Above the Reich by Colin Heaton & Anne-Marie Lewis

Author:Colin Heaton & Anne-Marie Lewis [Heaton, Colin & Lewis, Anne-Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

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Then I sort of became a victim of my own success. I was informed that I was being groomed for a desk job as assistant division commander, which might involve a belated promotion. Despite the possibility of a star, I was not jumping at it, I can tell you. I had a good thing going on, and it was a wild ride, and I did not want to get off.

I managed to stay in theater and fly more missions, and I was always amazed at just how heavy the antiaircraft defenses were over North Vietnam. Uncle Ho spent a lot of money on that, and I always wondered why we were never allowed to strike the damned source of all that shit. I guess “Strange” and his boys were too busy trying to make more money in the defense industry.* He was another prick I hoped to meet in the back of a very dark bar in a shitty part of town one night. And I was not alone.

Instead of hitting the source of our misery, like airfields and factories, we were given targets like ammo and fuel depots, hitting the Ho Chi Minh Trail for vehicle traffic, and dropping ordnance on a monkey fuckfest somewhere. I was not alone in my disdain for our idiots in charge back in Washington. All of us knew where the high-value targets were and what they were. All of us burned in frustration, especially when you saw an American aircraft blow up from a SAM hit, knowing that we could have neutralized the fucking thing long ago if people just got their heads out of their asses.

One of our postmission requirements once we went through SAM and flak hell was to have another pilot do a look over: flying under and around your bird to check you out and ensure that you did not have any damage that you were unaware of. Holes, leaking fluid, or undropped ordnance would be a red flag, requiring decision-making from that point forward. We all did that to make it safer upon return to base. Sometimes you could have damage that your instruments did not reflect, because sometimes the avionics got shaken up.

On top of all that bullshit from the morons in three-piece suits, I had to deal with a bunch of replacement pilots. Hardly any of them were fighter pilots, and very few had any combat experience or were even trained in the F-4 when it was a fully loaded warbird. I could not believe the guys they were sending. Nothing against them, it was just that I was in a hot war, and I needed guys ready to go. I would lose valuable combat time and more wear and tear on my already weary fighters having to run a training school. But I got lucky: these boys learned fast and were dedicated to the task, so my initial disdain was unwarranted.

Then, adding to all that mountain of bullshit, I had a really pissed-off wife who wanted a divorce.

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