Thirteen Soldiers

by John McCain

  On his first day back at Nellis, his operations officer congratulated him. His orders for Southeast Asia had come in and had obviously taken account of his experience and high marks as an F-105 driver. “You are now a Wild Weasel,” he told Leo. His training began at Nellis that summer, where he was introduced to his backseater, Harry Johnson, another farm boy from the Midwest with skills and ambition. Captains Thorsness and Johnson finished their training at George Air Force Base that fall and received orders to report to the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base. They were among the first F-105 Weasels; five crews had arrived at Takhli before them, and all five were shot down in less than two months. Informed that Leo was a Weasel, the sergeant assigning living quarters joked, “You won’t be around long enough to need a hooch.” Yet despite the odds, Leo and Harry would fly every combat mission together. They would go home together, too, eventually.

  They studied the tactics their five unfortunate predecessors had used and changed them, hoping to improve their odds. They flew their missions at higher altitudes, but there really wasn’t a lot anyone could do to make Weasel missions safer. When a SAM launched, the Weasels would “take it down.” They shook them off in steep dives at high speeds right past the SAM, descending to within AAA range, and pulled out of it sharply as, ideally, the less maneuverable missile slammed into the ground. Then they could turn on the SAM site, no longer hidden as dust and debris stirred up by the fired missile marked the target, and destroy it with Shrikes and CBUs. It was wild, furious work, and Leo and Harry’s first and most important discovery was that they could handle the job.

  No combat pilot likes to admit to having doubts about that, and the regulation élan of the combat pilot is intended to dispel doubts and fears, or at least mask them. But the truth is you don’t really know if you can do it until you’ve done it. There are worse ways to fight a war, of course. Air combat is fought in brief bursts, and then it’s home to ship or base for a hot meal and a good night’s rest. But it’s a pretty terrifying experience while you’re up there, when the odds are against you and minutes seem like hours. Experienced one hundred times, if you make it to a hundred, takes some nerve.

  Leo and Harry could do it, and do it well. An account of Leo’s heroism published in Airman Magazine a couple years after the war includes a brief description of his combat experience: “He had been challenged by MiGs and counted 53 SAMs fired at him. He had experienced ‘white knuckles’ in the target area when he squeezed his stick nearly in two. And he knew the singular sensation of a flour-dry mouth in combat, when gum stuck to his teeth and to the roof of his mouth.”

  You won’t detect fear in cockpit recordings, when Harry calls out approaching MiGs or SAMs, and Leo responds “Yep” or “Got it.” But no one goes through an experience that intense and deadly without being really scared. The question you cannot answer for certain before you experience it is whether you can concentrate on your job and do it while you’re terrified. The ones others look up to, who become leaders, aren’t the ones who scare the least; they’re the highest functioning among the terrified.

  Leo was that kind of pilot, highly skilled no matter how great the strain. In the spring of 1967, promoted to major and well past his sixty-sixth mission, when by Wild Weasel standards he should have been shot down twice and picked up once, he became head Weasel. He was their leader, the guy the other Weasels looked up to, whose instruction they’d take without quarrel or truculence, whose judgment they trusted most. He had something else too, the quality most admired in the profession of arms: he was valorous.

  Valor isn’t just a synonym for courage, at least it isn’t to combat veterans, for whom courage is a more common virtue than it is in the general population. It’s a higher, more exalted quality than being brave. It is the supreme martial virtue. Every citation for the nation’s highest decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor, has begun by praising the recipient for his gallantry and intrepidity. They are well-chosen words. Gallantry denotes the kind of courage that is directed exclusively or mostly for the benefit of others, a selfless courage. Intrepidity is the kind of daring that appears resolute and fearless, even if it isn’t. Valor, the amalgam of the two qualities, seems a fair definition for such a princely virtue: a self-sacrificing, resolute daring. But words may not convey its full value. It is not a concept that is usually considered in the abstract by its witnesses. It is known when it is seen. And that is usually just a glimpse.

  This is what valor looked like on the afternoon of April 19, 1967, in the confused and treacherous skies above the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, when Leo Thorsness, according to the strike force commander Colonel Jack Broughton, fought “most of North Vietnam all by himself.”

  LEO AND HARRY WERE more than five months into their tour. They had flown eighty-eight missions and survived plenty of close calls. They were getting close to the number that would be their ticket home, but they didn’t want to say that out loud or even think about it too much; they didn’t want to jinx it. They had recently adapted their tactics and had started splitting their four-plane formations into two elements, which let them attack two SAM sites simultaneously when it was too late for the SAM operators to adjust. However, this meant each element had less firepower and, more important, fewer eyes scanning for SAMs and MiGs.

  Their target on April 19 was the Xuan Mai army barracks in the Red River delta, about forty miles southwest of Hanoi. They flew in about ten minutes ahead of the strike force and were followed by four F-4s looking for MiGs. The group call sign for the four Weasels, three F-105Fs, and a single-seat F-105D was “Kingfish.” Twenty-five miles from the target, Leo rocked his wings to give the single to split in two. Leo and Harry in Kingfish 1, and their wingmen, Major Tom Madison, and the EWO Major Tom Sterling, in Kingfish 2 flew south of the target. Kingfish 3, with Captain Jerry Hoblit and his backseater, Tom Wilson, and Kingfish 4 would come in from the north. As soon as they entered Vietnamese airspace, Harry heard the crackle in his headphones that indicated they were being tracked by SAM and AAA radar. He told Leo, “It’s going to be a busy day.”

  By the time Kingfish split, Leo counted four blips on his radar screen. Four SAMs, at least, were tracking them. Pilots were calling out flak and MiG alerts on different radio channels. Harry heard a familiar rattle in his headphones and saw a long, black, telephone pole–shaped S-2 arcing toward them. He called out “Valid launch,” and then “Multiple launches,” as two more were fired. “By this time, every cell in one’s body is focused,” Leo told Air Force Magazine years later.

  Just the radio chatter by itself was enough to consume you. . . . Listening to Harry, Harry listening to me, listening for my wingmen, listening for the tail end of the strike flights so we know when we can ‘get out of Dodge.’ While staying on top of all that going on, we are looking for more SAM sites, keeping our [position] clear of MiGs, jinking to avoid flak, monitoring the aircraft, setting bomb/Shrike/gun switches for the next run, and nursing our fuel so as to cover the last strike flight.

  Leo shook off one missile after a steep dive, then turned in the direction of one of the SAM sites and fired one of his two Shrikes at it. He couldn’t see the target, but almost instantly the site’s radar signal disappeared from their screen just as another, stronger signal drew their attention. They turned north and saw another SAM site. Kingfish 1 and 2 flew low and fast over a ring of anti-aircraft artillery. Harry dropped their cluster bombs directly on target, destroying it. Then they fired their last Shrike at yet another SAM site that had painted them. A second later Kingfish 2 was hit by flak.

  Madison radioed that the hit was serious and his “engine overheat” alert was blinking. Leo told him to put the Thud in afterburner, head toward the hills in the west, where they would have a chance of evading capture if they had to eject, and keep transmitting. He would track them on his radio’s emergency channel. As Harry continued calling out missile launches, their automatic direction finder homed in on Kingfish 2’s transmiss
ion, and Leo listened as Madison complained he was getting more cockpit warning lights. Then he heard the shrill distress signal that indicated a man had ejected and his chute had opened, then a second one indicating the other one had punched out too.

  Unbeknownst to Leo and Tom at the time, the other Weasels, Kingfish 3 and 4, had left the area. Two MiGs had attacked them, and when the Thuds had tried to outrun them, Kingfish 4’s afterburner had failed to ignite. Hoblit in Kingfish 3 had to fight off the MiGs while escorting his crippled wingmen out of harm’s way. Kingfish 1 was the only Weasel left, and their situation was about to get a lot worse.

  Leo spotted his wingmen’s chutes about two miles to the west, flew toward them, circled overhead, and radioed their coordinates to the strike force’s airborne command post. The two men appeared to be descending near a village and were within fifteen miles of a SAM battery, which could complicate a rescue mission. MiGs were in the vicinity too, and a moment later Harry alerted him to the MiG-17 flying beneath them that appeared ready to dive and strafe the helpless men. Leo dropped to three thousand feet, flying at more than 500 mph, came in behind the MiG, fired a burst from his Gatling gun, and missed. He flew beneath the MiG, came around to the left and got in behind it again, fired another burst, and shot off its left wing just as Harry said, “We got MiGs on our ass.” Leo looked back and saw them about a thousand feet back. They were in the enemy’s gun sights when he turned sharply to the right and punched it. The MiGs fired and missed, and Leo outran them.

  Low on fuel, they headed to the fuel tanker flying its orbit over southern Laos after Leo confirmed that two search-and-rescue planes, propeller-driven, thick-skinned, low-flying A1-E Skyraiders, Sandys 1 and 2, were circling the downed flyers until the rescue helicopters arrived. Once they refueled, Leo and Harry could return to Takhli, having taken out two, possibly three missile sites, shot down one MiG, and done what they could for Madison and Sterling. The strike force had done its work. Most of the planes had already refueled and were heading home. Leo and Harry had fired both their Shrikes and were low on 20 mm ammunition. They had only five hundred rounds left. And they knew if they went back to fly cover for the rescue, they would do so alone. They had a quick discussion, then turned east and crossed back into enemy airspace as SAM radar quickly acquired them again.

  Leo tried to get Madison on the radio but heard only a faint, garbled transmission in reply. As they flew at about eight thousand feet over the site of the bailout, the Sandys circling beneath them, Harry called out the first MiG at eight o’clock. Leo saw the second at eleven o’clock and then several more MiGs in a classic wagon wheel formation orbiting the site. He dropped to two thousand feet, turned off his oxygen, and fired the last of his ammunition at a MiG that had unwittingly flown into their gun sight, probably destroying it, although he couldn’t be sure; his gun camera had run out of film by this point. Harry called out four MiGs on their tail, and Leo, out of ammunition now, turned his plane into the MiGs and got a couple of them to shoot at him instead of the A-1s and chase him one more time as he punched it, dropped to as low as fifty feet, and shook off his pursuers in the hills to the north, “twisting and turning through the mountains skimming the trees,” he recalled.

  Starting to run low on fuel again, they radioed the tanker for another rendezvous when Sandy 1’s pilot announced that one of the MiGs had hit Sandy 2 and it was “going in,” crashing. The rescue helos had been scared away. The evacuation of the downed Weasel crew had failed, and now a Sandy pilot was lost too. Leo told the pilot to drop to just above treetop level, too low for the MiGs, he hoped. Then Leo and Harry flew back to the scene, planning to entice more MiGs into chasing them while Sandy 1 made its escape. They reached the area about the same time as a flight of four F-105Ds arrived and engaged the MiGs in a dogfight. After fifty minutes of murder and mayhem in the skies, fighting single-handed combat against SAMs, MiGs, 85 mm anti-aircraft guns, and, for all they knew, small arms fire as they flashed by at treetop level with MiGs on their tail, Kingfish 1 was finally free to go home.

  They were almost out of gas and talking to the tanker pilot waiting for them in the skies above southern Laos, when one of the F-105D pilots that had come to the Sandys’ aid radioed Leo in distress. Leo knew he was in distress because the pilot called him by his first name, not his call signal. “Leo, I’m not with the rest of the flight, and I don’t know where I am. I’ve only got six hundred pounds [of fuel]. What should I do?” It isn’t any more unusual to get lost in the confusion of a battle above ground than it is to do so on the ground. In some ways it’s easier. You’re covering vast distances in seconds. Jinking SAMs and dodging AAA, chasing MiGs, being chased by them, flying supersonic, diving, pulling up, rolling, listening to all the noise on the radio—it’s a surprise pilots aren’t chronically lost. But it must be about the loneliest feeling anyone has ever experienced. “I never felt so sorry for anyone,” Leo said of the lost F-105D pilot.

  He got the tanker pilot back on the radio, explained the situation, and told him to fly north, toward the lost F-105D: “You have six minutes to rendezvous . . . or he ejects.” The tanker replied, “Roger, Kingfish, we’ll do our best.”

  That took care of the lost pilot, but Leo and Harry didn’t have enough fuel to get home. They thought that if they climbed high enough and glided as they descended they might have barely enough to get to Udorn, the Thai air base nearest the border with Laos. If they didn’t, Leo thought, he could get them across the Mekong and over friendly territory before they had to eject. He climbed the Thud to thirty-five thousand feet. Seventy miles north of the Mekong their fuel gauge registered empty. Leo put it in idle and glided at 300 mph. Luck was on their side. They had just enough to reach the runway at Udorn. “Just after we touched down the engine shut off.” When they rolled to a stop, Harry nonchalantly remarked, “That was a full day’s work.”

  The full day had lasted an afternoon, less than an hour of it spent in combat. But it had been one crowded hour of conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity, “above and beyond the call of duty,” in the familiar stipulation of Medal of Honor citations. Leo received the Medal of Honor for his valor that day, and Harry the Air Force Cross. It would be six years before it was made official, though, and President Richard Nixon draped the blue-ribbon decoration around Leo’s neck.

  ON THE AFTERNOON OF April 30, eleven days after they “took on most of North Vietnam” by themselves, Leo and Harry flew their second mission of the day. They shouldn’t have had to fly again, but one of the Weasels scheduled to fly reported a mechanical problem, and Leo’s plane took its place. They weren’t expecting a particularly rough trip, though Leo still felt a little uneasy about it. It would be their ninety-third mission. Just seven more to go.

  Seventy miles west of Hanoi their air-to-air warning signal shrieked. The F-4s were behind them trolling for MiGs. Leo and Harry flew right over two MiGs lurking behind a mountain. One of them pulled its nose up and fired an Atoll missile “right up the tailpipe,” as Leo described the hit. They ejected at almost 700 mph, and when Leo hit the slipstream his legs flailed sideways at ninety degrees, shredding the cartilage in his knees. His chute caught on a tree limb and it took him time to get down. It didn’t matter, though. He couldn’t have gotten away; he couldn’t walk. His captors beat him when he tried to explain that, so he fashioned bamboo splints and did the best he could until he collapsed, unconscious. He spent the night in a large bamboo hut. Harry was already there when he arrived. They tortured them the next morning for information. That night they took them to Hao Lo, “the Hanoi Hilton.” That was the last they saw of each other for a long while, until the day they flew home six years later.

  Harsh treatment was the norm in those days, and Leo had more than his share of it. One stretch early in his captivity was particularly brutal. They broke his back. Eventually they broke his will too, as they broke most of the POWs. But he bounced back. He was a tough resistor. After he refused to bow to a guard he did a long stretch of solita
ry and spent time in a punishment camp the prisoners called Skid Row. I met him when we were moved into the same big cell with dozens of other POWs later in the war, after Ho Chi Minh died and treatment improved. The others knew who Leo was when he got there. Though there hadn’t been an official notice of his Medal of Honor because the air force didn’t want the news to get him singled out for torture, word had circulated among the POWs that he been recommended for it, as had the story of how he earned it. Valor like his is hard to keep secret from men who have need of it.

  Sergeant Mary Rhoads and the other survivors of the 14th Quartermaster Detachment are welcomed home in western Pennsylvania.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Wounds

  Mary Rhoads was an army reservist whose life was forever changed by an Iraqi Scud missile attack in the 1990–91 Persian Gulf War.

  MILITARY SERVICE WAS A TRADITION in the families of the men and women who joined the Army Reserve’s 14th Quartermaster Detachment. They came from communities and circumstances that yield more volunteers for the military than do other parts of our society. They lived in a part of Pennsylvania where so many young people were in the military that “whenever a disaster happens anywhere in the world,” a local reporter observed, “people around here hold their breath.” They are likely to know some of the casualties.

  Specialist John August Boliver Jr., twenty-seven, had not grown up, like most of them, in the hills and fading steel towns of western Pennsylvania. He was a Louisville, Kentucky, native, the son and grandson of military veterans. His wife, Paula, was a local girl. They met at the Baptist Nursing Home in Mt. Lebanon, where they both worked. They had been married three years, settled in Monongahela, and had two children, Matthew and Melissa. They celebrated Melissa’s first birthday just before he left. His first letter home and the notification officer who told Paula he was dead arrived on the same day.