War For the Hell of It: A Fighter Pilot's View of Vietnam

by Ed Cobleigh

  The Nail further describes the target as a chain of gun pits dug into a tree line on the border of a small field. From our altitude of 20,000 feet, all we can see are several scattered, irregularly shaped fields, each a lighter green than the darker jungle, any one of which could border the targets.

  Nail tells us that he will put in a Willie Pete smoke rocket to mark the correct field. The impact of the marker rocket will also tell the gunners that an attack is imminent and to man their guns. Once he has stirred up the Bad Guys, the Nail will hold off safely several miles to the west.

  Satan Lead tells the Nail on the radio;

  "Roger that, Nail. We have you in sight. You can remain in the target area, as we will be well above you at all times."

  Satan Lead's transmission tells the Nail that we won't drop bombs on him or run into him with our planes. I can hear the biting sarcasm in the Nail's voice as he answers;

  "Roger, Satan, very well."

  I can almost hear him think through the radio;

  "These Phantom-driving pussies are going to drop bombs from the stratosphere, scatter their ordnance across southern Laos and then go home to the bar. Meanwhile, I'll still be down here with some very annoyed and very motivated gunners."

  'We drop down to 15,000 feet to illuminate with the laser. From here we can see the target better, but we remain out of easy reach of the guns. My pilot in front rolls the jet into a gentle left-hand orbit as the Nail shoots his marking rocket. Satan Two has remained at 20,000 feet and trails us as we circle.

  Out the left side of the canopy, I see a white puff of smoke blossom in one of the fields. The northern tree line of that field looks scalloped, more irregular than the others.

  The Nail comes back with,

  "That's a good mark, Satan; the guns are in the tree line to the north, and they're shooting."

  It is a sunny, cloudless day over Laos, but suddenly a dozen small, dirty gray clouds magically, instantly appear, like used cotton balls. The thirty-seven millimeter shells self-destruct with an explosion of shrapnel and smoke when they miss. The gunners now know they are under attack and there is no reason to not shoot at the FAC. Fired at our intrepid FAC, the shells reached 12,000 feet, just below us, and then detonated. I can understand Nail's concern; he is down there among them, while we are relatively safe at altitude. One thirty-seven millimeter explosive shell can turn an OV-10 into confetti and the Nail pilot along with it.

  Now that I have the correct field visually identified, I retract my tinted helmet visor with my left hand and put my right eye directly against the four-power scope of the laser illuminator. My leather-gloved right hand is grasping the laser joystick with two fingers and slewing my field of view through the aiming scope. After a quick search, I pick out the targeted green field with the smoke puff in the center. The laser scope has a crosshair in the middle, just like a telescopic rifle sight. I skew the image to the west and there they are!

  The 4X scope shows me a line of dirt gun pits, growing like cancerous tumors on the tree line. I can pick out the brown pits, the recent earth excavations, and the tiny black crosses that are the gun themselves. As we circle, I marvel at the view. I have never seen anti­aircraft gun emplacements this clearly. Whenever I have flown low enough to see them with the naked eye, I have been too busy dodging and weaving to look.

  On the hot mike intercom, I tell the guy in front of my plane to instruct Satan Two to aim at the western end of the north tree line. I don't want to take my hand off the laser scope to push my radio mike button.

  Satan Two radios back that he has the target area in sight, but he can't see the guns from his altitude. He adds he will be rolling into his dive in ten seconds.

  At the promised time, he calls;

  "Satan Two is in. FAC in sight."

  I reach over and raise the red guard, pushing the toggle switch controlling the laser to the "on" position. In confirmation, I hear a pulsed tone in my earphones, a chirping electronic bell, perhaps the echoes of the sonars of the kamikaze bats of WWII. It signals the laser is firing. It is time to bear down.

  With 100 percent of my available concentration, I focus on keeping the thin crosshairs in the laser scope superimposed over the westernmost gun pit. My pilot is flying smoothly, but the task of tracking the target is not easy. The aircraft is traveling at 500 miles per hour, the hot, sunny day in Laos is producing thermals and bumps, and I am nervous.

  With no warning, the gun pit displayed in the scope under the cross hairs erupts in a massive explosion of flame, smoke, and red dirt tossed high into the air. A 2,000-pound bomb impacted exactly in the center of the gun pit, vaporizing the gun, the stored ammunition, and the unlucky human gunners. It couldn't have happened to nicer guys. As the smoke and dust drifts, clearing away, all that remains is a much larger, darker hole dug by the bomb. A 2,000-pound bomb has enough explosive force in it to destroy the factory the gun was built in; its effect on the contents of a forty-foot pit must have been devastating. The circular sand-bagged revetment, intended to protect against a near miss, has instead focused the hell from above.

  I am amazed. This thing actually works. However, I am the only member of Satan Flight who can see exactly what has happened. I whoop it up a little and tell my pilot,

  "Shit hot. A direct hit. Right down the tube."

  The Nail goes berserk on the radio.

  "Satan, that was a shack (pilot slang for a direct hit), you took out one gun, there's nothing left. That was terrific, one bomb, one gun destroyed. Can you guys do that again?"

  It appears Nail hasn't been briefed at all on Project Paveway; he doesn't know what, or who, he is dealing with here. Considering his likelihood of being shot down, captured, tortured, and interrogated, that is probably a good thing for the security of the program.

  Satan Lead replies;

  "Roger that, Nail. We'll try. Satan Two, go for the eastern most gun this time."

  In a minute or so, Satan Two calls, "Rolling in again. FAC in sight."

  I aim the crosshairs on the eastern pit and turn on the laser. I am rewarded with a repeat performance, a huge explosion, a smoking crater, and another gun blasted into tiny bits along with its crew.

  The Nail is beside himself.

  "Satan, that is the best bombing I have ever seen. How are you guys doing that? Can you keep it up?"

  Satan Lead laconically answers in the affirmative. The casual tone of his voice implies this is just another day at the office for us Phantom/Paveway jocks. Reversing roles, we climb up to our bombing altitude and Satan Two descends to illumination altitude, still circling the doomed target. We make two dive bomb runs, drop two Paveways, and destroy two more guns with direct hits. It is Satan Two's turn to have some fun. Since the beginning of the war, hell, since the dawn of aviation, antiaircraft gunners have shot at us and our aerial predecessors with impunity. They have always known they had the upper hand. We couldn't touch them in what has been to date has been an uneven fight. Now, we're the predators. We can pick them off at will and with relative safety. That is a good feeling, knowing the hunter has become the hunted. Let the dispensers of fear now taste panic's drying flavor in their mouths for a change.

  Satan Lead calls the Nail;

  "Nail. Satan is Winchester (meaning no more bombs) and we're RTB (Returning To Base)."

  The Nail is speechless. For days, maybe weeks, he has been skirting the now-destroyed guns, waiting for them to shoot him or someone else down. The gunners have been shooting gleefully at all and sundry and having a grand old time trying to kill Americans. Now four guns are utterly destroyed, four gun crews have been liquidated, and the rest undoubtedly have fled their posts for the surrounding jungle. Nothing like seeing four sets of your buddies blown to smithereens to undermine your resolve to produce American widows and to win the war for Uncle Ho.

  Nail comes on the radio with a good-bye as we leave the area and head back to Thailand.

  "'Satan, that was the most unbelievable bombing I have ever seen. C
ome back and work with me anytime. You guys are shit hot."

  The Nail knows the surviving gun crews will quickly spread the word that shooting at an OV-10 is a one-way ticket to oblivion. The FAC's job just got safer.

  We cross the fence, check out with Cricket, and turn toward our temporary home. Results on the first day of the revolution: four Paveways dropped, four direct hits, four guns obliterated. This has been a good day's work for Laser Pilot and the Cosmic GIB. With nothing to do but wait in the pit until the landing, I'm thinking this laser-guided bomb business might be something good after all. From the backseat, using Paveway is like being God. I point at a target and lightning strikes it. Do I feel sorry for the dozens of human beings I have dispatched today to Commie hell? Not in the least. Those dead guys would have happily killed the Nail, all my buddies, and me. Then they would have awarding themselves medals of the heroic socialist struggle (second class) and celebrated afterward. In fact, the presence of their carefully aimed flak bursts indicated they were trying to do just that.

  Late at night when no one is around but me, I usually ask myself moral questions about bombing civilian installations. I take no pleasure from trashing a town. In moments of weakness, I feel some pity for ground troops caught under my falling bombs; that fight is so one-sided. But killing antiaircraft gunners is somehow different. I have lost friends, squadron mates, acquaintances, and fellow airmen to guns. It is gratifying to return the favor, to be able to strike back. Revenge is a dish best served cold by laser light.

  A Nickel on the Grass

  My squadron is having a social bash to welcome new members, to say good-bye to guys rotating back home, and to recognize one, maybe two, deaths. It promises to be one hell of a party.

  The USAF, for reasons unknown, decided early in the Vietnam War to leave specific fighter squadrons in place in the theater and to rotate members in and out of those squadrons. So, Satan's Angels, my squadron, is permanently located at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base as its members check in, serve their tours, and check out. Most guys check out back to the States, but some poor bastards check out in a more permanent manner.

  No one can figure out why this constant turnover of personnel is a good idea. But what I do know is all I have to do is fight the war for a year and survive. I'm not charged with managing, or even understanding, USAF personnel policies.

  Since the time of the Roman legions, and probably earlier, men have been motivated to perform heroically by the comradeship of their buddies. Soldiers fight, risk death, and sometimes die not for some vague geopolitical objective but for their friends. Fighter pilots are definitely no exception. To a man, we will chance some idiotic aerial risk in combat rather than let our squadron mates down.

  I fly with one other guy, a navigator. Usually, we are in some sort of formation made up of several aircraft to support and protect each other. Inside the cockpit, as well to a slightly lesser degree in the formation, teamwork and trust are essential for survival. However, given the current USAF constant rotation policy, I often find myself trusting my life to some guy who I met only yesterday.

  In past aerial wars (most of which we won), fighter squadrons trained together as a cohesive unit. This time together allowed essential mutual trust and teamwork to develop and taught the squadron to fly and fight as a unit. As the French say, esprit de corps grows out of belonging to a band of brothers, only they say it all in French. Once trained, the squadrons back then rotated to the war as a whole. The squadron would stay in combat until one of three things occurred: (1) the war was won, (2) the squadron was rotated out of the war zone for replacement, or (3) enough guys were lost to destroy the unit's volatile morale. Traditional air forces such as the Armée de l'Aire Française, the Royal Air Force, and the U.S. Navy still operate in this way.

  Maybe the USAF idea of keeping a squadron in some sort of steady state of flux with guys checking in and out constantly isn't some sort of industrial engineering attempt at an optimum personnel policy. I suspect a more sinister intent. Time-based individual rotation changes more than the makeup of squadron esprit. It changes the whole basis of one's risk calculations and tampers with your professional ethics. Perhaps those guys in the bowls of the Pentagon aren't so dumb after all. If you want someone to compromise his professional pride and patriotism, you have to provide a powerful incentive. A better chance for personal survival, even including the approbation of squadron mates you barely know, might do the trick.

  In the arcane algebra of war, pilots are always trying to balance chances of survival against the actions necessary to win. Most times, the tasks you need to do to win can reduce your chances of surviving the war. It doesn't matter whether you are trying to win the approval of your peers or to win the war itself.

  However, it is abundantly clear to all of us here that the United States of America is not trying to win this stupid war. If winning were a national objective, we would not be going to the enormous lengths we are to avoid winning. If we were trying to win, i.e., to defeat the North Vietnamese, we wouldn't be conducting periodic bombing pauses, or placing key targets off limits, or imposing geographical constraints, or coddling our corrupt and cowardly South Vietnamese allies.

  I am beginning to suspect the USAF never-ending rotation policy recognizes the underlying goal of not winning if only in the sub-consciousness of the personnel planers. It would be absurd to send intact squadrons over here for the duration of the war when the war's length isn't defined by a victory or isn't defined at all. No one would willingly fight in such a war without end. There would be wholesale mutinies and resignations. No one is drafted to fly fighters; we are all volunteers. If we realized we had signed up to fight forever in an unwinnable war, we would most probably un-volunteer.

  So, as I get dressed to party, I understand the deal on the table. It's a hand dealt by the Devil or the Pentagon. Face up, the cards say "Fight the war for a year, don't ask why, don't question the basic strategy, don't try to hard to win, and you can come home. What's more, you get a sterling career-enhancing line item on your professional résumé." In return for prosecuting an unwinnable war, I get to fly fighter planes in combat and perhaps get promoted. All I have to do is not think too much and not get killed. Unfortunately for two guys in the squadron, the Devil's most recent cards delt came up aces and eights for them, the legendary dead man's hand.

  I zip up my dark green "party flight suit" and I wonder if there is a way to beat the Devil. Instead of enduring the experience, what if I embrace it? If I ignore the futility of it all, am I changing the game? While I am avoiding thinking about the waste and the idiocy, what if I dig the action for its own sake? That would be like playing for the pot of chips on the table instead of trying to come out ahead for the night. Doing nothing but flying fighters in combat for a solid year, it doesn't get much better than that. Fly, Fight, Eat, Sleep, Drink, occasionally get Laid. Such a deal. How does the game change if I enjoy it? If I do, have I beaten the Devil (or the Pentagon) or have I joined him or them? That is a question I don't feel like answering prior to attending a squadron party to welcome players into and out of the game. I don't have time to think about that tonight, I'll think about that tomorrow, Scarlett.

  My party suit is modeled after a real USAF flight suit, but is sewn to fit well by a local Thai tailor. Instead of fireproof Nomex, it is cooler cotton, in the squadron color, green. It is festooned with insignia and badges galore. My call sign, "Fast Eddie," USAF pilot's wings, and rank are carefully embroidered on in silver as well. I'm sure that using official emblems on a wildly unofficial party suit violates numerous dress regulations, but no one in the squadron is losing any sleep over the consequences.

  The squadron has been taken off tonight's flying schedule and we have reserved a private room at the Officers' Club. I arrive and see the tables are in a horseshoe arrangement with the Squadron Commander's chair reserved at the arch's keystone position with the operations officer on his right. The rest of us grab a seat wherever we can with them lowe
r ranks gravitating to the base of the arch. The tables are festooned with white tablecloths, not the usual bare wood. The food serving staff is splendidly decked out in classic native Thai outfits.

  I take my seat with the rest of the guys and the Thai bar waitresses fill our wineglasses with cheap rosé wine from Portugal. This is serious business. I attempt, without much success, to ignore how well the long silk Thai skirts fit the girls who will serve the food. The cocktail waitresses are in their customary miniskirts. That is an American native custom, not a Thai one.

  As dictated by ritual, the lowest-ranking lieutenant proposes a toast by standing and announcing;

  "Mr. President, a toast."

  The "President" of the Officer's Mess, the Boss of the squadron replies,

  "Yes, Mr. Vice."

  The lieutenant (Mr. Vice) responds, "To the President of the United States" and lifts his glass as we all spring to our feet.

  We all echo, "To the President," and take a sip. I remind myself that I am toasting the office of the president and not the crude Texan now defiling it.

  Mr. Vice, who doesn't appear to be yet of legal drinking age, continues;

  "To the King of Thailand."

  We raise our glasses to the King of Thailand, whose name is unpronounceable by western tongues, but by all accounts is a good guy.