Lynn O. High

?»?When I was eleven years old my parents took me to see "The McConnell Story" a movie about F-86 Sabre jets in the Korean War. After seeing that movie I knew I wanted to fly jets in the U.S. Air Force. A year later in 1956 while visiting my older brother in Salina Kansas I saw a shiny silver airplane in the sky. First came a loud "boom" sound and then it pulled almost straight up. I shouted out "I'm going to fly that plane some day!" Of course it was an F-100 Super Sabre jet showing off an afterburner climb over Schilling AFB. I kept my promise by selecting the F-100 as my choice of aircraft as I graduated from pilot raining in September 1967 and headed for Luke AFB AZ. What a thrill F-100 training was--air combat maneuvers, basic and tactical gunnery missions, air-to-air dart missions, and even a low-level navigation flight at the bottom of the Grand Canyon! In May 1968 I arrived at Bien Hoa AB Vietnam and joined the 90th "Pair o' Dice" Tactical Fighter Squadron where dropping napalm and firing 20MM cannons in support of U.S. Army troops in contact with the enemy was what the Super Sabre did best. By the end of the tour I'd flown 212 missions and was awarded the Silver Star with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Distinguished Flying Cross with one Oak Leaf Cluster and the Air Medal with 12 Oak Leaf Clusters. In September 1970 I received the Air Force Association's "Citation of Honor" at its national convention in Washington DC recognizing my combat service flying the F-100 in Vietnam. Although I later flew a second combat tour in the F-4 Phantom II nothing compared with the thrill of flying the F-100 at night in close air-to-ground combat support. The F-100 Super Sabre was a beauty to behold in flight, became a fire-breathing monster if the engine "stalled", and had a mind of its own to go in unintended directions if the controls were mishandled. When I look back on my eighteen months flying harrowing missions in the "Hun", I wonder if the last thing I ever will hear is the tower calling "Dice zero one flight cleared for take-off" and then "Boom" as the afterburner launches me on my final takeoff into the darkness of the night.