I don't know who was more surprised, him or me. Almost by instinct, I armed up the gun and blew his ass out of the sky. I was so pumped! I rejoined my flight with a ton of smash, and had to go to idle and extend my brakes just to keep from overshooting. All I could think about was that MiG I had just killed, and I forgot to stow my boards. It took a ton of power to stay in formation, and I pissed away a lot of gas.”
“I expected to pick up the nickname Killer Kane, or something like that. Instead I became Speedbrake. Just like Pierre.”
26
January 23, 1969
There was a really good MARS station at DaNang. MARS was an acronym for Military Affiliate Radio Station, and it was a great way to get a free phone call back to the States.
The base MARS station would place a radio call to a ham radio operator in the States, and the ham would get a phone-patch to the number we wanted to call. The MARS operators would try to get through to a ham close by the place we were calling, but sometimes there would be long-distance charges involved.
Besides the cost, there was another big problem with making a MARS call. Everyone in the MARS station, including all the people waiting to make calls, could hear your call, since the incoming signal was played over a loudspeaker.
Both the MARS operator and the ham operator needed to listen in to the conversation so that they would know when to switch their radios from “transmit” to “receive”. At the end of every transmission, the person talking needed to say, “over”.
More than once I was in the MARS waiting room and heard, “Will you marry me? Over,” and then, usually after a heart-wrenching delay, “Yes. Over.” And we'd all cheer.
I had called Emily a few times already, and she seemed a bit uneasy knowing that other people were listening to our conversations. And she had a really hard time saying “over”, so there were often long pauses during our conversations.
But, eventually, she got to the point where she would say, “I love you. Over.”
I placed a call to her at Colonel Ryan's office right before I went to fly. Due to the time difference, it was often hard to time our calls properly. It was early evening in Vietnam, so it would be morning in Texas.
We made small talk, and I had an opportunity to remind her that we were getting closer to the time when we'd get together in Hawaii. I'd already been away from her for a month. In all honesty, the time had gone by really quickly because I'd been so busy. I hadn't had all that much time to sit around and think about how much I missed her, and, although I really wanted to hear her voice, I was making the call more for her benefit than for mine.
After the call, I went to the squadron for my scheduled 2100 departure. This was going to be my first night flight. Like my first day flight, I'd be in the right seat, performing the duties of a FAN.
Boss was my CTIP again, so we dutifully peed on the revetments before flying. Our ordnance was different from a daytime load. In addition to rockets, we had one station, under the right wing, outfitted with parachute flares, and another station, under the left wing, with ground marking flares.
The parachute flares had arming wires attached to the mounting pylon. When a flare was dropped, the wire would pull a pin out of the flare's fuse and start a 30-second timer that would trigger the deployment of a parachute and the ignition of a very bright, very hot flare that was several million candlepower in brightness. When we dropped a flare, it would light up the target area for about five minutes.
The ground marking flares, called “logs”, weren't as bright. The would free-fall to the ground, then illuminate for about thirty minutes. Typically, we would drop two logs at a time, usually on a cardinal heading, and then talk the fighters to the target by reference to the two lights on the ground.
The flight to the AO was uneventful. We both went to great lengths to not
“I expected to pick up the nickname Killer Kane, or something like that. Instead I became Speedbrake. Just like Pierre.”
26
January 23, 1969
There was a really good MARS station at DaNang. MARS was an acronym for Military Affiliate Radio Station, and it was a great way to get a free phone call back to the States.
The base MARS station would place a radio call to a ham radio operator in the States, and the ham would get a phone-patch to the number we wanted to call. The MARS operators would try to get through to a ham close by the place we were calling, but sometimes there would be long-distance charges involved.
Besides the cost, there was another big problem with making a MARS call. Everyone in the MARS station, including all the people waiting to make calls, could hear your call, since the incoming signal was played over a loudspeaker.
Both the MARS operator and the ham operator needed to listen in to the conversation so that they would know when to switch their radios from “transmit” to “receive”. At the end of every transmission, the person talking needed to say, “over”.
More than once I was in the MARS waiting room and heard, “Will you marry me? Over,” and then, usually after a heart-wrenching delay, “Yes. Over.” And we'd all cheer.
I had called Emily a few times already, and she seemed a bit uneasy knowing that other people were listening to our conversations. And she had a really hard time saying “over”, so there were often long pauses during our conversations.
But, eventually, she got to the point where she would say, “I love you. Over.”
I placed a call to her at Colonel Ryan's office right before I went to fly. Due to the time difference, it was often hard to time our calls properly. It was early evening in Vietnam, so it would be morning in Texas.
We made small talk, and I had an opportunity to remind her that we were getting closer to the time when we'd get together in Hawaii. I'd already been away from her for a month. In all honesty, the time had gone by really quickly because I'd been so busy. I hadn't had all that much time to sit around and think about how much I missed her, and, although I really wanted to hear her voice, I was making the call more for her benefit than for mine.
After the call, I went to the squadron for my scheduled 2100 departure. This was going to be my first night flight. Like my first day flight, I'd be in the right seat, performing the duties of a FAN.
Boss was my CTIP again, so we dutifully peed on the revetments before flying. Our ordnance was different from a daytime load. In addition to rockets, we had one station, under the right wing, outfitted with parachute flares, and another station, under the left wing, with ground marking flares.
The parachute flares had arming wires attached to the mounting pylon. When a flare was dropped, the wire would pull a pin out of the flare's fuse and start a 30-second timer that would trigger the deployment of a parachute and the ignition of a very bright, very hot flare that was several million candlepower in brightness. When we dropped a flare, it would light up the target area for about five minutes.
The ground marking flares, called “logs”, weren't as bright. The would free-fall to the ground, then illuminate for about thirty minutes. Typically, we would drop two logs at a time, usually on a cardinal heading, and then talk the fighters to the target by reference to the two lights on the ground.
The flight to the AO was uneventful. We both went to great lengths to not
Similar Books
