Summary of Tom Yarborough's Da Nang Diary

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 I was going to Vietnam as duty and honor demanded, to fulfill a military rite of passage and my trial by fire. But buying space in one of those caskets just couldn’t be my destiny.

#2 As a young Air Force pilot, I was eager to get into combat before the war ended. I was certain that I would see my share of the fighting as a forward air controller.

#3 The final leg of my journey was a flight to Vietnam, which took place in a C-141 cargo plane. I was thinking about how the Air Force had trained me for the upcoming year-long immersion, and had they done a good job.

#4 The heat and humidity in Vietnam was a shock to me. I was also intimidated by the veteran Air Force officer who gave me the welcome briefing, as he had a striking resemblance to one of my childhood mythical heroes, Steve Canyon, the All-American comic-strip pilot.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669386544

IRB Media

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Insights on Tom Yarborough's Da Nang Diary

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I was going to Vietnam as duty and honor demanded, to fulfill a military rite of passage and my trial by fire. But buying space in one of those caskets just couldn’t be my destiny.

#2

As a young Air Force pilot, I was eager to get into combat before the war ended. I was certain that I would see my share of the fighting as a forward air controller.

#3

The final leg of my journey was a flight to Vietnam, which took place in a C-141 cargo plane. I was thinking about how the Air Force had trained me for the upcoming year-long immersion, and had they done a good job.

#4

The heat and humidity in Vietnam was a shock to me. I was also intimidated by the veteran Air Force officer who gave me the welcome briefing, as he had a striking resemblance to one of my childhood mythical heroes, Steve Canyon, the All-American comic-strip pilot.

#5

The 504th Tactical Air Support Group was the temporary home of the pilots in Vietnam. The Group owned all the FACs in Southeast Asia, so after five days of indoctrination, we were assigned to one of the squadrons.

#6

The medics were the last to speak, and they made sure to make their point clear. They showed us pictures of rotting genitals, and said that if we were going to fool around, we should do it with a round-eye like this.

#7

The FAC mission came into its own during the war in Southeast Asia, when air strikes went in anywhere in South Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia. The pilot was in constant radio contact with both the ground troops and the fighter aircraft, and he literally ran the tactical air war.

#8

The FAC mission was extremely dangerous, and the casualty rate was higher than most other Air Force units. However, they took enormous risks to direct the fighters in support of ground troops.

#9

I was excited to be a FAC, as I had always wanted to fly in III Corps with the 25th Infantry Division. I was assigned to fly for the Americal, the 23rd Infantry Division at Chu Lai in I Corps.

#10

The 20th TASS squadron flew a special FAC mission called SCAR, which stood for strike control and reconnaissance. The mission was to interdict supplies being shipped south along a twisting network of paths and trails in Laos.

#11

The name Da Nang applied only to the old Vietnamese city of Tourane, but the term was commonly used for everything in the surrounding area. The Covey FACS base was located in Da Nang Bay, and the city was surrounded by mountains that were used as sites from which the Viet Cong fired deadly 122mm rockets into the base.

#12

I had to complete a series of forms for the Air Force, and the Escape and Evasion form required me to answer a series of personalized questions that would be used in case I was ever shot down. The second form was even more troubling: I had to present Air Force Form 137 to the flight surgeon, who inked the bottoms of my bare feet.

#13

The Covey operation was very unconventional, and they used some strange