think about it. In a fair fight, one-on-one at a constant altitude, the Tomcat doesn't stand a chance.
That's why we don't fight fair. There's no glory in it, not if it means giving up tactical advantage to some Commie bastard who's listening to his GCI.
The advantage a Tomcat has is that it's a massive, powerful airframe, eight thousand pounds of metal and armament strapped onto two screaming turbofans. The F-14 can climb faster, harder, and farther than a MiG ever dreamed possible.
Great, so you grab altitude ? there's no inherent virtue in that, except for one little odd law of aerodynamics. Altitude and speed are interchangeable ? you can trade one for the other in whatever direction you're headed.
See, the Tomcat starts climbing, turning away from the MiG. The MiG has to follow ? if he doesn't, the Tomcat simply turns and comes in on his ass from behind. So the MiG starts climbing, trying to figure out exactly how far up to follow the Tomcat, making his own break for the deck just before the Tomcat can use that superior altitude to build up speed and cut back in behind him. The climbing game and trading altitudes isn't his preferred fight ? he'll try to start his break back into level flight in time to catch the Tomcat at the same altitude and force the Tomcat back into the angles fight, not letting him use his superior power and speed against the MiG.
The Tomcat driver, on the other hand, wants to be yo-yoing up and down in the sky like an idiot, forcing the MiG to bleed off airspeed and sacrifice maneuverability. Get the MiG going slowly enough and it's either an easy target or the MiG has to forget about trying to shoot you down while he concentrates on pulling some airspeed out of his ass in order to stay airborne.
The bottom line was that we knew what kind of fight we were in for, regardless of which MiG showed up on the ramp. Skeeter had had his share of experience with the -29 and I'd seen both versions in action, including an advanced prototype that the Chinese had built based on Russian designs.
The Russians had made a fairly interesting pitch for this whole contest, and I still hadn't exactly figured out what was behind it. They'd proposed four separate contests, and left the possibilities for additional training opportunities open. 'As available,' the message had said. Made me nervous ? flexibility in the Russian mind always indicates something devious afoot.
The first contest would pit a young American pilot and backseater ? that would be Skeeter and Sheila ? against a young Russian pilot.
The second would pit two more experienced aviators against each other ? veterans of the Cold War, Russia had insisted. The Navy picked me for that one, since I've probably got more stick time against Russians than any other pilot in the Fleet. Gator was a good choice as well, since he'd cut his eye-teeth fighting MiGs with Bird Dog driving.
The third would be a bombing run, probably by the younger opponents.
The final contest would be two-on-two, and of all the engagements, that was the one I was certain we would wax their asses in. American fighters are trained to fight in pairs, in a loose deuce formation. One aircraft high, keeping the big picture ? and let's not forget that altitude that he can trade instantly for speed ? and the other forward and below, sniffing out the threat and engaging first with the longer-range weapons such as Phoenix. We train in pairs, think in pairs, and win in pairs. The Russian equivalent, pairing a pilot with a GCI operator, didn't stand a chance.
There was one more contest going on, one that only a few other people knew about. It didn't involve aircraft, flying, or even airborne weapons.
It was a hell of a lot more personal ? and, of all the four missions, the least likely to succeed.
A couple of years ago, during one of the innumerable conflicts that seem to spring up around the world, I learned something that shook me to my very core. A Cuban radical told me that there was a very good chance that my father had not died on a bombing run over Vietnam. Before he left, he hinted that my father had been captured alive but seriously injured and taken to Russia for further interrogation.
Russia. The very thought of it made my blood run cold, and the careful compartmentalization I try to maintain in the cockpit started to crumble. This wasn't the time to start thinking about my father and Russia, not if I expected to be able to put on a diplomatic show of goodwill when I landed. If I found proof that he'd survived the ejection, that he'd been taken to Russia as I expected, then I'd… I'd… I'd what?
Batman had hit it on the head when he'd asked what I'd do if nothing came of this. The short answer I didn't know.
I have a few memories of my dad ? nothing very specific, just fragments of memories, more like quick snapshots than specific sequences of events.
I remember a pair of cowboy boots, my first attempts to hit a foam softball with a plastic bat, a birthday party here and there. He was gone so much during the early years, deployed with his squadron and doing what he knew was important to do for the country ? fighting the war that no one was very sure we were winning.
For thirty years plus, I've believed he died over that godforsaken land. Even though he was officially listed as MIA ? Missing In Action ? we knew he was gone. When the word finally came changing his status to KIA ? Killed In Action ? it was more a confirmation of something we'd tacitly accepted for years rather than any real change. It wasn't until I married Tomboy that I realized how very much I missed him. My uncle, Dad's brother, did what he could. A damned fine job, most of the time, filling in for his younger brother as the father figure in his only nephew's life.
Mom seemed to appreciate it. We did, too, but not to the extent that I do now.
Uncle Thomas thought I was getting suckered on this. He believed with all his heart that his younger brother died over that bridge. He tried to talk me out of this mission, but in the end, when all else had failed, he came through with the goods.
Not that it was that tough. When you're chief of naval operations and a front-line candidate for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you draw a lot of water. If once in a while you use it to do something for your family, how wrong can that be? Especially when you're making up for something the U.S. screwed up over the years.
So I'd wangled my way over to Vietnam on Jefferson and spent some time on the ground tracing my father's steps ? or at least what I thought were his steps. There'd been one clue, a scrawled saying in the cinder block wall of one prison camp Go west.
Russia. The rumors had been floating around for years that Russian military advisors had taken American POWs back to the Soviet Union for further interrogation. The moment I saw that phrase scribbled over my father's signature, I knew that was what had happened.
West ? and into the Soviet Union, in those days the most brutal regime in the world. What the Viet Cong came up with paled in comparison to the GRU and Stalin. If my father had gone into Russia, odds were he'd been brutally interrogated until they'd leeched every last bit of information they thought they could get out of him ? then shot.
Were records even kept back then? Not likely ? Stalin had executed millions simply because he could, and a full accounting of any American POWs was not only unlikely but probably impossible as well. Hell, the Russians weren't even admitting they'd ever taken any out of Vietnam ? now, in the post-glasnost era of peristroika, what incentive did they have to admit to that particular war crime?
None. None at all.
It might have ended there, but there was another piece of evidence.
Two cruises ago, a Ukrainian officer admitted to me that he knew my father in Russia. That meant there might be records ? or, at a minimum, someone who might remember him.
Not officially, of course. The party line was that none of it had ever happened. But there were more avenues of information than government agencies and press releases. I'd found some of them. In at least one instance, they'd found me, and the possibility that my own government, the one I'd faithfully served for so long in uniform, might have lied to me about my father cut deep. I didn't want to believe it of my own country.
Tracking down the truth about POWs is like being on a ship. You want the real scoop on what's going down, the latest in information and data, you don't watch the skipper's announcement on closed-circuit TV. You might ? just might, mind you, if you can get access ? head for the deepest, darkest compartments in the intelligence spaces, the ones that they call SCIF ? Specially Compartmented Information. This is the stuff you always hear called 'burn before reading,' so sensitive that the average fighter jock never even knows the capabilities exist. But even with all its esoteric magic, SCIF isn't the place for the real truth.
No, every sailor knows where to get the gouge ? MDI. Mess Deck Intelligence. Somehow the cooks and the galley slaves and the mess cooks knew the real truth about what's going on far before anyone else on the ship. MDI
