Letters to the Editor
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You're a lucky dog.
I can't imagine having an opportunity like this and being less than giddy (and plus, you were getting PAID to do this? What does the Robb Report pay per word anyway?)
I did a gig at Edwards AFB about a decade ago where I shot an interview with a pilot in front of an F-16. After we were done, I got to crawl up the ladder and hang over the edge. I asked - OK, begged - to sit in the cockpit.
Declined. The ejection seat was armed. (And truth be told, I'm too tall to fit well anyway. Same thing on Indy racers. Arrgh.)
Next time you feel a little queasy about flying in something, call me!
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In media res?
Is it just me, or does this article jump off in the middle of things?
Of all the warnings, cautions and instructions in the training packet, that was the bullet point I kept coming back to. To this civilian-trained pilot, such terrifying scenarios aren't part of our checklists and procedures.
What warnings? What terrifying scenarios? Sloppy editing... I'd never accept this from one of my kids, much less a professional.
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Its in the Genes
I don't know why at 56 I stop and look at every plane in the sky just like I did when I was 6 but I do. There is something about the combination of the roar of the engine, the speed and the exhilaration that one must feel (no I've never ridden in a fighter) when you have that much power at your command that gets fighter pilots going when they fly. Of course its dangerous but that is part of it. Patrick you got paid to do that? Where do I sign up?
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Ah, the gentle sound of ignorance
Is it just me, or does this article jump off in the middle of things?
It's just you. That was a perfect place to start.
Sloppy editing... I'd never accept this from one of my kids, much less a professional.
Yeah, that's why you're an accountant. Sorry, but you started it!
If you're actually interested in this topic, and not just sniping for the trollish fun of it, then do a creative writing class.
I'll bet you steak dinners for a year that one of the first things that is said to you is a version of "Write it out, then cut the first chapter/paragraph/section. Jump straight into the action."
Which is good advice for any kind of writing, including the PowerPoints you use to explain your quarterly budget to your manager. Sorry again, but again, you started it.
This article is a gem, and Patrick starts in exactly the right spot.
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Man, I'm getting old
I never thought of the F-4 as being an historic aircraft. I can still hear them high overhead sometimes, out of sight, but somewhere up there above the white puffy cumulus clouds.
In my dream they hold pattern while our LOACH team passes over us, flying straight lines, never circling our position. The LOACH relays messages between the ground and the Air Force Phantoms. The LOACH calls down to us, "Pop smoke Buffalo Six."
Our RTO answers back "Roger Lobo, we have smoke on our Pos."
Lobo says, "I see purple smoke"
RTO says, "Affirmative, purple smoke on our Pos."
FAC gives an azimuth and a range of 600 meters. The LOACH calls down the Phantoms, calls down death and hell on earth.
We're hunkered down. We set up a hasty DP after making contact on a well-traveled trail off of FSB Dragonhead. NVA regulars with bicycles, heavy packs, rice, mortar rounds, and cooking oil. After a brief shootout, both sides broke contact. We're digging in, they are on the run. They know what's coming.
Our RTO calls out, "Heavies Inbound, fire in the hold, watch your ears!" The troopers pass it around. Everybody braces.
You don't hear the F-4 when it starts it's bomb run. All you hear are the normal sounds of the thick jungle canopy, bugs and lizards and birds making their love songs.
Sweat is dripping down my forehead from under my steel pot. Mosquitoes are probing for an exposed LZ on my neck and ears. There is no breeze.
Suddenly out of nowhere and everywhere is the enormous and awesome roar of afterburners and jet engines at full on, heading what seems like straight up, somewhere out in front of our position. Seconds tick by. Then it comes.
A brilliant flash of light, like a flashbulb. Then comes the compression wave at the speed of sound, ripping through the jungle stripping foliage off the trees and lifting the fermenting jungle floor as if some giant hand grabbed the edge of a carpet and shook it.
For a moment the compressed air crushes down on our lungs and inner ears. An involuntary electric shock runs through my system causing me to exhale as though I'd been punched in the stomach.
And a scant second of time after all that, comes the sound everyone dreads. Something is slicing through the trees all around us. It's scything through the trees with a vicious buzz like angry bees. It's the shrapnel and pieces of bomb casing from the 500 lb. HE the Phantoms just put on our target.
I look up. Leaves are raining down. It's got a name among the grunts. They call it "the green rain." There is a tree just to the right of me. About ten feet above my head, a cherry-red hot shard of bomb casing about the size of my hand is embedded in the tree and set it on fire. There are bits of hot metal everywhere, setting the jungle floor to smoking.
The RTO repeats his warning a second time, "Heavies inbound."
This time you don't want another dose of what they are delivering. You start thinking, "what if they are short?" "What if they drop it too close?" The answer to that silly question is, you're one dead son-of-a-bitch!
Again the terrible roar of the departing jets, the flash, the compression wave, the feeling of being crushed. This one must have been closer. There's a howling whine in my ears. That's all I can hear. My ears feel the same as when you come down from high altitude in a jet airliner. I stretch my jaw to pop my ears.
"Saddle up!" "Saddle up!" "First squad fire team, drop your packs, we're going out light."
And I join the team and we move out in the direction of the enemy. As we approach the target, there are no trees anymore, just smoldering stumps. The red earth has erupted and turned under the green duff of the jungle floor. There is no sound of bird, or lizard or insect now. The whole place is a moonscape.
We circle around the edges of the craters, weapons on auto, sweeping from side to side, looking for any sign of the NVA. But we're thinking, "nobody could have survived this."
The rest of the platoon moves up and spreads out on our flanks. We tramp through the target back and forth. Somebody calls out and I move over to take a look. It's a hunk of an NVA uniform. No, it's a torso of a man with no arms, legs or head. I look around again and there's a man's foot, severed just above the ankle. Severed doesn't describe it. It's more like a giant pulled a man's foot off, leaving the white leg bone sticking out. The flies have found this mess and they are converging on the carnage from every direction.
The platoon collects the weapons and ammo and leaves the parts of human beings to rot. We move out. Another day.
Are you telling me now that the F-4 Phantom is just an object of curiosity? A museum piece? That can't be true. It seems like just yesterday.
So long, you glorious old hunk of supersonic metal. You saved my young ass on so many occasions. Now we're getting old together.