War For the Hell of It: A Fighter Pilot's View of Vietnam

by Ed Cobleigh

  Maybe I should look on the idealistic side. We are fighting for a guy's democratic right to be a draft dodger as well as a Saigon Cowboy. However, all those draft dodgers are in the United States. South Vietnam doesn't have compulsory service. Saigon Cowboys have no draft to dodge. We are drafting our young men to fight for a country that won't draft its own. The idea of fighting for South Vietnam doesn't hold water, of which I have plenty in front of me.

  If a free and democratic South Vietnam isn't worth spilling our blood over, what about the concept of keeping the worldwide Communist menace at bay? This isn't a war, it's a game of regional dominos and we are trying to keep another one from falling. Saigon today, Laos tomorrow, then Cambodia, Thailand after that, and soon the Commies land in Honolulu. That rationale only holds up if we are trying to win, to prevent the next domino from toppling, which we clearly aren't. That is where I got into this endless logic loop.

  The latest background intelligence briefing I paid any attention to indicated to me that we were barely holding our own in South Vietnam. Actually, we are substituting for the inept South Vietnamese army; it's their own we're holding, not ours. We seem to be better at fighting for their country than they are.

  The sole reason I paid any attention at all to the intelligence briefing is because the new female intelligence officer has a great pair of shapely legs that lead to a firm, round bottom. On the elevated presentation platform in the wing briefing room she displayed her pert figure in a tight, USAF dark blue skirt that was clearly cut a good deal shorter than official regulation length. Her minimum version of a uniform skirt made we want to see a lot more of her and a lot less of the intelligence briefing. The unfortunate lady lieutenant had obviously been victimized by a sadistic supply sergeant who issued her a skirt one or two sizes too small. Someone should report that guy, but I won't.

  How the hell did that carnal image intrude itself into my head? I was having a serious political debate with myself here. In the process of thinking about the rationale for the war, if any, this salacious scene swells up. Maybe there is something about not having had a date in months that generates random prurient thoughts. I'm sure Bourbon had a role in that daydream as well. But, back to mental work.

  If I can't fathom why our country is expending so many resources, or why it is wasting some of its citizens' lives, and why it is warping many more, perhaps I can deduce why I am here, personally. After much thought, I decide my involvement can be separated into three overlapping phases. At first, I bought the story about saving South Vietnam from the North. Or was that saving it from itself? Is there any difference between North and South? Anyway, it was my patriotic duty, and duty is what I signed up for when I joined the US Air Force. That motivation lasted about two months, until my first trip to Saigon. Now, I couldn't care less if South Vietnam is washed away by the Communist red tide.

  Thailand is another case entirely. Despite its propensity to flood annually; it is a hell of a nice country. The people are relaxed, friendly, attractive (as evidenced by the aforementioned barmaids), and honest by Southeast Asian standards, which isn't saying much. The Thais seem to sincerely like Americans instead of considering them only as a resource to exploit. I'd gladly fight a war for Thailand if called. If we don't win the one we're in now, I may get that opportunity in the future as the dominos fall.

  By the six-month mark, the war had become personal. I wanted revenge for my friends and buddies that weren't coming home anytime soon, and their numbers were growing. Once, I chalked the names of all my lost mates on a 2,000-pound bomb and dropped it on the north. I only included the guys I used to call by their first names. The olive-colored bomb was dusted white with scrawled writing when it left the airplane. I wanted revenge for what North Vietnam is doing to my country, the way America is being torn apart by the war. If I want revenge for the discord, maybe I should bomb Washington instead of Hanoi. Hanoi knows what it is doing; Washington doesn't, and that is the root cause of the nation-wide protests. The revenge phase of my motivation lasted a few more months and then leaked slowly away. I found that revenge doesn't satisfy if it doesn't end by winning the war. The longer I tried to avenge my dead and captured friends, the more friends I was obligated to avenge.

  Finally, I sunk to my bedrock motivation. That's the level I am operating at now. Fueled by primal needs, the man I have become scares me. Another sip of Bourbon and rain water clears up the murky thoughts in my head. All my life, ever since I can remember, I have wanted to fly, to be a fighter pilot for the USAF. That was my goal throughout school, college, and pilot training. I read all the books, I saw all the movies, and I knew the history of fighter aviation, and of famous fighter pilots. I never wanted to be a fireman, or a cowboy or a doctor, or anything else. I risked everything to get where I am now, to learn the skills, to get those silver wings pinned on my chest.

  But why am I here at this bogus war? There are fighter squadrons in Germany, the Philippines, Korea, the UK, and all over the USA itself. I could fly instead at one of those safer peacetime places. Indeed, many of my squadron mates have come from those other bases and units, none of which is at war with anyone. I'm sure many of them would rather be there, or anywhere but here. Before the Vietnam War lurched into being, it was possible to contemplate a twenty-year career as a USAF fighter jock and to look forward to never firing a shot in anger much less for revenge. It is still possible to spend your active flying years sitting on alert status in Germany or training pilots in west Texas.

  West Texas, that reminds me of a pretty blond girl I know there, her with the big hair and the high, smooth-as-silk ass. She has a liking for thin, skintight slacks and an aversion to wearing panties under them. Wait a minute, how did that thought break the surface? I'm trying to concentrate here and these kinds of images keep welling up in my head. Why do I keep getting diverted? Is it my dammed-up hormones or the Bourbon? I suspect the reason for these mental sidetracks is I know where this conversation with myself is going and I'm not sure I want to go there. Fantasy sex offers an appealing side channel for my mental efforts. I could easily sit here and watch it rain, sipping my self-medication, and letting my mind do the breast stroke in imaginary warm lakes of lust.

  But no, I have to work this out. This question cannot be denied. The rain is coming down even harder, which I thought was impossible, but there it is splashing into my glass. I'm getting bursts of wind, which occasionally blow pelting rain under the overhanging tin roof of the porch. The monsoon is trying to change me from damp to wet. My glass is almost empty, but there is plenty more where that came from in my hooch room.

  So, why am I here, when I could be somewhere else? I can rule out patriotism and the obligations of duty. I've already flown more than enough missions to fill that square. Judging by the effects the war is having on America, I'm not so sure that it is patriotic for me to be so aggressively prosecuting it anyway. I have to admit that the revenge motivation has proved to be a dead end, literally. Is it the flying? What about my boyhood dreams? No, I could fly many other places than here.

  I drain my drink, which is getting more diluted, and slowly swallow the last of the Bourbon and rainwater. The fiery, smoky, sweet liquid dissolves the last of my internal defenses as the storm tries to blow away the hooch. If it were light enough to see my reflection in the growing pond in front of the porch, I wouldn't be able to cope with the hard-eyed visage I would see staring back.

  Down deep, I'm here because I like it. I enjoy the lifestyle; all I have to do is fly, drink, eat, play poker, and sleep, with the occasional sexual fantasy thrown in. Life in a fighter squadron is highly emotionally rewarding; there is something about trusting other guys with your life that builds deep comradeship. I know that I'll never be tighter with a group as I am now. Yes, what the Aussies call "being with your mates" is a big plus. Are we tight with each other because of the shared danger? Undoubtedly, but what's the harm in that?

  Another large factor is my need for adrenaline. Jolts of adrenaline are v
ery addictive and I'm hooked deep. Flying fighters is dangerous enough in peacetime. If I fly for twenty years, with no time out for staff jobs, the numbers say that I will have one chance in five of busting my ass. Combat takes that danger to a new level. Dedicated people try to kill me every time I fly outside of Thailand. Being shot at and missed is supremely exciting and really gets the craved adrenaline flowing. Flying combat is the ultimate in flying. Being a fighter pilot in the peacetime air force would be like practicing with the baseball team and never going to a game. The war had already started when I got my orders to pilot training and I knew that my flight path would lead to it, if not precisely to this wet porch. I can still remember tearing open those orders to active duty while still at college in Atlanta.

  Atlanta, that's where I met the vivacious redhead whose hour­glass figure bounces and jiggles, stretching her amazingly clinging knitted dresses to the breaking point. No! I have to see this through. My resolve to persevere in hard thinking is met by a yet stronger burst of wind and rain. It seems that the storm is reaching some sort of meteorological climax. I don't have to fly tonight to get strafed; horizontal rain is an acceptable substitute.

  My job, my avocation, requires a physical exam 98 percent of the population can't pass. I have spent years in training to do what I do and have seen many others fail to make the grade. Every night I lay my life on the line, betting that my skill and capricious luck will prevail long enough to let me return the next night to test it and myself again. It isn't the patriotic duty, it isn't the lost buddies, it isn't the career, it's all about me and what I live to do. Forget fighting for some vague geopolitical goal or for some abstract altruistic patriotism, that's all bull shit; I fly and fight for me.

  Is it immoral to enjoy a war by personalizing it? Is it egocentric to dig the danger, the status, and the friendships of a fighter squadron? Does feeding off the action and taking pride in doing what most men can't do make me a war criminal, or a hero? The differences in the two labels are small and depend on whether this is a "just and legal" war. Is it? Who the hell knows? I do know that in the future, I will look back on the years I spent flying and fighting as the most exciting ones of my life. Is it corroding my soul to take pride in dispensing violence and in doing it very well indeed?

  I care not for the Vietnamese that I kill. Given the chance, they would gleefully kill me just as coldly. Failing that, they would relish throwing me into the Hanoi Hilton prison camp and letting me rot away with my ex-roommate. No, exchanging death efforts with the North Vietnamese excludes sympathy; quarter neither given nor asked for. After getting shot at without effect, I am capable of exhibiting reptilian detachment while killing the people doing the shooting and sleeping like a log the next day. This is the aspect of what I have become that is the most scary to me.

  Fear is part of the equation. If there is no fear, my adrenaline fix wouldn't flow. But what I fear is not the fear of a more rational person. Deep down, I don't really fear death. I believe that it can't happen to me. I have to believe that or I would be dysfunctional. The fear that spurs me on is of failure, of humiliation in front of my peers. I am tighter with the guys I fly with than I am with my own brothers. What keeps me awake at night is the fear, not of death nor of the Hanoi Hilton, but of failing to perform well, of letting my squadron mates down. On the upside, there is no feeling like the one that follows a successful, particularly dangerous and difficult mission.

  Do those my squadron mates feel the same way I do? Who the hell knows? We have our debates over the war, but only at the level of tactics. We endlessly speculate on how to win. Sometimes politics rears its ugly head and we roundly curse the elected hacks that seem intent on getting us all killed for no good reason. Fighter pilots are an articulate and outspoken lot. Most will say what they think at the drop of a shot glass. But on the rare occasions when the subject of personal motivation comes up, you can cut the silence with a Randall knife. Are they here for the same selfish reasons that I am? Do they pride themselves on doing one of the most dangerous job in the world and doing it with skill, style, and grace? Have any of them sat on this porch drinking and watching it rain while plumbing the depths of their souls? Do they too fight off a flood of imagery of wanton blonds, mini-skirted intelligence officers, nude redheads, and willing stewardesses to grapple with their own motivations?

  My ruminations have uncovered more questions than answers, but the asking of the questions has washed away the façade of self-deception. I know now that I'm doing this because of me, my pride, my adrenaline addiction, and my self-satisfaction at what I do. Very few people in the world can do it and fewer still would enjoy doing it so much. None of my civilian contemporaries will ever have the opportunity to fly fighter planes in combat, to lay it on the line night after night. I would be foolish to pass up the chance, whatever I think of the geopolitical underpinnings of this bull shit war. The war and the underlying rationale are not inherently evil, wrong, or even illegal. The war can't be won under the present rules and with the present allies in the south. I can't affect the dim-bulb military bureaucrats or the amoral politicians (isn't that redundant?) who are criminally mismanaging the war; all I can do is fight in it. If it is ego that drives me, then so be it. I'll live with that as I can't live without it. I'll have to deal with this, but right now it looks like an acceptable trade-off. I get to fly and fight if I don't get too upset about the futility and frustration of it all.

  Frustration, that characterizes my relationship with the cute brunette in North Carolina, she with the laughing dark eyes and the raven hair. "Geographic separation-induced futility" is the name of that game. I haven't gotten enough of her or her long, shapely legs displayed bare in black four-inch stiletto heels with nothing else on but the radio.. Why do my thoughts of the girls I know revolve around their bodies? Now I've done it, the bug-eyed monster is out from under the bed and I have to deal with it.

  Do I appreciate women only for their bodies or is my brain thoroughly marinated in months of dammed-up hormones? My physical longing is as real as the rain that continues to pour down, but is that all there is? Is that all there should be? It is easy to be cavalier about the opposite sex, too easy in fact. But the drenching I am receiving and the Bourbon I am drinking makes it hard to be dishonest with myself. Digging deep, I have to admit that having a girl-type friend and lover would be very, very rewarding. I'd love to go out for dinner in exotic Bangkok, to conduct a whirlwind romance, to see the sights with some feminine companionship for a change. It would be fun to flirt and talk about things other than airplanes. To commune with a woman, to understand a woman's view of the world. To get to know someone I don't know now. Such a relationship sounds ideal about now as long as the sexual aspect and fulfillment isn't neglected.

  I have read that for women, friendship and intimacy lead to sex. While for men, sex leads to intimacy. If that natural, reciprocal fit is true, there is hope for me yet. Something along those lines could play out yet. Just maybe, my current mental preoccupation with attractive female bodies is due to the fact that my fingertips haven't touched a woman's soft skin in an eon.

  I feel good about my last conclusion on the preferred treatment of women. I'm not an exploiter after all. However, I remain profoundly uneasy about my seduction by the siren bitch of war. I enjoy my violent job too much. Psychologically, all you can hope for is to break even. The old baseball adage is spot-on, "Win some, lose some, some are rained out, and the rest are fixed."

  It's three o'clock in the middle of the night in the midst of the monsoon. Or at least the monsoon was doing its thing up until now. Amazingly enough, the storm seems to be abating, the rain has slacked off to what could be called a hard drizzle. There are so many unanswered questions left, but I do know two things. First, I had better get some sleep before I get on the Klong tomorrow. Those C-130 Klong drivers will fly in almost any weather and the pause in the monsoon makes it certain that they will leave at dawn. I would hate to meet my mythical, friendly stewardess hung ov
er and sleepy. Secondly, I know people like me should never be involved in making decisions as to when and where to fly and fight. If it comes to war, my type is indispensable if you want to win, but you don't want us to vote on accepting the engagement. Last, I know my longing for women has more than a horizontal dimension. I'm tempted to see how far I can throw my now empty glass into the dying storm, but I just set it gently down on the wet porch railing and go off to bed.

  The King of Venice

  The sprawling Thai capital, Bangkok, personifies chaos and I love it that way. The swampy, people-crammed city is the antithesis of my normal habitat, a USAF base. Even in exotic Thailand, an Air Force base has its well-tended grass cut to the regulation length, its neat, standard-issue buildings are painted the same color in neat rows, the roads are all smoothly paved, everything is in order and every detail is squared away. In Bangkok, nothing is squared away. There's probably not a true right angle in the whole city outside the many immaculate Buddhist temples. There is no grass of any length and the buildings are a mishmash of make-it-up-on-the-spot designs scattered around among algae-covered canals and dirt roads.

  Bangkok exhibits the freedom of total chaos, rampant disorganization, a complete lack of order, and endless possibilities for interesting situations. The tolerant, lassiez-faire attitude of the inhabitants is a welcome antidote to overwhelming, suffocating militarization, to regimentation, and to effective central planning.

  You can find anything you want in Bangkok and you can also find lots of stuff that you don't want. That's not quite right, you can find anything but bad manners. The only shortage in Bangkok is of rude people. The Thais frequently tell me that theirs is "The Land of Smiles" and I believe it. Genuine friendliness, courtesy, tolerance, and good humor seem to be universal national characteristics. Everyone I rub against seems to have a smile for me and in a city as overcrowded as Bangkok, a lot of rubbing goes on. The Thais' politeness isn't reserved just for us "farangs" or western foreigners. To my round eyes, they seem to interact among themselves with equal respect and good manners.