This was not always the case. When he returned to Korat in 1967, Horner served under an old-time fighter commander, Colonel, later Brigadier General, Bill Chairasell. Chairasell used his most experienced squadron commanders to lead, no matter what their rank — a practice of which Chuck Horner seriously approved.
16
Horner himself stayed on at Korat beyond 100 sorties, because he enjoyed combat. Others stayed on beyond 100 sorties because they wanted to help the unit out. But by 1967, he wasn’t aware of anyone who felt they were going to win this war. When I asked him what we could possibly have done to set up an acceptable end state, this was his answer: “Our overall strategic aim, as far as I can make out, was to devastate the North so badly that they would surrender any hopes of interfering in the South. Naive. If we had really wanted to show the North Vietnamese we were serious, we probably should have shut down Haiphong and Hanoi, invaded below Haiphong, and cut the country in half lower down. In fact (though we didn’t know it then), as it turned out, all we really had to do was befriend Ho. Seems he wasn’t part of a monolithic Communist plot, and hated the Chinese more than anyone else. Since as it turns out we really didn’t have any loyalty to the South Vietnamese people anyway, perhaps we could have brokered a deal after the French pulled out. But that is twenty-twenty hindsight on my part.”
17
The Wild Weasels amassed more medals per aircrew (pilot or his EWO) than any other unit in the war.
18
Later, White Fang was shot down over North Vietnam and stoned to death by villagers. He and his EWO, Sam Fantle, were picked up by the Army and told to run for it across a field. If they were fast enough, the Army would protect them from the villagers. Fantle was fast enough to make it across the field. But White Fang was older than the rest of the Weasels (he had been a flight officer at the end of World War II) and didn’t make it. He had a wife and son. His wife died years later from cancer.
19
Bill Kirk was a longtime fighter pilot, who is probably best known for his part in Operation Bolo: In 1967 the F-4s from Ubon tricked the North Vietnamese air force into thinking they were attacking F-105s. The F-4 wolf pack used the 105 call signs, and for the first time carried ECM pods and used radio discipline (something they were not noted for). Since the F-4s were the only friendly aircraft north of the Red River, they were allowed to use AIM-7 missiles beyond visual range, with just a radar lock on the target. As a result, they got face shots on MiG-21s out of the North Vietnamese base at Phuc Yen and shot a number of the North Vietnamese fighters before they could attack the force they
20
SAC is today called STRATCOM and it remains in the ICBM missile silos and missile subs, but it has lost its onetime clout. Though there is still a CINCSTRATCOM to execute the SIOP, no one believes the Russians and Americans will destroy the world. Meanwhile, the SAC forces were merged with TAC forces into a command called Air Combat Command, or ACC. Today, the ACC headquarters is located at Langley AFB, Virginia, where the TAC headquarters was once located, and is mostly commanded by former TAC personnel. The ICBMs themselves later came under the Commander, Air Force Space Command, since ICBM technology and space launcher technology are the same, while the strategic MFP-1 forces (nuclear missiles, boomer subs, and, when on alert, bombers) are now under the operational command of CINCSTRAT. The MFP-1 air defense forces are all now in the Air National Guard and come under CINCNORAD (one of Chuck Horner’s last jobs on active duty) when on alert.
21
Suter died in 1997, but not before he was told that the Red Flag Complex at Nellis would be named in his honor.
22
Called “The Grr,” and the father of “Little Grr,” Horner’s aide in 1990 when he was himself Ninth Air Force Commander.
23
The following discussion very closely follows Bill Creech’s analysis in his excellent book,
24
In fact, the situation changed dramatically between the time of the briefings and when the war became a reality. The greatest benefit of the Camp David briefings was to reassure the President that his military leaders were capable of reasonable planning and thinking. As it turned out, none of what Schwarzkopf and Horner briefed at Camp David came about: the Iraqis didn’t come into Saudi Arabia in any significant way, the forces available to Schwarzkopf, both on the ground and in the air, increased significantly, and the battlefield in January and February of 1991 was far different from the battlefield they might have fought on in August 1990.
