The Catapult Into War: An Aviator’s <i> Deja Vu </i> : Nothing’s changed since ‘67: Combat is just a job; politicians call the shots. And few of us question what the sacrifice is for.
It seems almost as real today as it was on that October morning in 1967. The band on the pier was playing “Anchors Aweigh” and slowly, my bride of three months was becoming harder and harder to distinguish in the waving, weeping crowd of wives and children. Leaning out over the catwalk of that giant aircraft carrier, I, too, fought away tears as I considered that I was on my way to a war.
There was a clear battle already going on within me. On one hand, I was a warrior--a naval aviator. I had volunteered, it was my job. I really hadn’t gotten into it to be a warrior. I was just doing my duty--making the contribution that I had decided the country required of me. One of my brothers tells me that when he called to express his sympathy upon hearing that I was going to Vietnam, I responded, “Hey, you do what you have to do, it’s no big deal.” I don’t remember saying it, but I probably did.
Sure, I was a pro--well trained and good at what I did--but unlike the Marines and fighter jocks, I wasn’t itching for a fight. When the fighter squadron commander began his briefing for a training strike on an outlying Hawaiian island (our simulated Vietnam) by saying, “It will be good to be back over Hanoi,” I said to myself, “That guy’s weird. Not for me, it won’t.”
On the other hand, I was leaving the one I held dearest (I could hardly see her now) and there was a cold hole in my gut as I wondered what lay ahead on the other side of the world.
Scores of combat missions later, I’d still sit on the end of the catapult, awaiting the inevitable amusement-park shot into the sky, wondering if this was the one I wouldn’t return from (or worse, get captured on)--but it was a kind of intellectual soliloquy. No big problem, I was just doing my job.
It was all right until my friend Mike Dunn got shot down. We searched the black South China Sea for signs of him that night. Perhaps, we thought, his airplane was badly damaged but got him back to the ocean and he ejected. But there were no signs.
I had been checking the daily classified message board every day. It was interesting reading--a whole new perspective on what was going on. Each day I could see what our commanders wanted to hit--significant targets that had the possibility of really damaging the enemy and ending this thing. But their requests were systematically denied by our political leaders in Washington. So we sent our crews in $4.5-million aircraft out into the night to hunt for $3,000 trucks. It was hard to find the trucks, but too often the North Vietnamese missile and anti-aircraft shooters fared better at finding our airplanes.
It didn’t seem right. It went against the grain of what I understood America stood for: We valued people. Human life was important. But here the “leaders” were depreciating our lives. We were pawns in a political game. We were being used to try to achieve fuzzy and elusive political goals framed by politicians who saw us as tools--kind of like hammers and screwdrivers. There was no achievable plan--no thought-out strategy. No one stood up to the plate and decided we were either going to win in a hurry or get out. Soldiers, sailors and airmen were, in a real sense, discounted--used.
Suddenly, that feeling’s back.
When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, it was clear we had a really bad actor here--a ruthless man who personally killed generals who had questioned military tactics that would lead to large losses of men. He is a menace of much greater proportions than some crazy holed up in a building with an assault rifle--someone we would quickly try to eliminate. We really must rid the world of such people--especially when they are trying to develop nuclear and biological weapons (to use along with chemical ones) in the most potentially explosive corner of the Earth.
But what are our goals, and can they be achieved by starting a war? Have our political leaders thought out all of the scenarios that would come out of this little affair? Both my Jewish and Arab friends are using words like Armageddon to describe possible endings to this conflict. Are we simply shipping huge amounts of men and supplies, and beginning to talk about a multi-year presence in the Middle East and hoping that one way or another we will get out of this thing all right? Why does our President keep raising the rhetoric and walking out on a limb that it will be hard to back off of. Have he and his advisers not read Sun Tzu and Caesar, two of the greatest military strategists of all time? If so, where is the bridge--the face-saving “out”--that lets Hussein back down and not fight? Are we forcing him into a corner and giving him a reason to encourage Israel to enter the fray? What is the “American way of life” we are about to fight over? It’s not about paying 50 cents a gallon more at the pump, is it?
The questions are the same as those I asked about Vietnam. Only the time, location and risks are different.
I had forgotten my feelings about Vietnam. But the other night my son called from Ft. Benning and said it was OK if he was shipped to Saudi Arabia, “ because it’s my job, Dad.” And then I remembered.