The Fighting American

(See Cover)

Streaking in like vengeful lightning bolts, the F-105 Thunderchiefs loosed their bombs, rockets and cannon fire on a North Viet Nam highway bridge, sent it crashing into a gorge. Speeding southeastward, they knocked out another bridge leading to Laos and long used by the Communists to send troops and supplies into South Viet Nam. With fuel and ordnance still to spare, the Thunderchiefs swung back north, destroyed a key railroad bridge in North Viet Nam. Only then did the pilots of the U.S. Air Force's 67th ("Fighting Cock") Tactical Fighter Squadron follow their leader, Lieut. Colonel James Robinson Risner, back to their base at Danang.

Last week, day after day, in unremitting, round-the-clock attacks, scores of U.S. airmen carried out such missions, both north and south of the 17th parallel. Rumors of peace talks still wafted from capital to capital. In the U.S., professors at Harvard, Syracuse and Western Reserve universities held all-night "teach-ins," protesting U.S. policies in Viet Nam. Near week's end some 12,000 students staged a peace march in Washington. But in Viet Nam, the U.S. inexorably intensified its war effort, both in the air and on the ground.

In steadily increasing numbers, the U.S. sent men to South Viet Nam. By last week, with the arrival of 1,400 marines who waded ashore near Danang in drizzling rain, there were 33,200 American military men in South Viet Nam itself. In addition, some 27,000 Navymen were on warships patrolling Vietnamese waters.

Quality, Not Quantity. But the U.S. effort in Viet Nam must be measured in terms of quality, not quantity. The American serviceman in Viet Nam is probably the most proficient the nation has ever produced. For example, Admiral Thomas Moorer, until recently U.S. Commander in Chief Pacific, now Commander in Chief Atlantic, says of the carrier pilots who flew for him in strikes against North Viet Nam: "They are the most professional who have ever flown for the Navy, including those in World War II and Korea. There is no question about it."

Viet Nam is no place for the 90-day wonder or the left-footed recruit. It is a place for the career man, the highly trained specialist. Because of this, the U.S. force in Viet Nam is top-heavy with officers; of 15,200 Army personnel, about 5,000 are commissioned.

To many such men, fighting is a profession, not a training-manual exercise. They are in Viet Nam not because they have to be, but because they want to be --after all, that is where the fighting is. Thousands who could by now be back home are serving voluntary second and third tours of duty in Viet Nam. They have had hard going, but almost to a man they believe that the Vietnamese war can be won--if only their efforts are not undercut on the home front.

Perfecting His Skills. In most previous U.S. wars, Thunderchief Squadron Leader "Robbie" Risner would have been an exception, not a rule. The commander of the Fighting Cocks is no spring chicken. At 40, he still bears scars from his teen-age days as a rodeo rider in Oklahoma, where he grew up. He has been flying combat aircraft for 22 years. He was a Korean War ace--with eight MIGs to his credit. His left eye is permanently bloodshot as a result of zooming so close to a MIG kill in Korea that the ejecting Communist pilot struck Risner's canopy, shattering glass throughout the cockpit. But Risner insists that "my eyesight is perfect"--and both the medics and his flying record back him up.

Last January, as leader of the Fighting Cocks, Risner was transferred to Danang from Okinawa, where his wife Kathleen, an ex-Army nurse, and their five sons still live. Since then, he has led 18 missions against North Viet Nam--including three last week. His $2,500,000 Thunderchief fighter-bomber is a remarkable instrument of warfare. It can carry twelve 750-lb. bombs or eight pods of 19 rockets each, and has a six-barrel, 20-mm. cannon that can fire 4,000 rounds per minute. Loaded, it weighs 48,400 Ibs., and its top speed exceeds 1,660 m.p.h. Its cockpit is a bewildering jungle of more than 75 switches, toggles and levers.

To use such equipment successfully requires the highest degree of human ingenuity and precision, and despite all his experience, Risner spends most of his waking hours perfecting his skills. "You never get good enough," he says. "A complacent pilot gets killed."

"What I Had Been Taught." Only a few weeks ago, Risner almost got killed. But his professionalism saved him. He now describes the experience with almost clinical detachment: "The target that day was a radar station in North Viet Nam. I was janking [changing altitude and direction continuously] when I got hit by ground fire. They got me four feet behind the cockpit, in the engine. I had to make a 180DEG turn to get out over the sea. When I got to the coastline, I figured I was safe. But in the water was an enemy gunboat, so I had to keep on going. Suddenly the plane flipped over and I was flying upside down. I flew about three-fourths of a mile that way. Then I reached down and pulled the seat handles, which flipped off the canopy. Then I groped until I found the ejection handles. I was still pulling them when the butt-snapper --that's a canvas that snaps taut and flips you clear--under my seat propelled me out into the air. Three swift jolts, and I was floating down in my parachute. Since I had nothing else to do, I went through the procedure I'd been taught over and over again.

"I inflated my Mae West and released my rubber dinghy about 25 ft. from the water. As my feet touched the water, I dumped one side of the parachute. My head barely went under the water. Surfacing, I found my dinghy only three strokes away. Ten seconds after touching down I was in the dinghy. Fifty seconds later I had ripped open my survival kit, set the squawk-radio beam going, activated my 11-h.p. radio and called Thunderbird Two. The first thing I asked him was whether he had sunk that gunboat. He said he had cut it in two with his 20-mm. cannon. Then I asked if Old Dumbo [a rescue seaplane] was coming, and he said right away. The Dumbo landed a few minutes later and picked me up."

He summed up the experience: "I simply did as I had been taught to do."

Was he afraid? Not so that you could notice it. "Fear," says Risner, "is a luxury one can't afford." Anyhow, he has faith. "I believe in God. I'm already at peace with myself. If death comes, I only hope that it comes quickly and that I won't be sorry."

It is unlikely he has any sorrow about how he has lived his life. For Robbie Risner considers himself "the luckiest man in the world to be doing what I'm doing."

Like almost every other American combatant in Viet Nam, Risner feels strongly that most American citizens fail to understand the nature of the war -- and the extent of the U.S. effort. He would be the first to agree with Admiral Moorer's statement that "this war is being fought by a very few dedicated, hard-working people in a peace time atmosphere." On the ground, at sea and in the air, those dedicated people daily risk the ultimate sacrifice (see casualty box, p. 25). In the experiences and attitudes of a few can be told the story of most.

The Adviser

MAJOR LANE ROGERS, 36, a lean, dry-humored U.S. Marine Corps regular, has been in Viet Nam for 10 1/2 months as adviser to a Vietnamese marine batallion. He has no command capacity whatever. All he can do os offer suggestions when and if they are solicited by his Vietnamese "counterpart." To perform effectively, the adviser must earn the trust and friendship of his Vietnamese opposite number-- a process that often takes weeks, and sometimes is never achieved. Whenever an American adviser tries to force his views on a Vietnamese commander, he is in for trouble. Thus one overzealous adviser was told by a Vietnamese commander who never spoke to him thereafter, "Just remember, you are an adviser--and nothing else."

On his first operation, in the Mekong Delta, Major Rogers rolled out of hammock at 3:30 a.m., marched all day under a brain-beating sun, through paddyfields and up to his armpits in irrigation ditches, ready to give instant advice. The Vietnamese commander barely spoke to him. That night, after washing out his muddy clothes in a canal, Rogers sat patiently waiting to be consulted -- but neither offering advice nor being invited to give it.

Next day, as the march continued, Rogers tagged at the heels of the Vietnamese commander. Finally the unit ran into Viet Cong fire while moving along a river bank. Then Rogers' counterpart turned to him with a question: "What about some air?" Rogers agreed, and while his counterpart radioed for Vietnamese-flown Skyraiders, Rogers called in American-flown helicopters. "Then," recalls Rogers, "I asked the commander which he wanted to carry out the strike. He said both, and I had to explain that you couldn't have Skyraiders and choppers going in over the target at the same time. It was a real Mickey Mouse [the linguistic equivalent of World War II's snafu], but we got it all straightened out, and the choppers went in first."

Rogers worked with that same commander for weeks without really gaining his confidence. Finally, Rogers recalls, "there was a Viet Cong sniper who seemed to nip away at us every evening after supper. I used to sneak down to a dike just behind him and try to catch him. Then I went to Saigon for a couple of days. When I got back, I noticed my counterpart grinning widely. That evening he told me that that V. C. wasn't going 'Bang! Bang!' any more. He had shot him during my absence. He showed me the brand-new Russian carbine he had taken off the sniper. I had it chromed and polished in Saigon and presented it to him. That's when we first became really close friends."

Last week Rogers was in action with his Vietnamese unit near Danang. But he will soon be going home to Sumneytown, Pa., and he will be sorry to leave. "These Vietnamese are brave people," he says. "You go out on operation and -- well -- maybe things aren't done quite the way you want them to be. But then, in the middle of a battle, one of these little characters comes grinning up to you and hands you a hot cup of coffee."

The Skunk Hunter

WARRANT OFFICER CHRISTOPHER G. HUNT, 21, of San Jose, Calif., an Army helicopter pilot, currently operates out of Saigon airport, flying either a UH-1B "Huey," which staggers into the air carrying 6,000 rounds of machinegun ammunition and 14 rockets, or a "Hawg," a version of the Huey, which packs 48 rockets. Since last September, when Hunt arrived in Viet Nam, his outfit, the 197th Aviation Company, has suffered eight dead--out of a total complement of 160 officers and men.

Hunt's biggest moment came two weeks ago, when he led a "skunk hunt" for a suspected Viet Cong supply depot about 60 miles northwest of Saigon. "We were lucky," says Hunt. "One of our guys just happened to come in at a proper angle, and he caught a glimpse of something under the trees. He drew fire, so we all went to have a look." It was quite a look: the area was alive with Viet Cong. Hunt and his outfit marked the targets with smoke rockets and called in Vietnamese and American planes, which destroyed 21 Viet Cong trucks, five large ammunition dumps, 43 Communist-occupied houses, and an estimated 2,000 tons of rice--"enough to feed 25,000 guerrillas for a year."

The Builder

CAPTAIN RICHARD C. LEE, 35, a stocky, crew-cut blond from Excelsior, Minn., serves as adviser to a South Vietnamese Air Force squadron at Bienhoa Airbase. He likes to fly combat missions, and occasionally he gets a chance. Three weeks ago, at the controls of an A-1H Skyraider, he accompanied Vietnamese planes on a strike against North Viet Nam; last week Lee took part in a raid against a Viet Cong installation.

But much as he enjoyed them, these were distractions from his primary assignment: helping train South Vietnamese pilots. That job gives him a real sense of accomplishment. Says he: "Not since the days of Spaatz has anyone as low-ranking as a captain been able to play an important part in building a whole air force from the ground up. It's a great job, and I was lucky enough to draw it. When you consider that it was only a few years ago that the entire Vietnamese air force consisted of 20 ancient Bearcats and a couple of A-1s, they've come a remarkably long way in an awful hurry."

Before too long, Lee's tour of duty will end, and he will be free to leave Viet Nam and return to his wife and three daughters. But, he says, "I'd stay on for five years if the people here wanted me to." As he sees it, "We can't afford to lose another one like we lost Korea."

The Unblooded

CORPORAL GERALD NECAISE, 20, of New Orleans, is a squad leader in the 8,400-man 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, most of which is assigned to help protect the Danang airfield. The marines are perhaps the most frustrated outfit in South Viet Nam: eager for battle, they are restricted to patrolling the Danang perimeter, and so far they have not been blooded. Last week, returning from an uneventful patrol, Necaise expressed his impatience. "Look at it this way," he said. "If you're in the engineers, you train to build roads and you get a chance to build roads. If you're in communications, you train to communicate and you get a chance to communicate. When you're a rifleman, you train to kill, but . . ." At that point he disgustedly waved a hand toward the quiet hills surrounding Danang.

The marines spend much of their time filling sandbags for bunkers. The heat is oppressive, the mosquitoes abundant. The only place to go on liberty is Danang, a dreary city with a 10 p.m. curfew and varieties of venereal disease for which U.S. medical science has not yet come up with a cure.

The Truck Bluffer

15T LIEUT. JOHN G. DODSON, 25, from El Paso, Texas, is an RF8 Marine photo-reconnaissance pilot on the carrier Coral Sea. His maintenance crew proudly records each of his missions by painting a small camera on the side of his jet. As of last week there were twelve cameras in a row -- and a little yellow truck.

Dodson's plane is unarmed. How, then, did he manage to chalk a Communist truck up to his credit? One day recently, while photographing the results of a bomb strike near Vinh, Dodson was flat-hatting along Highway 1, only 100 ft. off the deck, at 500 m.p.h.

From the opposite direction came a North Vietnamese truck. The driver obviously did not know that Dodson shot only film. Recalls Dodson: "As we raced toward each other, I could see the front end of the truck beginning to skid and zigzag as the driver tried to halt.

I bore down on him a little harder, and the driver jumped out one way and the truck went off the road and down a hillside the other way."

So far as is known, Dodson is the world's only photo-recon pilot to put an enemy truck out of action.

The Head-Hunted

MAJOR JOSEPH BRADLEY, 35, of Nashville, Tenn., married, father of two daughters and a son, an Army veteran of 17 years, heads a five-man American team at the district capital of Tuyphuoc in northern Binh Dinh province. The town, a single street of shabby shops, thatch-roofed houses and a Catholic church, is an island among Communist-controlled sugar cane and rice fields. All roads leading out are controlled by the Viet Cong. A pudgy man who peers mildly from behind grey-rimmed glasses, Bradley is supposed to advise the district chief on military and civilian matters. Says he: "The less pacified my area becomes, the more military my advice becomes." To defend Tuyphuoc, Bradley has one American captain, four noncoms, and a handful of Vietnamese Civil Guardsmen and ill-trained Popular Forces. The communists obviously think he has done a good job. Bradley has been ambushed six times, and the Viet Cong have a 40,000 piaster (nearly $500) price on his head--dead or alive.

The Fac

MAJOR WILLIAM W. MCALLISTER, 36, is an Air Force careerman who, in his eleven months in Viet Nam, has become a legend as "Mac the Fac" (for "forward air controller"), flying a toylike L19 spotter plane and seeking out Viet Cong troops and installations. McAllister used to be a hot jet fighter pilot, won a D.F.C. in Korea. Now he flies slower, but has more fun.

Wearing grey coveralls, with a .38 pistol slung low on his left hip and a knife strapped to his leg, Mac the Fac arrives at his base strip around 7:30 a.m., gets briefed, then buzzes off in search of the enemy. He flies low, and traveling with him is an unsettling experience. Says an ex-passenger, "When you're riding with him, it sounds like a popcorn machine--there's so much stuff coming up at you."

Mac the Fac stays alive because he is a superb pilot. Making his observation runs, he slides, fishtails, zooms and banks--anything to avoid enemy fire. "I usually fly looking back over my shoulder," he says. "That's because when I make a pass, the V.C. usually freeze, jump into holes or dive into water. By looking back I can see them popping up again." When he sees them, he summons fighter-bombers. As they approach, Mac guides them by radio: "I see six guys down there under those big trees to my left, wearing those crazy hats. I'll mark 'em for you." Firing smoke rockets, he does just that; then he scurries out of the way.

Recently, Mac shepherded a group of trapped Vietnamese soldiers back to Route 19 at night with his landing lights guiding them along a path between intense Viet Cong fire 100 ft. on either side. Last week he was in the air for the better part of five days. North of Quin-hon he flushed a battalion-sized Viet Cong contingent and called in the Skyraiders. The result: about 50 dead Communists. McAllister has had some other interesting experiences. "Have you ever seen a tree walking?" he asks. "Well, I sure as hell did. There it was, walking down a hill in the middle of V.C. country. I nearly flipped. I followed it and found more walking trees. Then I swooped down, and they became stationary trees real fast. I called in an air strike and we had ourselves a forest fire."

The Volunteer

SPECIALIST 5TH CLASS LARRY C. NIEDRINGHAUS, 22, serves as the demolitions expert for a twelve-man U.S. Special Forces team at Suoida, a bleak, wire-enclosed camp at the base of Black Virgin Mountain, 60 miles northwest of Saigon. Niedringhaus first came to Viet Nam in 1962, at his own request is now serving his third tour of duty. Says he: "Damned if I can think of any place I'd rather be or anything I'd rather do."

To Niedringhaus, things are looking up in Viet Nam. "It's hard to believe how much this war has changed," he says. "We used to have to scrounge damned near everything we needed, including weapons and ammo. And I'll tell you something else: We didn't kill a helluva lot of V.C. either.

"But look at us now. We've got every weapon we ask for. We've got a scientifically laid-out camp with clear fields of fire and plenty of wire. When we ask for air support, we get it. We've even got a dispensary and an icebox. This time we've got what we need to do the job."

Like all U.S. Special Forces men in Viet Nam, Niedringhaus serves as an adviser to a Vietnamese Special Forces counterguerrilla team, averages four three-to five-day patrols a month. Such patrols are exhausting, nerve-racking work. Why volunteer for more? Says Niedringhaus: "I guess what it comes down to is that you always want to try yourself, to prove something to yourself.

You made it once and you made it twice, but then the question is: Can you make it again?"

Egg Dropper

CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER MECKIE I. KEYS, 33, is a greying, 16-year Army veteran from St. Petersburg, Fla., where his wife and five children live. Twelve years ago, as a 1st sergeant in a tank battalion, Keys decided to move from turret to cockpit, enrolled in the Army's aviation school. Today he flies a lumbering Caribou transport out of Vungtau on the South China Sea, 40 miles southeast of Saigon.

Since his arrival in Viet Nam last October, Keys has logged enough air mileage to circle the earth nearly two times. His plane has been hit five times by enemy fire, and he got a Purple Heart when glass from a bullet-blasted windshield cut his face.

Whether taking off or landing, Keys and his Caribou require an airstrip of no more than 300 yds. If there is no strip, Keys takes his potbellied, olive-green transport down to 10 ft., and his crew pushes the steel-encased cargo out of clamshell doors. Says Keys: "We can drop a case of eggs to a Special Forces camp and not break more than a couple." Of his job Keys says, "Somebody's got to do it, and if it helps win this, then I'm happy to be the one."

The Swimmer

LIEUT. COMMANDER CHARLES H. MC NEIL, 30, from Venice, Calif., a Navy pilot assigned to the carrier Coral Sea, recently attacked a North Vietnamese bridge. As his A-4C jet pulled out of its dive, McNeil felt the plane shudder from an antiaircraft hit, heard a fellow pilot's frantic radio warning: "Eject! Eject! Flames on your tail!" McNeil headed for the South China Sea, managed to get just beyond the shoreline before his plane spun out of control. He reached for the ejection rings over his head and yanked hard--but nothing happened. He pulled an auxiliary ejection lever. The canopy sailed off, but McNeil was jammed between the seat and the instrument panel, the upper half of his body outside the plummeting plane. "For a minute," he says, "I thought I was going to be torn in half."

Finally, McNeil popped free and parachuted into the sea--only to be greeted by Communist rifle fire from the nearby beach. He began to swim seaward. His squadron mates zoomed over, made several blazing runs down the beach, and stopped the shore fire. A junk set out from the beach, but was sunk by the jets. Within a short time, an Albatross rescue plane splashed down and hoisted McNeil aboard. But one of the Albatross' engines had been drenched during the landing. Not until a crew man climbed out on the wing and dried the spark plugs by hand could the plane take off.

Taken to Danang, McNeil was treated for bruised thighs and a torn thumb, was guest of honor at a champagne-and-steak dinner thrown by Air Force pilots. Next day he was flown back to his ship, and last week, hobbling painfully about the big carrier, he said: "With a little luck, I'll be flying again in a few days."

The Cargo Carrier

CAPTAIN JAMES A. AYRES, 27, a tall Texan with a wife and three children in Lubbock, pilots an Army C-123 transport plane. He has flown more than 350 missions, averaged more than 100 air hours a month since January.

"These have been the fastest eleven months in my life," he says, "and I wouldn't trade them for anything."

Ayres is a member of the 309th Air Commando Squadron, operating out of Saigon. His missions take him through out South Viet Nam and over Laos. Often behind the controls for seven or eight hours at a stretch, Ayres hauls cargo ("everything from ammunition to pigs") and troops in and out of dangerous jungle strips. His C-123, a juicy target, has been hit three times.

Last week Ayres spent most of his time transporting gasoline from air-base to airbase for use by planes at tacking the Viet Cong. It was not a very glamorous assignment, but it was essential. Says Ayres: "Every day we add something to our conduct of this war, and it's finally beginning to pay off. If we're just not pulled off, we're going to win this. We can bring more power to bear than any other nation on earth, and thank heavens we're finally starting to use it."

The Commander in Chief

In that statement, Ayres certainly spoke for the vast majority of American fighting men in Viet Nam -- for Risner and Rogers, for Skunk Hunter Hunt and for Mac the Fac, for Niedringhaus and Necaise, for Dodson and Bradley and McNeil.

It has been a long, ugly war, and it will undoubtedly get longer and uglier. But the increased use of American strength has begun to pay off. Communist powers have retaliated mostly with shrieks of anger: "Moscow last week threatened, not for the first time, to permit "volunteers" to go to South Viet Nam if the U.S. continues its "aggression." There is aerial reconnaissance evidence that a site is being set up near Hanoi for Russian-made SAM II antiaircraft missiles.

But at the same time, the work being done by the American combatants, given a greater but still limited amount of combat leeway, is having its intended effect: it is hiking the price of aggression to the point where Hanoi and Peking obviously are beginning to wonder whether it is worth the cost. Last week even a left-wing French journalist, recently a visitor in North Viet Nam, reported that the Hanoi government was alarmed and astonished by the American stand, that it might be starting to look for a way out of continuing a more and more costly conflict (see THE WORLD). Keeping up the pressure, the U.S. made plans for an even greater expansion of its naval forces in the area, while top-level U.S. military officials prepared to fly to Honolulu at week's end for a conference on Far Eastern strategy.

And the American combatant in Viet Nam could certainly find encouragement in the words of his Commander in Chief. Last weekend President Johnson, even while announcing that the "window to peace is still open," vowed once more that unless and until South Viet Nam's independence and sovereignty are assured, there "is no human power capable of forcing us from Viet Nam. We will remain as long as necessary, with the might required, whatever the risk and whatever the cost."

That is about all Risner and his fellow fighting men could or would ask for.

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