THERE IS A WAY

[Music] who belongs to this one point that's one four eight don't kick my first half okay now we'll take your first [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] in the valley heating uh i'm just crossing the river now uh steel red river come over here just a little bit get a little action right below me seeing if we get too close to the turnpoint right now going into five three and one we got a buggy lowest two [Applause] wow [Music] loud and clear detroit we got legs right under us right [Music] under [Music] right [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] what's going on up here by yourself [Music] [Applause] [Music] pull up about 10 degrees and try to punch well let me see get me lined up okay keep turning left okay he's strong all right he's gonna get strong in a minute okay [Music] this is [Music] looks [Music] is of the mission and will bring [Music] [Music] so [Music] down [Music] oh [Music] [Music] so all right no way mr magoo there are three of them they're shooting at us too well they sit right up on that hill right from the left side of the right if you flash to the top of that [Music] you know you just take that hill on your left right there and hit that one all right so oh there's another one everybody wants to hit a good target that's right but so a guy walks in he says well i just got here uh put me on that you know and the guy says look i've been up there six times and haven't hit that because there's nothing to hit now i got a chance to hit how about let me go and who's going to win the argument you know you got to get my shot at me well that's right we've been very successful here and taking pilots from sac abc train command as long as they go through one of the tactical schools and uh while the 105 schools attack air command back in the states and receive roughly 70 hours and 105 they do a good job here yes of course we don't start them out as flight leaders they start either the number two or four position and they set their own rate of progress well how to feel yeah it's quite a flight yeah well after not fine for a couple months y'all feel good ed can we talk about a little bit sure did you understand what we were trying to do when he was doing the wrecking how he was going back and forth on the road and i was standing inside that wasn't really what i was saying you said uh oh you mean when i was uh yeah when you were wrecking the road yeah i was flying i was trying to play away we started like this one yeah well who was leading no you just press on i'll stay away from you there's no problem but you see the position that that you want you don't want to get down like this because you're getting the flag you stay up like this and then when he disappears just let it go high on then when he reverses he can look out see every time you look out and you look right down there and see your wingman that's what you want to do when you go to the outside you don't want to get too high because if he turns into you that's what happened to me that one yeah because he turned into me and i was high and i got no place to go don't get too high and don't get too low you get too low if they shoot it at him and you're lower they'll probably hit you and by the same time if you get too high if he turns into just like that says you get it blocked out i told you how complicated the weapon system is so that it only can be effectively uh operated and utilized against the enemy by two professionals and our pilots are professional pilots we have we do have a few youngsters right out of the training school but most of uh our pilots have been in the air force 10 to 12 years or longer and in fact we have some grandfathers here that are fighting this war the rendezvous at 13 15. but we'll have enough fuel after leaving that tank to make three or four runs alright my best day was uh the fifth of july when uh i attacked and destroyed four sam sites in one 25-minute mission and this came about because uh in the escorting the strike flights two sam sites came up on our way in we had to attack these boys to turn them off the air to get into the target area while in the target area another sam site came up threatening to strike for us and of course we attacked and got him and then on the way back out another sam site came up to block our exit out of the target area which was about 15 to 20 miles north of hanoi and we only had one part of rockets and 20 millimeter cannon ammunition remaining but he fired two sams at us and we managed to acquire him visually and put the rockets on him and machine gun him out of commission this was the best day i've had and i don't care to go through another one of those a little too much for an old man there ain't no way i'll come up with one thing that in my own mind makes the air force a good organization and was one of the reasons i stayed in it after i got into fighters and that's the people that are in it and i think this has been most vividly demonstrated to me over here the uh i don't think you can get more diversified type of an organization people diversified backgrounds we have some old heads from korea some uh young heads from the academy and we got the world's greatest b-52 fighter pilot over there bob loken a few other people from sac adc and 12th air force headquarters and things like that and we made a pretty good organization i think we kind of put the squadron if we could tell it to the world we put it on the map and i'm very happy to have served with each and every one of you troops so if i could if i can swing a deal to get down south with working 100s or f5s or a1s or geez i don't care as long as it's close air support if i can swing that i'm gonna just try to go or maybe back to state's tv wide upgrade and down there if not i'll stick around and fly an o1 or an a1 i'd check you out right up north you know you have thoughts that you might not make that oh no yeah but uh i've been drawing pay for 16 years it's my job as of right now i've got three children i've got a six-year-old boy and a 11 year old girl and a 17 year old girl so just watching kids grow up and so forth i don't care if they're north vietnamese kids or south or or what have you i i have no desire to go bomb villages and kill women and children at all i've been very careful not to do that sort of thing i'm very careful i think most of the pilots in the squadron are very careful where they put their bombs so that they don't accidentally uh hit women and children this sort of thing how you feel i think bill's right uh i don't know of anyone that's just going to go over and drop a bomb in a village because that's not doing anything for the war effort we want to get to get the targets of military importance well it was on the on the 13th of september we were flying a buying mission north vietnam we just discovered a bunch of missiles on transporters just finished dropping ordinance on them we're looking for something to strafe and find a flag site and was getting started to make a pass and i took a direct hit for me the 37-57 called i was hit leaving the area they didn't hear my radio transmission because number four man thought it was a missile called me out as a sam and the number three man said no that's two he's on fire i got about a minute and 10 or 20 seconds flying time out of the aircraft got about 40 miles away from where i was hit and i had a minor explosion lost hydraulic pressure the aircraft pitched down and i ejected in an almost uncontrolled situation about 5 25 550 knots two negative keys that's when i hurt my ankle caught my foot the ejection process getting out everything else was uneventful after the shoot opened down landed in the trees got my radio out talked back to the flight and they said the rescue aircraft was on the way and it took him about 45 or 50 minutes to get to me in about five or six minutes to pick me up well that's a good you know you get up in the 90s and you got 10 to go and you say well i'm going home pretty soon so i got to tell these guys something so you go lay in bed at night and you think of things to tell them and it runs up uh incidentally i have a three-hour speech prepared forget it [Laughter] something i'm damn proud to have besides working with all you guys and with your names here i don't really need this picture frame with [Laughter] i'm gonna remember you guys but uh no i remember you because those are the guys you remember the guys you fought with [Music] [Music] this has been the story of fighter bomber pilots at karate air base thailand for the flyer living the hell over hanoi facing up to the odds there is the simple yet poignant phrase there ain't no way there ain't no way there ain't no way but there comes the day for most when the job is done i won't even say to the rest of the guys no there's no way there is a way major d is scheduling there's a window oh boy there is a way there is [Music] huh [Music] number one so come sit by my side at the briefing and together we'll pickle the bees then we'll head for the red river valley and today i'll be flying you