Spirituality, Culturism, and the Phantom: The Mystique of the Skies, as Heaven or Hell

By James T. Hollin Jr

The Mystique of the Skies--As Heaven or Hell

The book's subtitle provides an inkling of the wondrous and sometimes brutal activities of mankind in the sky. Since the first powered flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, the air above the Earth has enveloped countless instances of lifesaving aerial exertions and, on the other hand, vicious warmongering. The skies can be used for the benefit of, and also, the unwarranted deprivation and destruction of people.

From personal experiences, and documented events in the history of aviation, the author's memoirs describe events illustrating the unpredictable nature of mankind. Interwoven are recitations of airborne bliss, tension, and unexplained aerial phenomena. Centuries-old cultural or racial customs often affect aviation endeavors and evoked personal conflicts which had to be resolved within the author's own perception of Spirituality.

Occasionally, aviation-related dilemmas can catch a crewmember totally unprepared. Such occurrences can cause apprehension, a feeling of helplessness, or even terror. It is a heartwarming experience when such quandaries are resolved by the intervention of unseen forces, undefined by science or not fully articulated by religion.

The writer regards flying as a combined physical, mental, and spiritual immersion in the medium of air, whether piloting a gigantic airliner or a fragile hang glider. A pilot, by virtue of being "up front" and particularly when transporting passengers, assumes the role of a committed, principled leader. This exemplifies the type of selfless leadership that is sorely needed in our world of human frailty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886440126

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Prologue

1: You Can't Climb Every Mountain

2: Cam Ranh Bay

3: Landing Zone English

4: The Beginnings

5: The Good Flight

6: Lessons of Tucson

7: Cultural Conflicts Looming

8: Wet Willie and the Green Corvette

9: Tweeting

10: Round the Robin After Dark

11: Close Encounters of the Law Kind

12: Fly the Wing

13: The Phantom—Revelations

14: The Peacefulness of Anywhere

15: Cambodia and the AR-15

16: Thou Shalt Kill

17: Magnificent Men in Flying Machines

18: Airline Newby: A UFO Close-Up

19: Meditations from the Air Mass

20: The Need for Speed

21: Airline Adventures: The Eighties

22: The Miami Dream Flight

23: The Brightest Light

24: The Blue Orb: Daring Airwomen

25: The MD-11 and Beyond

26: Spirit in the Skies

About the Author

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Spirituality, Culturism, and the Phantom

The Mystique of the Skies, as Heaven or Hell

James T. Hollin Jr

ISBN 979-8-88644-011-9 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88644-012-6 (Digital)

Copyright © 2023 James T. Hollin Jr

All rights reserved

First Edition

Copyright acknowledgements for Spirituality, Culturism, and the Phantom

"Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman

Copyright © 1976 by Howard Thurman

Reprinted with permission from Beacon Press, Boston Massachusetts"

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence Reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor New York, NY

Beaumont to Detroit: 1943 from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF LANGSTON HUGHES by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All Rights reserved

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

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Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Prologue

Welcome to my story. Within these pages is presented a collection of memoirs, facts, and aerial thoughts that have been stored deep in my soul. All these pertain to the joy of flight and the continuous appreciation of life, both of which I have experienced in the air and on the ground.

Life is for the living, and when one commits mistakes and errors, hopefully, he or she can keep on living, physically and spiritually, and forgive oneself, as one has been forgiven. Flying as a crewmember is an innate, ongoing challenge to perform perfectly and cooperate with another person. When, not if, you make errors, realize that a Divine power has been watching over you, possibly directing your gaze in the right direction or tuning your hearing to the right frequency to catch an impending, perilous circumstance in flight. Flying solo is even more critical because you have no feedback nor input from someone in your presence who may give guidance or alert you to an impending problem.

I am thankful for the opportunity I have had to soar and freely observe and marvel at the Earth from treetop altitude or sometimes, as high as 60,000 feet. I was fortunate to have two loving parents, Ted and Cleo, who always set the examples of living and committing every day to the fullest of one's ability and Divine faith. The deprivations caused by racism and bigotry in the US affected my parents and grandparents in such adverse ways. Yet they carried on as powerfully and contentedly as they could under the circumstances and did not let us lack in confidence. My scattered encounters with that phenomenon left bitter disappointments

I am happy for and proud of my children, who have endured lack of fatherly attention, home resources, and parental understanding at times. My love for them is unfailing.as they have always overcome obstacles and disappointments in their lives and have hung in there with me for decades.

My coworkers, during my thirty-one-year airline career, will always be sincerely appreciated by me, even those I had differences with. I have learned much with regard to flying proficiency, graciousness, and dedication of flight attendants and support personnel. I benefitted from the commitment and skill of superior officers, wise captains, mechanics, and agents, and the list goes on. Not to mention just plain getting along with others.

Of course, my brief Air Force career remains memorable. It marked a major change in my life's perception, confidence level, and self-discipline. The joy of flying was made available for me to explore in the military. The Air Force, or any branch of the military overall, develops a person's resolve and dedication to conscientiously performing those tasks upon which others depend.

The Vietnam War engendered a lifelong, haunting set of emotions and spiritual misgivings. I have several friends who served in that conflict, including three that were killed in action. To this day, many other veterans remain affected badly by that war. The sheer mission to kill persons of another culture because of fear or envy of the potential success of their particular socioeconomic system is a bitter pill that must be absorbed somewhere in one's spirit.

To those millions of Americans who dodged the draft in those bygone years, or otherwise found ways to have avoided ground combat in Vietnam, I can absolutely understand. Theirs was a determination and a natural abhorrence to sacrificing their lives for the sake of routine, paper resolutions of death drafted by politicians. It was not so much a matter of the fear of being killed in battle, as the hopelessness associated with forcing oneself to believe that it is necessary to kill or support the killing of other humans for entirely unjust, or political reasons. But then again, since World War II, has there been any war that can truly said to be just?

Those veterans who fought or died in Vietnam deserve the highest praise, for they did not always understand what they were doing but did their duty and their job, either to stay alive or to save others' lives.

My war experience made me a wiser person and provided harsh insight into how far the pursuit of monetary profits or socioeconomic domination can detour leaders of civilizations. They are detoured from the high road onto a low road which drives them to severely cheapen the physical organisms and destroy the spiritual lives of other humans. Those who stand to gain the most in prestige, position, or prosperity should be first among those who are required to step forward and fight such wars.

The art of flying is a godsend to those who actually handle or have handled the controls of an air vehicle, including balloons, gliders, helicopters, and of course, jet fighters. There is no comparison between actually handling the controls of an aircraft and merely riding as a passenger. The pilot projects him/herself into the sky by virtue of a well-designed machine that serves to communicate and cooperate with an invisible, flowing air mass. The pilot and the plane blend in with the ebb and flow of Earth's wind currents, and from time to time, they must negotiate the inevitable eruption of our planet's changeable weather phenomena.

I seldom made extraneous notations in the comments section of flight logbooks I kept for roughly forty years. When I did, it was of such a significant nature that I believed it should be documented and recalled in the future for the spiritual lesson learned. The following recounts are based considerably on those logbooks and as many of the recollections still within my grasp today.

Fighter and bomber pilots are rather like firemen who continuously stand by and are alert for the calling to a venue where lives may be at stake, or conversely, it has been determined that lives must be extinguished. They are superbly trained and skilled at their job and realize that, at times, they must subject themselves to possible risk of their own life for the sake of protecting others. I cite the skills and tactics involved with formation flying as an allegorical frame of reference to illustrate in these pages, some concepts of human behavior that I believe are meaningful.

Flying safely is not a matter of luck but is interwoven with crew competence, aircraft airworthiness, fate, and the laws of nature. None of these factors are a certainty at any one instant of time aloft. Randomness certainly plays a part in the enjoyment and performance of flying. A fighter pilot rocketing him/herself and his jet upward into the unlimited heavens at 15,000 feet per minute or student pilot trying to land his small craft in a troublesome crosswind is governed by trillions upon trillions of minuscule events that take place every second. Some of these events are common sense, but most of them are eons beyond human comprehension. It is not every happenstance in life that is discernible, particularly the presence of Divine energy.

There are two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle. (Albert Einstein)

It is always satisfying to safely return to the ground after a flight, almost like a routine miracle, whether it was a bombing mission in a hostile land or a light airplane trip from Savannah to Macon. While airborne, you understand that you do not remain so by the invincibility of your own self or by virtue of the perpetual capability of and fuel in your aircraft, but by factors which are fleeting. These factors can easily change significantly over the duration of your flight. It is sometimes jokingly said in aviation, Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. Another mildly sarcastic evaluation, upon one landing an airplane, is one crewmember saying to another, Well, we cheated death again.

Nevertheless, it's always a good feeling to reach your destination safely and emphatically look forward to starting over again, perhaps on another flight on another day. And sometimes it is just fulfilling to walk away from the landing and begin a much-needed healing process at home or some other location where your loving presence has been lacking.

I am thankful that during my episodes in the air, I have been connected with unperceived Forces that guided my frequent trajectories, my thinking, and my unconscious reasoning. This ever-present guidance moved me to take small actions, huge actions, and sometimes no action, which collectively brought about the safe conduct of countless flights over the years. Wishfully, each flight has brought me a little closer to applying the joy I have found in flying to the ever-present delight of life on the ground.

Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words. (St. Francis of Assisi)

1

You Can't Climb Every Mountain

Icertainly had never envisioned meeting the end of life in this predicament. Here I am strapped in the left seat, fearfully alone, in this plane, a plane which, if it could talk, would certainly say that it expected me to handle its wings, fuselage, tail section, and engines in a skillful manner. The plane, with me in it, is plummeting toward the Earth in a questionable pilot-induced but, hopefully, controlled dive. What is so eerie is that the plane is immersed in the seemingly interminable grasp of warm, gentle cumulous clouds. There is no majestic scenery surrounding and forming a colorful backdrop for this dive because we are plunging through this bottomless, milky-gray cloud formation. I have no idea where the final impact, if it occurs, will happen, and I am praying that the plane and I are not heading toward an immovable, rock-filled mountain, which may be somewhere below and in front of us.

What did they tell us flight students during instrument flying training in Air Force undergraduate pilot training school? Believe your flight instruments! Trust them, no matter what your vertigo plagued physical sensations may tell you. That's not the problem in my current predicament, because I unequivocally believe and understand what the aircraft flight instruments are showing. This will be some consolation, knowing that just as the flight instructors taught, the flight instruments were reliably and accurately portraying me and my USAF O-2 aircraft headed toward a lonely, self-induced crash into a mountainside in South Vietnam.

The altimeter is relentlessly unwinding in a counterclockwise direction, which any pilot knows means you are going down. The attitude indicator depicting the nose of the airplane pointed downward about fifteen degrees, and the airspeed indicator stating that the speed is 120 knots and increasing. I'm in a sixty-degree-banked turn, believing that the airplane will clear the slope of the same mountain I was just trying to climb above just forty-five seconds ago. The flight instruments all seemed to be staring incredulously back at me. What I see is the flight instruments displaying exactly what I am doing: attempting to correct a serious misjudgment too close to surrounding mountainous terrain.

This airplane is, of course, valuable to me, logistically and emotionally, because I climbed into it before takeoff, trusting its mechanical worthiness and placing full confidence in this machine transporting my body from one location to the next. Ridiculously, I momentarily thought that it would be totally unfair for this plane to be smashed into bent metal and scattered parts on a hillside because of a fault of mine. Perhaps the airplane sensed that it must get safely below the clouds to preserve its own structure as well as mine. Wishful, prayerful thinking!

In fact, my eyes are remorsefully witnessing the attitude indicator showing the aircraft rolling out of a sixty-degree left turn, fifteen degrees of nose-down pitch, and approaching the maximum allowable airspeed for the plane. As the seconds tick by, I tersely realize that I must not only put deep trust in my flight instruments, but also faith in the Almighty Divine. I realize this is my best resolution of this frightening situation, oddly because I must deliberately continue this frantic, spiraling blind dive to, hopefully, break through the base of the cloud deck and survive another day. There are absolutely no navigation signals or transmitters available here on the east coast of Vietnam, not far from an isolated Army post, known as Landing Zone English.

At a tense time like this, it seems so inappropriate to reflect on the wondrous sighting of the gathering cumulous clouds innocently obscuring the tops of this small range of mountains that I am now struggling over. I initially thought the aircraft would easily climb over the mountain range and, thus, provide me with a shortcut to my intended destination. I now truly felt, for the first time, how helpless and humbling a feeling it is for one to be caught handling a plane wandering through the sky in the center of large cumulous clouds, with no weather radar equipment on board the plane and mountain peaks in the vicinity.

I am possessed with an overwhelming desire to get through the bottom of this cloud deck so I can see the Earth below, and give myself a chance to recover from this unusual attitude—a real one, this time, not the practice type that I had done so many times in learning to fly various types of aircraft.

How marvelously peaceful this day had begun—sunny and bright with just the slightest breeze blowing through the jungle vegetation surrounding our tiny 3,600-foot runway strip at Landing Zone English. Although I was in the Air Force, by the powers that be, I ended up being stationed at LZ English, home of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, a top US Army combat unit. My small Air Force detachment consisted of six Air Force personnel: There were three forward air control (FAC) pilots, being Major Raymond, Captain Welch, and myself. Also assigned to the detachment were two noncommissioned officers as mechanics and a third NCO as an administrative/radio operator type.

Our FAC unit was equipped with three Cessna O-2 aircraft. The O-2, with its front propeller and a rear propeller attached to the fairly short fuselage, was capable of seating two people, side-by-side seats. The aircraft wing was constructed onto the top of the fuselage. Further, the fuselage was connected, on its left and right sides, by the twin tail booms, with a left and a right vertical stabilizer atop each respective tail boom. The US Army military outpost at LZ English accommodated about 2,500 army personnel with tanks, amphibious vehicles, and a small helicopter landing pad, all crammed into about an eight square block area of land near the village of Bong Son in Binh Din province.

Major Raymond had suspicions concerning the taste and unknown content of the existing water supply at LZ English, and I can't say that I blamed him. There was no plumbing or sewage facility at our detachment's location on the LZ or at the living quarters of our enlisted men. We three officers took individual showers outdoors, in the open, under a totally improvised facility. The shower was actually a regular garden spigot, which was creatively hooked to lengths of piping connected to, and protruding from, a fifty-gallon drum supported on a crude eight-foot-tall wooden platform. A small gas heater connected beneath the drum could be turned on a few minutes ahead of time to heat the water.

As was common throughout the entirety of the LZ, our detachment also made efficient use of another fifty-gallon steel drum, which had been cut in half, by a welder's torch, to serve as a commode. A rough toilet seat was laid across the open top half of the sawed-off drum and plenty of toilet tissue was always kept nearby. As was dictated by the hygiene standards of the LZ, about once a week, or more often, when the drum became about one-third full of assorted excrement, one of us would commandeer a gallon or two of diesel fuel, pour the contents atop the fecal matter, and set it afire. The stuff burned pretty quickly and ceremoniously, and the odor and organisms were eradicated in a matter of minutes. That's one thing I will always remember about LZ English—the smell of burning shit emitted each and every day from dozens of half-ass fifty-gallon drums throughout the LZ.

Major Raymond had a regular routine that, about once a week, one of us pilots would take on the task of loading up five or six black, empty five-gallon water jugs in the back of one of our planes and flying about forty-five pleasant minutes south along the coastline to Phù Cát Airbase. Phù Cát was a large, sprawling US Air Force base with long runways, an officer's club, and generally comfortable living conditions for those assigned to the base. Upon arrival at Phù Cát, the pilot for this mission would get the jugs filled with great-tasting, probably filtered, water, perhaps visit a military friend on base, or have a meal at the Officers' Club, we could usually request an enlisted airman to drive us around in a jeep, as necessary, and then fly the return trip back to LZ English the same day.

It happened that this was my day to fetch the drinking water, and I had looked forward to the trip, just for a change of scenery and a chance to fly into a more or less modern, air-conditioned Air Force base, with all the niceties one might expect stateside. I had just begun flying along peacefully in a slow climb along a visual route, headed toward the coastline, generally following certain roads and terrain features below my flight path. Generally, when you flew along the east coastline of South Vietnam, you didn't have to worry about small arms fire directed toward your aircraft. This was more of a concern the further inland you flew.

I knew the route, but on this day, I noticed there were quite a few cumulous clouds building near the three or four small mountain ranges that I had to either navigate around, or climb over, to get to the coastline. On a whim, I decided to take flight on a direct bearing toward a depressed area between two of the mountain ranges, generally showing the highest elevation to be three thousand feet on my airway chart. This would be a shortcut and save several minutes on the flight. My new bearing required me to climb through some cloud formations, but I figured my plane would be able to get on top of the clouds and climb to an altitude that would clear the approaching the mountains within a reasonable time.

However, after about three minutes of climb, I was still engulfed by the clouds and now, flying by guess and by golly. It appeared the cloud formations were growing vertically, or was this just impending paranoia? My elapsed time, based on the aircraft's speed and climb rate, reasonably placed me several miles closer to the approaching mountain ranges. The altimeter indicated that I was still below the highest elevation shown on my chart. I began to worry because there was no navigation facility or armed forces radio station nearby that I could use to calculate an electronic bearing and mileage from the coastline. I knew I was flying somewhere between the two mountain ranges I had planned to navigate over (or between).

Eventually, my doubts reached a very concerned state, and I determined that my shortcut was not worth it. What if I had miscalculated and the airplane was not actually climbing at a sufficient rate to clear the mountains ahead? It's very possible that I will remain in the clouds and, eventually, hit the impending mountains because I wouldn't break out of the cloud cover in time to visually see how to clear the mountain range in time. Further, I had no means of determining the winds at this altitude. If perchance, there was a tailwind, then the airplane would be blown toward the mountains at a much quicker speed than normal.

I immediately decided to make a left 180-degree turn, while descending through the clouds, and backtracking the approximate route I had just flown over. Then I began having overriding second thoughts—should I make a complete 180-degree turn? How close am I to the mountains that I knew to be on the left? And how steep (or shallow) should my descent be, to avoid hitting the lower level terrain I had already flown over?

While contemplating all this, I had now gone through about ninety degrees of my reverse course turn and was still in the clouds. I admitted to my soul that I was disoriented, but thankfully, I was not suffering from vertigo. My only discomfort was a building crescendo of fear that I wasn't going to break through the cloud base in time to get visual sighting on the surrounding mountainous terrain and recover from this maneuver.

The flight instruments seemed to be glaring at me and mocking precisely what a perilous, descending, swirling dive to the unknown I had put the airplane in. I had pulled both throttles back to idle and asked for Divine intervention to intercede in my increasingly worrisome falling trajectory. I realized I was essentially on an unplanned, deliberate blind dive to save my life. This was creating a realism of flying conditions much better than any flight simulator ever had.

Suddenly I was simultaneously stunned and joyful! The airplane had broken through the bottom of the cloud deck, headed at a high rate of speed and descent, toward the base of a looming ridge. I was at such a steep dive angle and a disorienting angle of bank that it took me a second or two to appreciate what I needed to do with the airplane to avoid colliding with the immovable, jagged mass in front of me, and I released a loud scream from my deepest, innermost self. I immediately calmed myself down, after a split second of prayer, and trying to imitate a cool, skillful pilot, began steering the airplane in a left turn, away from the ridgeline.

Knowing not to aggravate aerodynamic matters by violently yanking up on the aircraft and causing it to stall, I somehow steadily pulled an appropriate amount of back pressure and g's on the yoke to slow the descent, steepened my left turn, and regained a reasonable degree of sane pilot and aircraft control. I flew in a banked flight path horizontally along the slope of the mountain for four to five seconds. As I resolutely turned the airplane away from the mountainside, I headed toward a slightly lower altitude to stay beneath the cloud deck and turned in a northwest direction to finish my planned journey in the direction I knew the coastline to be.

After my self-induced, harrowing ride, I wasn't worried about the possibility of small arms fire directed toward my airplane at this low altitude. I was never so happy to see, from my peripheral vision, a couple of Vietnamese farmers working in what appeared to be a rice paddy off to my left below me. They seemed to be alive and content, but I bet they were shocked as hell to see a strange looking airplane plummeting through the bottom of that thick cloud layer headed straight for one of their picturesque mountainsides! I was just content to be alive and steering toward the open sky.

In a deliberate attempt at humor and returning to normalcy, I thought, hopefully the Vietnamese laborers in the fields below had not heard my loud outburst of panic in the airplane. The bright sunshine was rejuvenating, and my soul was thankful, for having components of the landscape beneath me by which I could navigate. The greatest lesson learned was not to improvise on navigation techniques in clouds (or fog) when flying. I was truly graced that day was not the designated time and place for me to perish, and gave thanks, as I took the longer route around the mountains to fetch the water supply at Phù Cát Airbase.

A lesson learned is a blessing earned. (Della Reese)

2

Cam Ranh Bay

These writings of my flight journeys will necessarily involve considerable reflection on my experiences serving during the Vietnamese War. I received my first formal introduction to South Vietnam at around 0230 one dark morning in September 1970, when the charter DC-8 airliner carrying me and about 180 other apprehensive souls, landed at the sprawling Cam Ranh Air Base. I knew that Cam Ranh was a huge, important facility to the US war effort. The airbase adjoined a deep-water port and was ideal for handling sizeable cargo ships and warships, therefore serving as a supply and storage depot for military and merchant marine vessels. Even at this time of the morning (which was already twelve hours different from our accustomed stateside time zone), Cam Ranh was fairly bustling as we deplaned, bleary-eyed and wary of our surroundings.

I was laboring under the apprehension that every military base in South Vietnam was susceptible to rocket attacks by either the Vietcong or the North Vietnamese army. I found out much later that Cam Ranh Bay had not been attacked in over a year and did not take one incoming rocket during the 1968 Tet offensive. Nevertheless, in 1969, a sapper attack did occur, causing extensive damage and one fatality, but these were rare. Acting out of an abundance of caution, and readily recalling war movies I had watched for years, I was fully alert for the whistling noise I assumed would be created by incoming rocket or mortar rounds. To the contrary, Cam Ranh was a comfortable overseas assignment for the thousands of US military stationed there.

I and my Air Force pilot training buddy, Dennis Morgan, or Denny, walked to a designated area inside the terminal to begin processing our in-country paperwork. We trudged along, each with our heavy duffel bag, containing a good part of our worldly possessions, slung across first one shoulder, then alternating to the other shoulder.

An enlisted man, wearing sergeant's stripes, perfunctorily shuffled and dealt to us a varied assortment of administrative paperwork, forms, and other required information. The sergeant answered what few questions we felt alert enough to ask. He told us that all newly arriving officers are temporarily assigned to a medium-sized, basic officer's quarters, which was a short drive from the main airfield and situated on a gentle hill overlooking a beautiful resort-type beach.

Denny had always impressed his pilot buddies as being a tremendously affable person. He and his new bride, Rose, were both twenty-five years of age and had only been married a few months. I know he missed her terribly, but he was sincerely upbeat about our upcoming flying assignments. Denny was a flying fanatic and absolutely loved being in the air. He was a red-haired White dude, with bright, sparkling brown eyes. His thick reddish-brown eyebrows gave special emphasis to his frequent, inquisitive gazes. Denny was ready, willing, and able to contribute to a conversation at any time, on any subject. During our days at Willie, Denny was frequently a customer at the Officer's Club of Friday evenings, shooting craps and taking on all comers.

Denny was about five feet six inches tall, but his diminutive stature was more than overcome by his confidence, his boisterous laughter, and his insatiable search for knowledge and adventure. He always had a twinkle in his eye, as if he was right then and there searching for his next adventure. He had a delightful disposition, and was always upbeat in his demeanor. He was, as often exemplified in the writings of the Raven FACs, the courage that was life.

When Denny and I walked out to the front of the terminal and stopped at the designated bus pickup point, I was jolted into the reality that this was unmistakably a combat assignment. This sinking realism grabbed hold of me contemporaneously with the arrival of an army-green bus furnished, or should I say, "equipped' with heavy-duty fence grating over the windows. The bus came to an ominous stop right in front of us and seemed to dare us to board it for a ride to the land of no return.

As we climbed aboard the bus with our wearisome duffel bags, including my guitar, I thought to myself, well, all this wire grating is certainly going to spoil the view as we rode the dark bus toward the beach area. It didn't take long for me and Denny to comprehend that obviously the grating was meant to prevent grenades or other explosives from being hurled through the windows into the bus. Cam Ranh Bay had regular bus routes which ran through every nook and corner of the entire base for the convenience of both military and civilian personnel.

The base was practically a self-contained city sprawled over a large part of a small peninsula jutting southward from the main stretch of the South Vietnam. It was obvious to see that the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and of course, Air Force, operated compounds, combat units, and various buildings, including recreational facilities. Goods and supplies from the States arrived daily for trucking or connecting flights to other bases in-country.

Stepping down from the bus upon arrival at our temporary living quarters, or hooch, as was the common term for living quarters in South Vietnam, I was delighted by the sight of white-capped waves and the familiar rhythmic sound of surf washing onto the adjacent beach. Wow! They have nice beaches over here, just as nice as those back at Fort Walton Beach, I wistfully thought. My state of mind was probably unwilling to concede anything good about Vietnam, but the site of the pristine beach was rapidly working a change in my perception of this country. After walking inside, it was clear that we were the only occupants in the officers' quarters, as all the neatly made-up beds, side by side in straight rows, showed no evidence of recent use.

Depositing our bags on the nearest well made-up bunks, we couldn't resist taking off our boots and walking in the fine, white beach sand. We talked in somewhat disbelieving tones of voice, ironically enjoying the tranquility of a pristine beach in a country where thousands upon thousands of people had been killed over the past several years, not far from our very location. We both tried to feel at ease, and joke a little, knowing nothing about what tomorrow might bring. But we were both innately determined to perform our flying jobs well once we got our assignment(s) to combat units.

It was so unfathomable that Denny and I, within several minutes of arrival in this war-ravaged land, were immersed in such splendor on a beachfront that easily resembled any along the southwest coast of Florida. But then, I had to conduct a personal lesson in spirituality, realizing that God, or some Divine Source, created this Earth and all of its boundless beauty everywhere. It just so happens that mankind either chooses to ignore or oftentimes, to commandeer ideal parts of Earth's bounty for his own, or his culture's self-centered purposes. Just one of the anomalies of people killing each other—there is always spiritual or physical beauty to be found not far away, irrespective of man's insistence on being inhumane to other humans.

I grew to appreciate, during my year tour, that, from the many regions of South Vietnam I saw, it was a beautiful country with majestic, jungle-covered mountains, and gently sloping hills. There were always the rice paddies, striking waterfalls, placid lakes and rivers and some of the most beautiful beaches anywhere. Later on, I had several forward air control assignments which required flying my route over a certain scenic forested area, which, when translated from Vietnamese into English, was named Happy Valley. The name certainly fit that picturesque and peaceful-looking area.

I can never forget, however, the blood and guts, the killing and maiming resulting from hostile battles and skirmishes on the ground by our brave troops and also the people of Vietnam, fighting what they termed a civil war. Being an aircrew member in a war zone, especially an Air Force pilot, I felt there is the perception of being insulated from the horrific life-and-death struggles, graft, deception, and ill-advised military tactics transpiring beneath the aircraft being maneuvered in the skies above the combat area. However, this sensation of being insulated is grossly fallacious when applied to pilots of, for instance, Army medevac helicopters, LOCH pilots, or Army gunships. That is what they do—slowly descend into a shooting hell, and then find a way to escape therefrom in their efforts to save or help extend the life of their comrades or the severely wounded.

At Cam Ranh Bay, our headquarters unit was the 21st Tactical Air Support Squadron, or TASS. The mission of the 21st TASS was to provide visual reconnaissance and airborne forward air control support for US and South Vietnamese ground troops. An airborne forward air controller was known as a FAC, and the bulk of the FAC missions involved pinpointing the exact ground location for fighter-bombers to drop their bombs or napalm, and conduct strafing runs. FACs also were called on to spot artillery fire from a distant Army firing battery onto a selected target. The 21st TASS was responsible for an area of operations covering all of II Corps, a large and geographically diverse area, mostly in central South Vietnam.

By the time Denny and I arrived, in 1970, the Vietnam War had slowed considerably from its intensity and frequency of combat in the mid and late sixties. However, I could not say it was not challenging, but the perception of a continuous life-and-death struggle was not as yet in evidence, though people were being killed every day throughout South Vietnam. Many dedicated and courageous FAC pilots had served bravely and prevented huge losses of life during those early years of the war. Still, South Vietnam was like a bad dream from which one could not awaken.

The next morning, after our inauspicious arrival, Denny and I reported for our first briefing, given by the Squadron Operations Officer and an experienced FAC pilot, who explained the daily training procedures we would go through there at Cam Ranh Bay days. This flight training was to last about one week and was designed to acclimatize us to flying in the combat environment. We gained more experience in reading and interpreting the large scale (1:50) topographic charts commonly used by FAC pilots in Vietnam.

Topographic charts are designed and drafted to depict, in detail, ground relief features (the shape and form of terrain). Hills, valleys, lakes, bridges, and streams, forest coverage, populated areas, roads, and railways are shown on the charts. Lines of latitude and longitude lightly printed on the entirety of the charts. Each FAC pilot carried, in his flight bag, a collection of charts covering the specific terrain contours, in fifty-foot increments, in the Vietnamese provinces where his unit flew their assigned missions. Therefore, while flying, a FAC pilot could pull out one of the charts in his flight bag and pinpoint precisely, within five to ten feet, the location of ground troops, a landing zone, a particular tree, artillery targets, or the desired spot for placement of bombs by fighter aircraft under the FAC's direction.

In conducting an airstrike mission, the FAC verified the precise location of his target by writing down the latitude-longitude coordinates of a specific hill, clump of trees, or gully where the target was located. To be of use to a FAC pilot, both sides of each chart was laminated. This enabled the FAC to write notations on the chart, using a black grease marker, which was one of our items of standard equipment. Thus, we had a continuously changeable display of written information pertaining to a target or important tactical considerations relating to the mission. The grease marker was also used to write directly onto the pilot's side window, such as target coordinates, estimated wind speed, and type or ordinance desired on the target.

After the mission was complete, the FAC could wipe off the laminated chart and have it available for use on another airstrike mission, that same day, or at some time in the future, in the same general area. One important procedure we were taught while training at Cam Ranh Bay was, before taxiing out for takeoff, tune the aircraft radio to the appropriate US Army discrete frequency and listen carefully to reports of the lat and long coordinates for active Army artillery batteries and further, the coordinates of the target at which the battery was firing its artillery shells. Then, on your chart, draw a straight black grease line connecting these two sets of coordinates.

This black line served as a strict reminder when airborne, not to fly on a course of flight near the black grease line, being the anticipated flight trajectory of artillery shells, which could easily blow you out of the sky. I flew three or four flights at Cam Ranh with an instructor pilot in the right seat, for the purpose of becoming familiar with the O-2 aircraft, its equipment, and its white phosphorous marking rockets. The training also assisted in recognizing features of the Vietnamese terrain laying further out to the west and north of Cam Ranh Bay, and introduction to outlying fire bases and other airfields.

During our training at Cam Ranh Bay, I continued to be impressed by the beauty and serenity of the Vietnam countryside and the shoreline. On returning from training flights with my 21st TASS mentor, we would usually land on Runway 02R (oriented 020 degrees compass heading). This was a ten-thousand-foot long runway and could, at times, be quite busy. During our orientation flights at Cam Ranh, we usually entered the traffic pattern into a right downwind leg, which directly overlapped the beach area.

On one such pattern entry, flying solo, I noticed, while glancing out my cockpit window, a pair of sleek, grey sharks serenely floating below the surface near the beach. Each of those marvelously streamlined sharks I estimated to be ten to twelve feet long. Of course, there were always a few Vietnamese sampans and small fishing boats off the shore, but I think the local fishermen knew better than to frolic in the water around that area.

I regularly utilized Cam Ranh's bus system to get around during my sojourn on the base. It was a convenient and prompt means to travel back and forth from our quarters to the Officers Club, the flight operations area, the Base Exchange, and other stops. I occasionally walked short distances between buildings to get to and from the appropriate bus stop. I noticed oftentimes, when I passed Black airmen, they would salute, with a tinge of pride in their eye. Further, many of them, who I imagine felt emboldened, would also give me the clenched fist, Black Power greeting. I of course saluted and returned the greeting, because I could easily understand the predicament of many of them, and it was in many respects, like family. To not return the Black Power greeting would indicate that I was either very naïve or callously signifying that I was disinterested in understanding that significant racial problems existed wherever an African American traversed, whether civilian or military.

A couple of times during my in-and-out travels to Cam Ranh Bay, White enlisted men looked the other way and did not salute me as they passed, but I didn't feel that was a matter to seriously raise hell about. I was naïve in another respect, in that I didn't realize the extent of racial strife and disharmony within the ranks of enlisted men in the US armed forces. The Vietnam War was the first combat situation where the US military fought as integrated units. Even though the military had been declared to be integrated by President Truman's Executive Order in 1948, the Korean War was fought with predominantly segregated units.

Now, in the 1960s and 1970s, the strife of segregation and inequality in the States spilled over into Vietnam and Black combat soldiers sometimes expressed the need to fight on two fronts. They had to stand up to the discrimination within their own units, in addition to fighting the VC.

I was aware of statistics showing that, between the end of 1966 and mid-1969, 41 percent US military draftees were African American. Personnel at Cam Ranh Bay were not allowed to carry weapons on the base, except for the Air Police, or similar authorities. Supposedly, this was due to past or potential racial clashes on the base, where airmen (or sailors at the Cam Ranh Naval Base) might be tempted to use weapons against each other. When Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, some White military personnel proudly displayed Confederate flags around the Cam Ranh Bay facility.

Flags were mounted on jeeps and at other locations, and supposedly, a couple of Klan rallies took place. I don't know how accurate that information was, but I know the US military did not have the clout to prevent these occurrences because of objections expressed, back in the States, by certain southern politicians.

To me, the Confederate flag has similar status and credibility as the German swastika flag. There is no doubt that brave men, fine soldiers, fought and died under both these battle flags. Not all of them may have deeply believed in what they were fighting for, but they were true to their duty as military personnel. That's what soldiers do. Nevertheless, nothing good was inherently epitomized by either flag: the continuation of slavery, its roots being in racism, was the ultimate symbolism of one flag, and the pursuit of genocide, the ultimate form of racism, was the touchstone of the other flag.

Reflecting on occasions I spent traversing Cam Ranh Bay, I don't ever recall seeing a Black officer, other than my friend, Jake, who I didn't actually discover was at Cam Ranh Bay, until after I had been in-country about six months.

After completing our introductory in-county flight training, Denny and I were to be given our assignments. We had no idea where we were to be sent, but Denny had heard talk of a location called Landing Zone English, which, rumor had it, was an undesirable assignment, being conjoined with an Army airborne outfit. I received orders to report to the FAC unit at Phù Cát Air Base, approximately 195 miles up the coastline, north of Cam Ranh Bay. I don't recall the FAC unit Denny was initially assigned to, but for several days he had been talking excitedly about the possibility of volunteering to fly with either the Raven FACs or Air America. We lost contact with each other after finishing our indoctrination at Cam Ranh Bay.

Phù Cát Air Base was a fairly large, modern air base, about 180 miles away, just 180 miles north up the coastline from Cam Ranh Bay, and about 20 miles inland. The base operated a long, 10,000-foot concrete runway, and at the time there was at least one F-4 Fighter squadron operating out of Phù Cát. Further, a squadron of F-100 Misty FACs operated out of Phù Cát. It was almost like a stateside base, with good food at the Officer's club and air-conditioned officers' quarters. There was a small swimming pool on the base which gave airmen a chance to relax occasionally.

The FAC outfit was organized very efficiently, and upon preparing for a mission and preflighting the airplane, we always had the opportunity to check out weapons, including an AR-15 automatic rifle, if so desired. The .38-caliber pistol was the standard FAC inflight armament. Other weapons could be had by a documented check-out through the dispatching sergeant at the flightline ready room. All equipment and weapons were required to be checked back in upon return from a mission.

I eventually learned that Phù Cát was also one of the four bases in South Vietnam where significant quantities of Agent Orange chemicals were stored, prepped, and loaded aboard aircraft for the Ranch Hand defoliation missions in Southeast Asia. Ranch Hand flights were indeed operated from Phù Cát Air Base, as several C-123 cargo aircraft parked near the FAC ramp were pointed out to me one afternoon after returning from a FAC mission.

This was kind of discomforting news, and I don't believe anyone knew, during those days, the devastating long-term effects those chemicals had on both the Vietnamese population and the US servicemen working in proximity to those materials. Much of the chemicals, primarily dioxin-type chemicals, was frequently spilled on the ramp, drained away into the surrounding soil, or washed out of certain storage tanks on those C-123s. I felt sympathy for the pilots and aircrewmen who were assigned to those missions. To this day, from what I have read, much of the topography around the Phù Cát area remains hot from the Agent Orange chemicals used in the nineteen sixties.

I flew very few missions out of Phù Cát Air Base, and was stationed there less than a month. Several of the FAC O-2 missions flown out of Phù Cát were in support of the Republic of Korea (ROK) army unit which was headquartered adjacent to Phù Cát. The ROK's provided perimeter security for Phù Cát, and also conducted exploratory forays within short distances of the base. They sometimes requested close air support, which was provided by the Phù Cát FACs. The Republic of Korea was a staunch ally of the United States, and through the arrangement of general payments from the US to the South Korean government, over 330,000 South Korean troops were sent to fight in South Vietnam from 1965 to 1973. Of those 330,000 troops, over 5,000 were killed in action, while more than 10,000 were wounded.

Unfortunately, a racially focused problem developed for me after about three weeks into my tour as a FAC at Phù Cát. According to the FAC detachment commander, who held the rank of major, the commander of the ROK unit did not want a Black pilot exercising control and coordination of air strikes or artillery fire in support of the ROK outfit. The major called me in for an individual briefing one afternoon. We talked for a few minutes, and he eventually explained the circumstances to me very diplomatically.

I of course felt demeaned and was offended by this development, because I believed I could conduct my forward air control missions just as well as any other pilot. The major did not seem to be willing to go to any lengths to back me up in this situation. Evidently it was all in the lap of the South Koreans who, at this particular moment, chose to exhibit their racial bias from a different perspective, from what I could understand. The ROK's were held in high regard by the US military because of their fierce fighting spirit. However, it seemed many of the South Vietnamese people felt the South Koreans were bullies and intruders.

This situation was all very paradoxical, in consideration of the discriminatory practices allegedly conducted against Koreans by the Japanese military for decades. Moreover, over 5,000 African American military personnel were killed during their service in the Korean War in the 1950s, as they made the ultimate sacrifice to keep South Korea a free country.

Nevertheless, the major and I discussed other FAC units that may be available for my reassignment. For whatever reason, of all the in-country FAC units available, I chose Landing Zone English, home of the 173rd Airborne Division, and a detachment of FACs with the call sign Tonto. I was also thinking that my buddy, Denny, would have probably chosen that assignment, if it were available, as the 173rd had a reputation as a tough fighting unit and had been involved in many major battles in South Vietnam over the past several years.

One of the Phù Cát FAC pilots prepped an airplane and flew me the short distance northward to LZ English. I was off on another adventure. About this time, I received news somehow, that Denny had volunteered to become a Raven FAC. The Raven FACs flew many highly classified missions over Laos and who knows where else in Southeast Asia. There was a variety of propeller (usually low and slow-flying) aircraft they may have been trained to fly, participating in clandestine missions in unknown areas.

These pilots were sometimes in a state of limbo, conducting aerial missions against undesignated enemies or combatants at the highest level of security clearances, sometimes unbeknownst to high ranking generals and admirals in the chain of command. Their identities were concealed and unavailable through the normal lines of chain of command, as were their missions and tactical strategies, from what I understood. Not much was known about their missions or which segment of the US military supported them, if any. This was the kind of challenge and adrenalin-pumping flying assignment that Denny would have undoubtedly enjoyed.

3

Landing Zone English

The Phù Cát unit FAC detachment assigned a pilot to fly me to my new assignment, in one of the unit's O-2 aircraft. About a half hour after taking off from Phù Cát Air Base,