Final Flight (almost): 1 January 1968
What had been slated to be
combat mission 239—a farewell jaunt with Laotian Lt. Seri to go check out
ground team reports in Cricket West, then a round trip over to Route 137 in
North Vietnam to qualify for one more month of combat pay—became something
quite different. While Seri was
talking to his ground teams, I saw him write 4,000 NVN in grease pencil on his
side window. Hmmmm!
He had gotten a report of 4,000 North Vietnamese and 12 Chinese
advisers in an area east of Thakhek, maybe 15 miles east of the Mekong.
I called the info in to the
Cricket and suggested they rearm a bunch of NKP’s new A-1s (Hobos) with
antipersonnel ordnance instead of the road-cratering ordnance they were
fragged for that morning. By the
time my info got to Colonel Forbes, the Steel Tiger Task Force Commander, it
had changed to a report of 4,000 NVA marching on Takhek.
I got that straightened out and
put in 7 flights of fighters, including 8 F-4s, 6 A-1s, and 4 T-28s.
We picked up a little ground fire, as we often did when targeting
Seri’s ground team reports, but not enough to convince us that 4,000 NVA
were that close to Thakhek.
So my 3-hour mission became
4+35, and by the time I got back, all the FACs besides 23rd TASS
Commander Colonel David S. Pallister had gone to lunch.
And, instead of champagne, he arrived with a bottle of rose’ wine.
Even with all the great logistics support we got at NKP, which was kind
of on the far side of nowhere, not a single bottle of champagne remained on
base following the New Year’s celebrations of the night before. Oh, well.
So much for my finale flight—Combat Mission 239.
Two nights later, Major John
Pattee (Zorro) bailed out of his T-28 at the southern edge of Cricket West, so
I volunteered for Combat Mission 240 for the morning of 3 January to go back
out with Lieutenant Seri and another FAC to help the Jollys and Sandies get
John out of a tree. No champagne
after that one either—just the satisfaction of helping bring another brother
home.
