by Ed Cobleigh
Unexpectedly, my attention is diverted to an area south of the river, among the jagged karsts. An oblong flame path erupts in the middle of the darkness giving a bright texture to the broken ground. It isn't the sharp flash followed by total darkness of an exploding bomb. It isn't the white sparkle of a swarm of cluster bombs. It isn't, although I want it to be, the greasy red smear and persistent orange flames of napalm. The fire burns crimson and yellow; a small mushroom cloud of hot gas and flame rises a few hundred feet in the air and then fades out. The inferno doesn't light up the surrounding area as one would expect, but rather seems to burn in isolation against an pitch-black background. The burning ovoid lives for a few seconds, maybe ten, and then just as quickly dies, leaving a scattering of glowing embers in the Asian jungle night like a poorly doused campfire.
My navigator instantly spots the smeared fire when I do and comes up on the intercom with his voice only slightly elevated in pitch.
"Holy shit! What was that?" he asks.
He knows very well what it was and I know that he knows, but some routines must be obeyed, no matter what. Following established norms, even to the point of expressing pro-forma profanity, is a good way to keep calm. Instead of replying, I push the microphone button to call Satan Two, even though I don't want to and I don't want to a lot. I transmit, in what I hope is my best controlled, almost bored, southern accent.
"Satan Two, your position?"
Neither one of us in my plane is surprised when there is no reply on the radio, only silent blackness in the night and the sound of our breathing amplified over the intercom. My solar plexus feels like I was sucker punched in the gut by Mohammed Ali. There is a sinking feeling inside me that is almost sickening. I want to throw up. I try to raise Satan Two on the radio a few more times, including using the emergency channel, and then reluctantly start a climb to higher altitude to better make contact with Bruce in Alley Cat.
The fire on the ground is almost gone now, with only a few scattered embers left alive in the night. As I climb, those become even dimmer and farther away. Suddenly, I feel totally alone over southern Laos, with only my navigator and myself to cope with shitty life in the sewer.
As calmly as I can manage, I notify Bruce in Alley Cat that I have lost contact with my wingman, referring to our target's coded location. I have to be careful when relaying information over the radio; the Bad Guys monitor our frequencies. Bruce has already heard my emergency channel radio calls and is ready for the bad news. At his command, a well-oiled search-and-rescue operation swings into action across Thailand and into Laos. The rescue people have done this before; the drill is not unfamiliar.
At an air base on the Thai/Laotian border, by the river, a crew runs to another Herky Bird and the four propellers start to spin. This aircraft, call sign "King," will launch immediately to assume the role of rescue coordinator. King is a flying command post as well as an aerial refueling craft. The slow, lumbering Herky Bird is perfect for refueling helicopters and can remain on station for half a day if required. The crew manning King are search-and-rescue specialists; they have done this more times than they or I want to think about.
At the same base, a flight of two A-1E Skyraiders is preparing for a predawn takeoff; the sleepy pilots are studying the target information relayed to them by Bruce. They don't need much study; they know this section of Laos like their own hometowns. They too have been here many times before. The Skyraider, call sign "Sandy," is a relic of the Korean War. It is a single piston engine, propeller-driven attack plane that flies about as fast as a Phantom does on takeoff. The Sandys are armed to the teeth with a nasty variety of guns and special antipersonnel munitions, some of which I don't want to know about. It is their job to orbit the area of the intended rescue and keep the Bad Guys' heads down while the rescue helicopters pick up the downed aircrew. With many hours of fuel on board, the Sandys will be overhead the target area at first light.
The search-and-rescue helicopter used in these sorts of operations is nicknamed the "Jolly Green Giant," call sign "Jolly." They work in pairs, but are now waiting, they won't get airborne until there is some indication that there are indeed survivors to pick up. The Alley Cat, King, Sandy, and Jolly team is well oiled, trained, and ready. They do this a lot, unfortunately.
In the aircraft now closest to the action, I serve as the on-scene commander until the rescue team arrives overhead the crash site. My flight time is going to be extended by aerial refueling until I'm relieved on station. It looks like a long night in the sewer.
I jettison the flare dispenser pods to save drag and thus fuel, bombing them off the wing stations with the pickle button. I then enter a racetrack flight path over the location of the now unseen ford at 25,000 feet. Suddenly, the night sky over Laos has become a lonely, empty place for one solitary Phantom to fly. There is nothing to do but orbit, watch the fuel gauge, and listen for any radio transmissions from the ground. Candidate survivors (that would be us) are trained to maintain silence on their survival radios until dawn to prevent the Bad Guys, who also are listening, from pinpointing the rescue site. If either of the crewmembers of Satan Two was able to eject from the jet, he may be on the air at dawn. The ultimate good news will be to hear two voices on the personal radios.
As my navigator and I bore holes in the sky, the cockpit intercom is silent. We are no doubt thinking the same thing. With no antiaircraft fire seen and no indication of hostile action, this tragic episode looks like a case of what the official after-action report will refer to as "cause of loss unknown." This usually means flying into the ground. But there is always hope.
After two more long airborne hours interrupted by a trip back to Thailand for an aerial refueling, we are done for the night when King arrives in the area to take command. The pros onboard the Herky Bird will maintain the radio listening watch until fuel or hope run out.
King comes up on the mission frequency.
"Satan One, you're relieved. We'll take it from here. Tough luck tonight."
I don't want to leave this scene and yet I want to get away from here as quickly as I can. I turn the Phantom to the memorized heading that will take us to our base in Thailand and push the twin throttles forward.
The landing, an hour before dawn, is uneventful. I taxi the jet to the bunkered shelter and shut it down. As I open the canopy, the warm moist air of Thailand, fragrant and sticky, envelops me like a friend's hug. Slowly, the engines wind down to silence and the Phantom goes to sleep. The crew chief on the ground beneath the cockpit refuses to look at me as he chocks the wheels and puts up the access ladder. Normally, the enlisted troops like to hear a brief account of the mission and joke about the condition in which I've returned their precious airplane, but not tonight. At the line shack, I fill out the maintenance forms, the senior sergeants standing there are also silent. It is the silence of a death in the family that no one knows how to discuss. They lost one of their pampered airplanes, the object of their attention during most of their waking hours. They lost an aircrew and an airplane. I lost two close friends.
On our solitary trudge down the flight line back to the squadron, no one returns my gaze. No one says hello. No one acknowledges our presence as my navigator and I walk by. There is none of the camaraderie that makes life in a fighter squadron so intense and so enjoyable. People step aside and let us pass by a wide margin. This is due in part to the looks on our faces and partly due to the situation. When there is a loss, an aircraft shot down, word gets around the base like wildfire, even in the wee hours of the morning. Some otherwise well-meaning guys just don't know what to say to a crew that just lost their wingmen. Others fear that sudden death might be contagious and that bad luck rubs off. I guess that we are walking reminders of mortality and of the short odds of wartime survival.
We spend what seems like an eternity debriefing the somber, female intelligence officers about what happened, what we saw and heard, and what we didn't. We go over the maps again and try to locate the fireball on the ground
and from that point attempt to extrapolate where an ejection could have occurred. We try to discern where the crew of Satan Two might have bailed out, where the winds carried the parachutes, and thus suggest where the rescue forces should start their search. All three of us think this is an exercise in futility, there is little hope that anyone ejected before that fireball blossomed, but once again, certain norms have to be obeyed and certain forms have to be filled out. When there is nothing more to say, we depart the cluttered rat's nest of the intelligence shop and make our individual ways back to the squadron. My navigator and I are miles apart, walking together. When we get to squadron headquarters, he disappears into the fading night without a sound.
Each USAF fighter squadron has a logbook where pilots sign out for each flight, a relic from the days when you actually signed for possession of the aircraft. Upon returning, you fill in the logbook with your takeoff and landing times, flight time, and other administrivia. At the end of each line, there is a short space for a few words to sum up the flight. Most guys put "successful" or "weather bad" or maybe "mission complete" or some such homily.
There, below my sign-out signature is the line containing the printed name of my wingman and his signature, his last act of bureaucratic compliance. After I complete my entry I note his takeoff time and draw a line through the rest of the blanks. At the end, I add, "Satan Two did not return from this mission," and close the book. That is the last entry for tonight. The admin sergeant will start a new page for the coming day.
I store my flight gear in the personal equipment shop, hanging my parachute harness and my many-pocketed survival vest on their pegs, strip off my anti-g suit, balance my helmet on its own shelf, and secure my automatic pistol, cartridge belt, and Bowie knife away in my locker. The personal equipment (PE) shop is full of guys preparing for the early day missions, the "dawn patrols." They have woken up at 0430 and are preparing for flight while it is dark outside order to take off at dawn. The atmosphere on a normal morning resembles a college sports locker room. The rows of harnesses, helmets, and lockers add to the athletic analogy, but the games we dress for in this locker room are played for keeps.
Even at this ungodly hour, our conversation usually runs to sharp banter and relentless kidding. This is the verbal means men use to achieve intimacy, without seeming to do so and without admitting what they are doing. Wisecracks and jokes also tend to take the edge off the situation; banal conversation masks the deadly seriousness of what we are about to do or what we have just done.
This morning things are much different. The mood is somber, the banter forced and artificial. The day flyers ask a few cursory questions about what happened. Did I see any flak? What about the weather? The questions and the corresponding answers are less detailed than one would predict. There is no mystery here; all the guys are only too knowledgeable about this sort of action. Given a few facts, they can fill in the blanks. There is also the contagion aspect; no one wants to think too much about what can happen, knowing that blind, uncontrollable luck is also at play here. If the confidence that lets you take these sorts of risks depends on believing that you have a high degree of control over events, you don't want to think about luck. While bad luck isn't contagious, crippling fear may very well be, so why risk it? Finally comes the payoff: did I think the two guys in Satan Two got out of the aircraft before impact? All I can do is shake my head: The words won't come, they're stuck in my throat.
Some questions reflect morbid curiosity, some a desire to gather self-preservation data, and some are clumsy attempts to emotionally connect. I do my best to answer, but mostly I'm treated as if I have a case of the plague, the lost wingman disease. Silently, the guys file out of the PE shop en-route to briefing their day sorties and I am once again alone.
In a front corner of the crowded PE shop is a well-worn Government Issue fridge. It harbors a line of bottles of Bourbon whiskey and multiple cans of cold cola. This stash is provided by a regulation on the books since World War I in the days of the U.S. Army Air Corps. Back then, pilots endured long flights in open cockpit biplanes, experiencing freezing temperatures at high altitude. After their missions, the effect of a shot of alcohol on a half-frozen body was perceived by them to be warming. We know now that the opposite is true, booze only makes you feel warmer; actually it is chilling you. The increased circulation of blood caused by the alcohol radiates precious body heat. However, the medical officers of the day wrote into the books a rule stating that every aircrew member was entitled to three ounces of free whisky immediately after every flight. During World War II, conditions had improved a bit with closed, heated cockpits, albeit at higher and colder altitudes, but the regulation remained in the manuals. The mandated tradition of free mission booze was carried on in Korea. but was largely forgotten during the Cold War when no official combat sorties were flown.
During the first days of what became known as the Vietnam War, some USAF pilot, long returned to the States, found this obscure regulation on the books and brought it to the attention of the powers that be. This unnamed airman is now acclaimed locally as a genius. Consequently, the United States Air Force is required by its own regulations to furnish the PE shop with "Post Mission" booze for the warming and the enjoyment of combat aircrew. That's the good news. The bad news is that the USAF procurement channels are compelled to buy goods, including booze, from the lowest bidder. So, the fridge is amply stocked with the cheapest rotgut available, bought at $1.75 a fifth, tax free. Most of the guys won't drink it on a bet, but this early morning I will. I could go to the Officers' Club; the bar is open 24/7. But social interaction is not on my personal agenda just now. Also I feel that my morose presence at the club would put a damper on human spirits there.
I take out a cold can of cola, pop it open, and drain half of it in one gulp. I refill the can with mission booze and close the fridge.
A local Thai contractor who knows how to build Thai-style buildings and nothing else constructed the squadron building. So, the structure is raised on short pilings to keep the floors dry in the monsoon flood season and it is ringed with a covered porch, complete with railings and government General Accounting Office metal chairs. It is a welcome change from the stateside uniformity of government architecture. The porch is always inviting, even now.
Coming down from a prolonged adrenaline high, I slump with the weak-boned weariness of defeat in a waiting folding chair and prop my legs up on the wooden railing, staring with unfocused eyes out into the breaking dawn. Dawn is Thailand's best time. I'm glad I'm still here to see it. The oppressive heat hasn't built yet and the humidity is still soft and friendly. Sometimes, the rising sun backlights thunderstorms left over from the previous night, but today's new sky is cloudless and barren. The air base is strangely quite just before dawn with no howling jet noise. The Sewer Doers have landed and the early daylight flights have yet to fire up. Watching dawn break is a relaxing way to end a night of high energy flying and I usually welcome the opportunity as a deserved reward. You have to relax fast in the tropics, as the sun seems to leap vertically out of the eastern sky to take command of the day. None of this registers this morning as I swill my cheap Bourbon and cola and stare out into a mental void. Other guys, who I would normally greet and exchange insults with pass silently, letting me be. I am clearly not in a talkative mood and they all know why.
I run the mission over and over again in my head like an endless loop on a tape deck. I mentally review the mission planning, the maps, the briefing, the data, looking for something I could have done better, some error of omission or commission. What started the fatal chain of events that ended with the impact of an F-4 against the Laotian karst? What could I, the Flight Leader, have done differently? What went wrong? Who screwed up? I am reluctant to blame events on bad luck and even more loath to chalk the crash up to a mistake made by Satan Two. Either explanation has profound implications on my own chances of living through this shitty war and I don't want to run either of those root causes out to their log
ical conclusion. Try as I might, I can't find any rational, correctable reason why there are almost certainly two fewer crewmembers and one less aircraft now in the squadron.
Some place else I don't want to go is to allow thoughts of my wingman's early life to pop into my consciousness. His life now has only a past and no future. The images of a childhood, of loving parents, of schoolmates, and of graduations keep interrupting my dedicated mission analysis. I envision him as a college student and then as a junior officer, although I didn't know him then. I remember the times we ravaged the bar at the O Club and the poker games in the officers' quarters. All that has been "terminated with extreme prejudice" and the experience he gained has been wasted. Two vibrant lives have been thrown away trying to torch a few junk trucks which cost the Red Chinese $800, max, to build.
I hope the venal politicians and careerist senior officers who sponsor, plan, and run this sorry excuse for a war are losing as much sleep over it as I am. Do they know they are throwing away the cream of our nation's manhood bombing $800 trucks? If they know, do they care? What sort of industrial-strength rationalization do you have to dream up which allows you to send guys out night after night on a fool's mission? Finally, the free booze does its job and I can no longer mentally focus on tonight's failed mission. The images that I am trying in vain to suppress become dominant and this conversation with myself turns in Lufbery circles inside my head.
I crush the cola can with my shaking hands and throw it as far out into today's dawn as I can, hearing it splash into the green scum-frosted canal paralleling the squadron porch. I had better get back to the officers' quarters and get some sleep. I'll need to start breaking in a new wingman. The newly updated squadron scheduling board says I'm back in the sewer tonight.
