I was born in January of 1965. At the time my Dad was the command pilot of a nuclear armed B-52 Bomber stationed at Loring Air Force Base in the northern tip of Maine. The Cuban Missile Crisis had ended a little over two years before. The Gulf of Tomkin Resolution allowing President Johnson broad authority to increase our military presense in Vietnam was less than 6 months old. It was the height of the Cold War between the United States and NATO, on one side, and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, on the other. My Dad’s mission, as I understand it, was to be ever ready to strike a retalitary blow if the United States was ever attacked by the Soviet Union, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, or mutually assured destruction.
Despite the fact my Dad had nine kids at home or school he volunteered to be a fighter pilot in Vietnam. He was not accepted. Instead, after training with the M-16, he went to Vietnam as a member of MACV, the Military Assistance Command-Vietnam. He wasn’t in a combat role, instead going to large gatherings of other officers with General Westmoreland, but he was stationed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive.
After retiring in the early 1970’s at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, my Dad spent much of his time writing about military subjects, particularly his own experiences in World War II and the Korean War. He also worked tirelessly for the Retired Officers and the Air Force Association.
My Dad and I did not have the best relationship during his lifetime although we grew a bit closer in the years before his death in 1998. I was very critical of him, most of it in hindsight being very unfair. Now, I reflect upon a few stories from my Dad and share them with my own children, the first two stories which he himself wrote about and the third I witnessed. The stories are not outwardly profound or historically noteworthy, but they gave me an insight into my Dad and what it really means to be a person of authority with integrity.
Authority is not a privilege, but a responsibility.
My Dad volunteered for military service soon after the United States entered World War II. After much training, he was eventually commissioned an officer and given command of a B-24 Bomber and stationed at a small Indonesian island named Moratai. The B-24 had a crew of 10. The highest authority on the crew was the pilot, followed by the co-pilot. At the bottom of the crew were the gunners, of which there were at least 4, all enlisted men. As a pilot, my Dad was an officer and the leader of the crew. He had the ultimate responsibility for making sure his B-24 was ready to fly and fulfill its mission.
In the military, an officer has authority over enlisted men. If an officer gives an enlisted man, or even a junior officer, an order, the enlisted man is expected to follow the order. An officer has authority, particularly over those he is directly over. One can well see that in order for my Dad’s crew to achieve its mission, the crew has to be unified in purpose and work together. A plane can’t take off at multiple times, in multiple directions, and there’s no time for debate and concensus in battle. Without a chain of command, the crew would inevitably fail in its mission. The crew of a B-24 was a team, each member crucial to the ultimate success of the mission.
One day my Dad and his crew were walking and my Dad could hear an argument going on between members of his crew. Another officer had asked one of the enlisted men to carry his bag, and the enlisted man refused. My Dad’s response was to tell the other officer to carry his own bag. Authority is not a privilege, but a responsibility.
A little man in a loincloth.
My Dad wrote about a more poignant experience which took place during a combat mission over the islands of the South Pacific. The islands in the area had been overtaken and conguered by the Japanese Imperial Army from the native peoples. The Japanese forces were scattered throughout the islands in small groups. There mission was to spot planes when they flew over, such as my Dad’s, to radio back to potential targets to alert them. Because of this, my Dad’s crew was given orders to basically kill anyone they see near these islands, based on the assumption that they would be Japanese soldiers.
On one mission, someone on my Dad’s B-24 spotted something in the water. My Dad then gave the orders to the gunners to be ready to open fire on my Dad’s command as he circled the plane around to get a closer look. When he flew back around he saw a little boat which had just taken its sail down and a single little man sitting in the boat wearing only a loincloth. My Dad realized at that moment that he had no way of knowing whether the little man was a Japanese soldier or one of the native peoples conquered by the Japanese. He had no way of knowing whether he would be killing an innocent man, or an innocent man’s conguereor. My Dad would never say whether or not he ordered his gunners to open fire with the planes’ .50 caliber M-2 Browning machine guns and kill that little man in the loincloth.
Fight for freedom, not flags.
My final story took place many years later, after my Dad had already retired from his military service. My parents and I, and sometimes other siblings, would go to Case Western Reserve’s Strosacker Auditorium to watch free movies most Sunday afternoons. The school’s film society would each semester show a series of movies around a particular theme. The first theme I remember seeing were the films of Alfred Hitchcock. One of the later series were films about the Vietnam War. I remember seeing John Wayne in “The Green Berets,” but also Robert De Niro in “The Deer Hunter” and Jane Fonda and Jon Voight in “Coming Home.” One movie, a documentary that I can’t remember the name or find on Google, featured a picture of Jane Fonda sitting on top of a Communist North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in 1972, towards the end of American involvement in the war.
After the documentary ended, and I don’t know if this was planned or impromptu, there was a short address of sorts. The audience to the documentary was told by someone setting in the front of the unparralled crimes of the American Imperialists, the devastation to human freedom wrought by capitalism, and the unbridled blood thirst of the US military. My Dad just stood up in his seat, alone, and pointed out that in America the speaker was free to say such things and free to hold such views, which was not the case for the people under the thumb of Marxism. My Dad had the courage of his convictions. I didn’t appreciate his example then as a fairly left-leaning teenager, but I do now.
On that theme, when the whole flag burning debate was swirling around 1989 I asked my Dad about his thoughts. He said he never fought to protect the flag, but fought to protect the principles and freedoms enshrined in the United States Constitution. The flag was a symbol. The real key to American greatness wasn’t the flag but freedom of speech, freedom of association and assembly, freedom to own property, and on and on. Those principles were worth fighting for, not flags and symbols.
My Dad had wisdom earned in struggle and service. He was not a perfect man, and would never claim to have been, but he set an example in so many ways worth emulating.