He was overjoyed at having the magic specialty numbers changed on his records and when the time came for him to forecast for his next assignment after Takhli, he volunteered for any fighter assignment: anywhere in the world, spelled out a few places he would prefer and stated that he was very opposed to any assignment that would return him to any facet of the big-bomber business. His card made the rounds and in due course returned to announce that not only was he going back to bombers, he was going back to the same location and to the same bomber outfit that he had just beaten his way out of. What a reward for fighting a good war. He was distraught, and we immediately started screaming for and with him. At first it was just “tough luck,” and then we made the big discovery that the reason for the malassignment was that he was still carried on his little number card as a bomber jock, although all concerned acknowledged that this was not proper. It seems that the personnel weenies had improperly processed his card and had sent him into the machine for grabs based on the wrong number. We screamed some more and felt that surely the system must be responsive enough to acknowledge the error of a group of administrative people, compounded by an unthinking machine, and that he would be assigned where he was eager and qualified to go. C H I Dooey—sorry about that—the machine had spoken and the system had spoken and that was that. I found this most difficult to accept but although Gordo had been hurt, he had not been hurt as badly as some people by our goofs, and we still had a few angles left. We have done some grim things in handling our people.
One of the worst goofs we made was due to the insensitive nature of this huge system we live under. In anything as big and impersonal as the Air Force has become, we are all made out of tickey-tackey and we all come in little boxes, and we are just numbers once you get past the immediate command level. We were badly tied up in little rules and regulations about borders, prohibited zones, forbidden zones and the like. If you were standing still and examining the rules under classroom conditions, they were not easy to comprehend and the pilot was hard pressed to catalog all the do’s and don’ts and correlate them with the job we laid on him. When you got this same problem moving at 600 per, under lousy weather and navigation conditions, and admitted that a lot of people were trying desperately to kill you, you had a problem that was difficult for the best to solve.
Two of our shiny ones failed to solve the problem to the satisfaction of our bosses. These two were trying so hard to deliver the maximum effectiveness on the task assigned to them that they pressed too hard in the farthest reaches of North Vietnam. They committed the unpardonable sin of flying across the self-imposed line that we have stretched 30 miles below the wandering and crooked line known as the Chicom border. They flew across this line while seeking their target. No matter what the conditions that forced them to this position, they crossed the line, and we picked them up on our own radar and turned them in to ourselves. They were in deep trouble with the powers that be, and they knew it. As is so often the case, the censure they knew was coming forced them closer together than before, and they even flew together all the time, daily risking their behinds while they waited for the administrative ax to fall and stunt the careers they had dedicated to their country. They were bad guys in the eyes of the big men and they knew it, but they never quit. While they were flying far to the north on a particularly gloomy day, the paper work that constituted their official, career-terminating reprimand was making its way up the unfeeling channels to the very top of the Air Force. A sin had been committed and someone must pay lest we arch our backs and stand up for our people. The paper travels through and past the all-wise, who are nonrated, or who have a comfortable view of the fighting, and have no desire to exchange places with those they send to give their all in a hopelessly restricted and prohibitive climate and whom they censure for things beyond the control of the normal man. The vitriolic contempt and rage unleashed by the nonfighting 99 percent of our force appalls me.
These two got their reprimand, and their lack of professionalism and their failure to abide by established constraints was lamented all the way to the top. It was formalized and it was signed, and it was sent back to these two swine in the field. But on this day one of the swine was struck down by the enemy ground fire as he attempted to deliver his bombs. His three flight companions were dangerously low on fuel, so his buddy in trouble, his unprofessional companion and fellow border violator, volunteered to stay on the scene to cover his buddy while the other element raced for a tanker and attempted to establish a doubtful rescue attempt. When the element returned, he too was gone. He had met the same fate while attempting to cover and protect his downed companion. They both went down and we suffered—but not the system—it couldn’t care less, except for the cold and formal statistical notices that must be sent. And we sent the notices; we regretted to inform you that your son and husband, and all that rot. But, in this case, the next of kin got two letters. One expressed sympathy and the other blasphemed the two noble lads for their lack of dedication. The system couldn’t respond, and these stricken folks had the two young pilots’ reprimands routed directly to them, since the lads were no longer at their former address. Their relatives received official reprimands on two of our finest, along with a missing in action notice. How clumsy can you get! I hope the next of kin saved those black papers so that if we are ever fortunate enough to recover these two fine young men, they will be able to see how much we thought of them.
But Gordo’s case was not so grim and we saved the day. It was apparent that further frontal approaches to the personnel forces would not be effective and we had to play their game. We slowed Gordo down on his missions for a few days so that statistically he was behind the curve that would finish him on his projected tour completion date. We coupled this with a blast on operational necessity as regards the shortage of qualified aircrews and supervisors, and since the personnel types were the ones who were supposed to keep us up to speed on numbers of crews (actually, they never did), we were one up on the system. They didn’t dare make any more fuss as we had them dead to rights on the deficits in combat crews, and with Gordo’s concurrence, we extended him for another tour and turned him loose on his missions with the understanding that he would come to work for me as soon as he got the magic one hundredth. Meanwhile, I had our personnel people sit on their thumbs for a few weeks while I got a few letters off to friends in the States and then had them request a new assignment for Gordo using the proper numbers on his card. The letters and the reforecast and the correct numbers combined to do the job and Gordo got a good assignment next time around. Now, isn’t that a silly way to have to do business?
Gordo on the ground is so decent, friendly and calm that you wonder how this guy can be a tiger in the air. Yet he is just that and while I was anxiously awaiting his arrival in my office and piling up all sorts of goodies that I would put off until Gordo came to work for me, he distinguished himself twice more and almost didn’t make it to the point where he could come to work for me.
The first time that Gordo was awarded the Silver Star was one of the hairier missions that we had over there. He was given the assignment of developing a scheme to deliver weapons in North Vietnam under adverse weather conditions, not associated with the normal radar delivery techniques of which we are capable in all of our various sizes of machines. This was a little different slant on the problem and the question was how you can get into a North Vietnamese target with low ceilings and poor visibility, and get your bombs on the target when you are not preplanned for such tactics, nor for higher altitudes and radar modes of delivery. It was a particularly demanding task in that everyone knew that it would involve low-level, high-speed navigation, coupled with weather flying under dangerous and most demanding conditions, and we also knew that it would place those who gave it the try in an extremely hostile environment. It would force them into the area of enemy ground fire where even the kids fire sling-shots at you. The complex weapons systems that we are operating these days—airplane is too simple a word to indicate their complexity—can be knocked down and the pilot can be killed dead with a pistol just as well as with a 100-millimeter or a SAM, providing the hits are in the right spot. We were asking in effect that Gordo get in, on the deck, in lousy weather and prove to us that we could or could not survive in such a situation and still get our bombs on the target.