Rivet Ball
In the early hours of January 13th, 1969 I was forced to accept something that I had known for a while, but had pushed to the back of my mind: I was mortal and was going to die.
This was the first of several incidents when my chance of survival was a good deal less than 1 in 2. This wasn’t the scariest, but it was the first, and following on the heels of the terrible events of 1968, it had the biggest impact.
In the end the only “death” was an airplane, Rivet Ball, the Air Force’s only RC-135S. The military version of the Boeing 707, the fuselage broke in half, like an eggshell, on impact. A very talented pilot, John Achor, the aircraft commander, was responsible for that miracle.
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8 comments
Every time you post this, it reminds me of my close escapes whilst serving. This time, I was trying do decide which was the worst & why. I found it difficult to decide. The first was bad because it was the first & all hell broke loose in a major firefight. I wasn’t injured, but we lost our Captain &several others were injured. The worst part I think was the uncertainty about many things. Suddenly, I was senior rank, so it was all up to me. It was I think (in hindsight) worse than when I did get hit and almost bled out. Suddenly being responsible for a half dozen lives in a hellzone was pretty scary. When one is only responsible for oneself, everything seems much easier. Probably why I preferred the 1 or 2 man missions.
Anyway, as always my friend… Really glad you made it! Cheers from someone who understands. 🙂
I was only officially responsible for 4 people, but I checked on another 4 because they exited the aircraft over the wing instead of out the rear door. They were EOWs (Electronic Warfare Officers) and weren’t considered very adult.
When you are in charge you feel every wound and are responsible for every screw up – it sucks.
You get it, I knew you would. 🙂
That first firefite happened within a month of arriving in Cambodia. My team shouldn’t have even been there! We were tasked as scouts, but that wasn’t our mission, even though we were trained & skilled scouts. Our mission was covert intel collection & target elimination, period! Typical UN tasking screwup.
I was a relative newbie when it all hit the fan. A couple years later, I would have handled it all better. Nothing matches experience.
There is no way of really learning how to fight in a jungle without fighting in a jungle. Jungle survival and other training can’t be real enough because your brain knows that they aren’t going to kill you.
You have to react without thinking and the only way to accomplish that is by doing it for real.
Just reading about what you guys went through is terrifying enough for me. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like.
I had a great uncle who was in World War II. He didn’t talk about his experience until many years later. Strangely, he opened up to my brother and me one day when we inquired about what it had been like for him (to the shock of the other family members – they had never heard him talk about it before). He crashed in a glider (twice), was at the Battle of the Bulge (in snow up to his waist), and earned two purple hearts for his trouble. It sent chills down my spine to hear the story.
You guys are amazing.
It takes a while to calm down and have the sharp edges worn off, before you are ready to bring up things. There are some things you will never talk about, the time is never right.
A family friend and my Mother’s brother were at the Bulge and they never talked about it. The friend was a cook and my uncle was in a scout tank with Patton. Something you never forget, but don’t want to remember.
“It takes a while to calm down and have the sharp edges worn off…”
Yes, I can see the truth in that. My uncle was one of the most gentle and kind people that I ever knew. It was just hard to imagine the things he had to do and how it probably affected him.
People came home from WWII on ships and had time to decompress in a safe and known environment. Beginning with Vietnam soldier were dumped back into the civilian world 48 hours after leaving the battlefield. That was not good, and, I believe, part of the high incidence of PTSD and suicides in the current military.