with hostility. Many antiwar demonstrators attended my presentation. Their rage was an almost physical force. I understood their frustrations only too well and tried not to take the abuse being hurled my way as something personal. It wasn’t easy. Waves of them rushed the stage shouting obscenities, wild-eyed, spittle flying. Campus police, aided by some ROTC kids, provided a meager barrier. I held my ground silently, staring at the crowd. When the clamor subsided I looked across the rows of faces and started my talk by telling them they were a bunch of amateurs who didn’t know how to hate because they didn’t know what it was they were supposed to hate. I suggested they listen to a pro. The war going on was indeed wrong, I told them. Wrong not because we were there, but because the people in Washington—Kennedy, Johnson, and particularly Robert S. McNamara—had never grasped the basic objective. The cost in human lives was a price paid for no stated reason. Men in Washington were playing at war with no understanding of its conduct and with little understanding of the emotional reaction by the American people to the seemingly pointless course of action.

  “You want to talk about hate?” I lectured them. “Ha! We’re going to leave Vietnam with our tail between our legs—nothing solved, nothing gained, the region left in chaos, the South Vietnamese, the Thais, the Cambodians, and all those fine people abandoned to their fate. This war is a waste. Mark my words; it will be an everlasting disgrace to our nation, a blundering inept prosecution of a situation that from the very start demanded a positive course with positive, believable, attainable goals. A government owes that to its people; a government failing in that obligation must be held accountable by the people! You people need someone to hate, and it’s so easy to hate the visible guys in uniform. We’re what you see. Hell, we are just following direction from Washington! More than that, every one of us in uniform works for YOU, the American
people. The way to end that damned war is to win it. A member of the South Vietnamese government told me, ‘Our people will go with the strongest, they will believe in the toughest, they will follow the winner, so you’ve got to win!’ I will tell you young Americans that thousands of lives have been lost because we’ve never heard one of you or your congressmen tell us to WIN it. Until you tell us to do that, we’re doing the best damn job we can. We’re watching our close friends and comrades die while you do your peace marches from the safety of America’s streets and colleges. God help us all!”

  When I stormed off the stage and angrily pushed my way through people pressing forward I thought, Christ, you bloody fool, Robin. You’re going to get yourself killed by hippies. Not the way you want to go. Shut up, for God’s sake!” The backlash from that speech hit the academy before I got back. Moorman was on damage control—again. What was I going to do in those public, civilian situations? Lie?

  At home, I continued to struggle with my love-hate relationship; I loved the kids, hated the shackles of my job. It was frustrating to have less direct authority as a forty-seven-year-old brigadier general than I’d had as a twenty-two-year-old major. Was I making any progress? Was I making any difference? The only bright spot in the whole endeavor was the Cadet Wing. Their behavior constantly lifted my spirits. If they’d known how amusing they were I’d have made no progress at all.

  Three years at USAFA passed in a blur. Classes entered; classes graduated. But my life at home followed predictably sad patterns. The girls were on the East Coast, Susie in the twelfth grade and Chris in college, returning only during semester breaks. Ella’s interest in academy life waned and she started making noises about returning to D.C. My marriage was undoubtedly the saddest part of my life, causing me to feel enormously capable in half of my life but inept in the other. My determination to merge the two failed, and I envied men with stable marriages and supportive wives. Part of me knew that Ella had gotten a bad deal giving up her career and choosing her desire to be with me. When I was in the mood to acknowledge the reasons for her discomfort and she was in the mood to soften and be vulnerable, we’d have moments—sometimes days—of coming back together into the blaze of our original love. The girls reveled in those relaxed times, which naturally happened during vacations when they were home. Our favorite times were ski weekends in Vail or Steamboat Springs. There were many happy, even joyful days with my family, but toward the end of my tour Ella had slipped further into her routine of pills and alcohol. It was a losing battle. The situation had not improved when word came of my new assignment in early 1971. Damn, I couldn’t believe it! Director of aerospace safety at Norton AFB in San Bernardino, California. Ella immediately insisted that we live in Los Angeles. I called the Pentagon and offered to give up my star to return to combat in SEA. No deal.

  The country seemed to be unraveling by then due to the worsening Vietnam conflict. It was tearing everyone apart. A good portion of America was outraged, a middle section of the population couldn’t have cared less, and the rest were vocal to the point of treason; the only problem was, against what were they treasonous? According to Washington, the conflict wasn’t a war. Government answers were vague and misleading at best, pissing everybody off. Young guys were fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft; Jane Fucking Fonda was doing irreparable damage and would soon do more by taking her protest show to North Vietnam. People were growing more argumentative and angry. Vicious riots ensued, well orchestrated and financed by foreign interests. There were no positive stories in newspapers or TV about the courage, loyalty, and devotion to country of our fighting men. All we read about was the lunatic fringe. I couldn’t help noticing that those who squawked the loudest had never been closer than 12,000 miles to North Vietnam. There was no good outcome in sight.

  Worst of all, the generally rebellious attitude penetrated the military. Things were really bad in battle zones by 1971: Officers and NCOs were being fragged by their own men on patrols; troops were offered cheap drugs by the Vietcong and thousands of them took full advantage of it. The army had huge detention camps full of offenders who had become more than disciplinary problems; many were medical and mental cases. Many kids arrived in SEA angry, bringing the homeland unrest with them. It was a mess. But it was hard to totally blame the people. How could our elected officials be so blind to their responsibilities?

  At the academy morale was high but the kids were understandably influenced by the real world around them. The theme song at every Arnold Hall dance was Eric Burdon and the Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place!” Whether they meant the academy or the war was debatable. Late in January a package arrived from the Pentagon, containing a long briefing and a carousel of 35 mm slides on the subject of drugs and drug abuse. Every military commander was ordered to give the briefing to his troops, accompanied by the slide show. The instruction was explicit. I didn’t like it one bit but I had one of my staff assemble as many cadets as possible at one time and set up the theater for the show. I pleaded stage fright and appointed some poor major to read the prepared script.

  The theater was packed. The slide show commenced. I sat on the stage with some of my other officers, watching the reaction on the faces of individual cadets as best I could. Everything from feigned interest to utter boredom was apparent. The briefing major droned on and on. It was all I could do to keep from nodding off myself. Had I done so I would have joined the majority of the youngsters in the audience by the time the dissertation came to an end. Pentagon instructions specified that the commander would follow the briefing with a few words of his own.

  “OK, men, I suspect most of you know more about this stuff than I do. But let’s get a couple of things straight. Having anything to do with those drugs is against federal, state, and military law. If I catch any of you I’m not going to kick your butt out of here, I’m going to prefer formal court-martial charges. You face a military trial. Understood? Pass the word. Meantime, if you still want to get into trouble, drink booze.”

  I knew in my bones that defiance was a part of youth, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to follow through on my threat. To make sure, I had a session with the local Office of Special Investigations representative, asking for his help. Sure enough, in February, the agent came back announcing he had the goods on five first classmen who were actually selling marijuana. I immediately drew up formal charges and forwarded them to the adjutant general’s office for review. In due time the charges were returned marked, “Disapproved.”

  “For God’s sake, why?” I raged.

  The judge replied that my charges would not hold up in court because I had no “proximate cause” to enter and search a cadet’s room. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Ever since the foundation of military academies, cadets’ rooms had been subject to inspection. This action flew in the face of all reason and time-honored tradition.

  I made an appointment and went over to the supe’s office. “General, are you going to support the JAG or your commandant?”

  “The JAG,” he replied.

  “Sir, I told the wing I would enforce the law to the full extent of military authority. You have just cut my legs off at the hips. Any clout I possessed in the minds of the cadets has now been made laughable. I request you find my replacement at your earliest convenience.”

  It took a while to find the guy. When he came, I figuratively folded my tent and walked away.

  Leaving the academy was bittersweet. As an old man I was honored to command that new breed of kids. I found them to be tough and fine, the most highly motivated and patriotic young men in America. They were dedicated, determined, and ambitious. They were the smartest kids I’d ever seen in my life. Hell, I thought there were some very worthy successors to all the heroes of my childhood and all the great men I’d served with throughout my career. If the guys in D.C. and in commands would just let these kids follow their innate instincts as pilots and leaders, the air force would be in great shape for the future. Time would prove me right.


  22

  IG and Out

  The job description for director of aerospace safety at Norton AFB went something like this: “worldwide responsibility for the development and implementation of policies, standards, and procedures for programs in safety education, accident investigation and analysis, human factors research, and safety inspections to prevent and reduce accidents in air force activities.” What a mouthful. Actually, the assignment was challenging and interesting. It was also frustrating and ultimately disappointing. The bright spots, as usual, were the great people that crossed my path. The bad spots, again as usual, were the not-so-great policies that affected the good people, including this crusty brigadier. I learned far more than I ever wanted to know about the AF’s inner workings. Not a pleasant discovery.

  San Bernardino was too far from Los Angeles to live in one place and operate out of another, so Ella had to move with me into base housing at Norton. It was a small but comfortable house. She wasn’t happy, but at least she was close to her old Hollywood cronies. She threw herself into meeting old friends and decorating our home in her usual elegant style. The girls came and went during vacations from college, and our social life was entertaining. Once again, life seemed fairly stable on the home front. Norton was comfortable; the flight line was right outside my office, the golf course beckoned, and the O club scene was good, with a big pool crammed with kids and teenagers throughout the year. I was able to immerse myself in work.

  Meetings, studying reports, and moving paperwork back and forth across my desk were inevitable parts of the daily job, but about every third week I got to do real work as an inspector general (IG) leading teams on UEIs (Unit Effectiveness Inspections). In the process I inevitably became an inspector of SAC. Right from the start, I made no bones about my eagerness to expose SAC systems that I thought smelled. I found that most of SAC was like rotten cheese: full of holes and hot air. There was a structure there but the experienced guys who had forged the structure were long gone, leaving behind a legacy of “do it by the book” to the point where people weren’t thinking. People were literally lying to themselves on their records and reports, not even realizing they were doing it because the system made them.