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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:

My military aviation duties commenced in August, 1949. I was always in a single engine squadron, flying fighter planes. In our second deployment in the Vietnam War I was made squadron commander. We had a round of attacks against Vinh aircraft covering several months. Soon the battle took shape; our attacks were carrying the day, regularly. I would normally lead the advanced guard and we were shooting down ChiCom fighters nearly every day or so. What evolved for us was a tight line of advance.
At that point I received a promotion to the Air Wing Commander job on the carrier Oriskany. I was in my first month in the new job when I got shot down. I was not badly injured in the crash, but sent down into a forested tunnel with a band of hoodlums who beat me up. My left leg was badly broken. The hoodlums had to carry me back up the path, and dumped me in the grass. I had two operations in a two week period - the second one much better. In sight of six months I was hobbling around on crutches. As I gained strength, the communist authorities pushed me into a hard rock job in the main cell block. I humorously anointed myself "senior officer of the brig." I was soon glad to have taken the job; I was able to settle lots of squabbles about what was right and what was wrong in prison.
The war was proclaimed "over" and I was released from prison in early February '73. I returned to flying duty at NAS Miramar - my favorite k stateside field. I flew consistently until I was released from military duty in February '79.
In summary, most of my flying was done in CVA Crusaders (single seat fighters). Total Crusader flight time: 1, 767 hours. Also, I had logged 467 arrested Crusader landings – shipboard.