RIPPLE SALVO… #957… HUMBLE HOST BEGS YOUR INDULGENCE… OPPORTUNITY KNOCKED AND I ANSWERED–I DROPPED EVERYTHING AND JOINED 20,00 OTHER PARROT HEADS IN SALT LAKE CITY LAST NIGHT FOR AN EVENING WITH JIMMY BUFFETT… (“Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call, Wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall, You’ve seen it all…Watched the men who rode you switch from sails to steam, And in your belly you held the treasures few have ever seen, Mother of ’em dream, most of ’em dream…..”) … GREAT NIGHT OF MUSIC from a pro that has been at if for more than 45 years… too bad he didn’t have RED BEST on harmonica with him tonight… Now duty calls…
GOOD MORNING… Day NINE HUNDRED FIFTY -SEVEN of a remembrance of the years of service and sacrifice of the Yankee Air Pirates and Red River Valley Rats who carried the bloody fight to the heartland of our enemy in North Vietnam…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times for Friday, 18 October 1968…
THE WAR: Page 9: “TOTAL AMERICAN WAR DEAD–KILLED IN ACTION–28,825–RATE OF WAR DEATHS CONTINUES TO DROP–167 Killed in Week Ended October 12–Decline Is Fourth in Row”… “Action on the ground in South Vietnam continued at a slow pace today as military authorities reported for the fourth week a decline in the number of Americans killed in combat. In the week ended October 12, 167 United States soldiers died in combat. THE FIGURE BROUGHT THE TOTAL NUMBER OF AMERICANS KILLED IN THE WAR SINCE JANUARY 1, 1961, TO 28,825…. The decline in deaths is being watched carefully as speculation increases about fighting lulls and peace moves… The latest seven day total for South Vietnamese deaths was 176 with 1,527 enemy troops killed in combat.”… Page 8: “5TH MARINE REGIMENT IS AWARDED SEVENTH PRESIDENTIAL UNIT OF WAR”…
PEACE TALKS: Page 1: “HANOI ASSURANCE STILL CALLED KEY TO BOMBING HALT–New U.S. Plan Reported To Drop Word Reciprocity In Bid For Acceptance–Administration Silent–Hanoi Given Option On Its Response–Thieu of South Vietnam Said to Support Move”… Page 1: “PLEDGES BY HANOI URGED IN SAIGON–Unconditional Bombing Halt Is Opposed–Bunker And Thieu Confer Again”… Page 9: “HANOI AGAIN BARS RECIPROCAL MOVES FOR BOMBING HALT”… Page 1: “NIXON AGAIN BACKS A BOMBING PAUSE IF IT COSTS NO LIVES”…
HEAD LINES: Page 1: “MRS. JOHN F. KENNEDY TO WED ONASSIS–She And Her Two Children Fly To Greece”… Page 1: “HUMPHREY COURTS LABOR AND YOUTH–Visits Car Plant In Michigan–Weary After A Long Night at Detroit Discotheque”… Page 2: “WORLD’S POPULATION PUT AT 3.4-BILLION IN U.N. YEARBOOK”… Page 6: “Tension Is Increasing In Jordan Between Regime and Guerrillas”… Page 20: “Boy Scouts Let Down Bars To Girls”… Page 28: “LeMAY SET BACK ON BOMBING VIEW–Said To Get Data In Vietnam Weakening His Raid Idea”… Movie “BULLITT” starring Steve McQueen opens… Page 56: “U.S. LEADERS WARN OF PENALTIES FOR FURTHER BLACK POWER ACTS AT OLYMPICS”… “…The United States committee also warned it would not stand for a repetition fo a display made by Tommie Smith and John Carlos, sprinters. The athletes, who finished first and third respectively, in the 200-meter dash, stook on the victory podium with gloved hands upraised in a black power salute and with eyes fixed on the ground during the playing of ‘The Star Spangled Banner”…. “
18 OCTOBER 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (19 Oct reporting 18 Oct ops)…In air action, continued bad weather over the southern part of North Vietnam again hampered bombing strikes. However, the weather had no effect on the high flying B-52 bombers, which pounded 10 scattered areas of South Vietnam where intelligence reports indicated enemy troops were concentrated.”… VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 18 October…
(1) MAJOR J.W. QUIST, USMC, and 1LT D.T. SCHANZENBACH, USMC, were flying an RF-4B of VCMJ-1 and MAG-12 out of Danang on a photo reconnaissance mission north of the demilitarized zone at 2,100 feet and 620 knots when hit by ground fire. MAJOR QUIST was able to fly the damaged aircraft eastward to the Gulf of Tonkin before the aircraft had to be abandoned. The pair of Marine aviators ejected and were rescued by a USAF SAR helicopter to fly and photo again.”…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) FOR THE FOUR 18 OCTOBER DATES OF THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1966 and 1968… NONE…
1967… LCDR JOHN FREDERICK BARR, USN… (KIA)… (Refer to RTR for 18 Oct-67, Ripple Salvo #591) LCDR BARR is buried at Houston National Cemetery…
1965… CAPTAIN THOMAS EDWARD COLLINS, USAF… (POW)… and… 1LT EDWARD ALAN BRUDNO, USAF… (POW)…
Fifty-three years ago this day CAPTAIN COLLINS and 1LT BRUDNO were downed by AAA south of Vinh and spent the remained of the war as POWs of the North Vietnamese. Chris Hobson records their final combat flight this way:
“A USAF raid on a railway bridge near Ha Tinh, 35 miles south of Vinh, resulted in the loss of one of the raiders. CAPTAIN COLLINS and 1LT BRUDNO had just put their F-4B Phantom into a dive from 7,000 feet when it was hit by AAA. The aircraft immediately became uncontrollable and Collins and Brudno ejected. Captain Collins suffered compression fractures to several vertebrae. The crew were captured by local militia and taken to Hanoi to begin more than seven years of brutal treatment in the North Vietnamese prison system. Collins was incarcerated in no less than 12 camps during his time as a POW and contracted beri-beri amongst other diseases and ailments in the unsanitary conditions found at these camps. Both men were released from their imprisonment on 12 February 1973. Brudno had been able to send coded messages in his letter from prison in Hanoi which greatly assisted the Department of Defense’s knowledge of the POW camps. However, Brudno suffered greatly both physically and psychologically and on 3 June 1975, just four months after his release, he committed suicide, unable to cope with the return to normalcy.”…
The following is an article by Joseph Galloway of the Kidder Newspapers published Tuesday, March 16, 2004 …I quote…
“A debate raging on the Internet has slopped over into public view and public print, and it is a debate that should never have started. It concerns a long overdue decision by the lU.S. Air Force and the Department of Defense to engrave the name of Air Force CAPTAIN EDWARD ALAN BRUDNO on the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
“Al Brudno did not die in Vietnam, where he spent seven and a half years in the cells of such North Vietnamese prisons as the Briarpatch, Son Tay and the infamous Hoa Lo Prison–the Hanoi Hilton.
“Four months after he came home to a hero’s welcome with the other American POWs ub 1973, Al Brudno killed himself just one day before his 33rd birthday.
“Former POW Orson Swindle, a Marine pilot who is now a member of the Federal Trade Commission, had the cell next to Brudno for more than two years in Son Tay prison Camp. They ‘talked’ incessantly by tapping on the wall in code. ‘he was a very young, very intense, very intelligent,’ Swindle remembers. ‘He had a degree in aerospace engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Al Brudno wanted to be an astronaut. Swindle said Brudno hated his communist captors and constantly searched for ways to thwart them or ridicule them. ‘He was a little guy so he used guile and cunning to outwit the guards,’ Swindle added. He was also one of the best at sending hidden messages in the few letters he was permitted to write home.
“A year ago Swindle urged Bob Brudno, Al’s brother, to ask the Air Force to investigate Al Brudno’s death and add his name to the Wall. There was a thorough investigation, and the Air Force found that it had not done right by Al Brudno. He had been cut loose upon his return from Hanoi, without the support and counseling that is now routine for all returning POWs–routine now BECAUSE of Al Brudno’s death.
“‘Al came home with mortal wounds,’ Swindle says. ‘His suicide wa a result of deep wounds that were both physical and mental. I know of no one more entitled to a place on that wall than Al Brudno. The Air Force approved it, and forwarded it to the Department of Defense, which normally accedes to the recommendations of the services and sends the approved name to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund for engraving.
“That should have been that. But the executive director of the VVMF and one of the co-founders of the organization that built the memorial, former Army grunt Jan Scruggs, decided to go public with his opposition to adding Brudno’s name to the Wall. Scruggs hit the Internet and in e-mails called the decision of the Aair Force ‘preposterous.’ He declared that this act would create a ‘new and broad criteria’ and make it necessary to add names of at least 20,000 other Vietnam veterans who took their own lives after the war. ‘This decision by (the Department of Defense) threatens the integrity and historical interpretation of the wall,’ Scruggs wrote. He postulated that the act of putting Brudno’s name on the memorial would somehow encourage veterans to come and kill themselves there.
“Scruggs is wrong, of course. First, there is no change in the criteria. If upon investigation, one of the services decides to place a name on the Wall and the Department of Defense endorses the decision, then it it is VVMF’s job–and Jan Scruggs’ job–to engravve the name on the Wall. Period.
“The name of Edward Alan Brudno DESERVES to be on the Wall, among the other 58,335 other American servicemen who either died in Vietnam, or afterward, of their wounds. The names of suicides are already there, if they died in Vietnam. Al Brudno just managed to make it home before he bled out. Al Brudno took everything the North Vietnamese dished out and beat them at their own game for seven and a half years. He came home to a fine welcome, and the cheers of the crowds, but when the crowds went home and the POW family split up, there was no one there to help him deal with all that he had suffered–the torture, the isolation, the loss of the best part of his youth.
“Welcome home, good and faithful soldier. Welcome home.”…End quote…
Among the words Al Brudno’s brother Bob spoke at a ceremony in Quincy, Massachusetts to honor forty-eight hometown sons who made the final sacrifice in Vietnam, were these: I quote… “For a while, I wondered why Alan’s story attracted so much attention so many years after his death. I now understand. The war is not over for many who served in Vietnam–not just POWs. Unlike any war before Vietnam and none since, this one offered no glory to those sent in harm’s way.’ He continued, “Alan’s generation, our generation, never got to become ‘the greatest generation.’ No less brave than those who landed at Normandy, our men were asked to risk their lives for their country and ensure the horrors of war, but were denied the thanks and respect of a grateful nation. Today this country truly understands. I am happy that military service is again a noble calling. But for hose of us affected by Vietnam, directly or indirectly, the pain will never go away.”….. “We must keep in mind the debt still owed to so many. We must never, ever blame the war on the warriors again.”…
CAPTAIN EDWARD ALAN BRUDNO was a brave man whose awards for valor as a POW included two SILVER STAR awards and the LEGION OF MERIT with Valor V. Humble Host adds the Citation for his DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS to honor the memory of the man…
“The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to First Lieutenant Edward Alan Brudno, United States Air Force, for heroism while participating in aerial flight as an F-4C Pilot over North Vietnam on 23 September 1965. On that date, Lieutenant Brudno’s flight was preparing to make an attack on the Tai Xouan Ammunition Depot when surface-to-air missiles were launched against the flight. Taking evasive action and with complete disregard for his own safety, Lieutenant Brudno broke towards the ammunition depot and flew through an intense barrage of anti-aircraft fire in order to deliver his bombs on target. The outstanding heroism and selfless devotion to duty displayed by Lieutenant Brudno reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.”…
Al Brudno rests in peace, glory gained, duty done… and is remembered on this 53rd anniversary of his final Phantom flight…
CAPTAIN THOMAS EDWARD COLLINS, USAF was in the front cockpit on that flight, and he too endured the seven and a half years of deprivation, torture and inhuman treatment. Among his many awards for valor is this SILVER STAR. The Citation reads:
“The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Captain Thomas Edward Collins, III, United States Air Force, for gallantry in connection with military operations against an opposing armed force as an Aircraft Commander of the 68th Tactical Fighter Squadron, in action over Southeast Asia, on 18 October 1965. On that date, Captain Collins was assigned the mission of destroying an important highway bridge complex located deep in hostile territory. The objective was known to be heavily defended and the weather conditions in the area were minimal. By the time Captain Collins had arrived over the target, the opposing forces had been alerted and were directing murderous fire at his aircraft. Although the aircraft susatined a direct hit, Captain Collins courageously continued to press the attack until battle damage rendered his aircraft completely uncontrollable. By his gallantry and devotion to duty, Captain Collins has reflected great credit upon himself and the United States Air Forces.”…
Equally heroic was the service of COLONEL COLLINS’ wife– Mrs. Donnie Collins– as the wife of a Missing in Action aviator later determined to be imprisoned by the North Vietnamese. The testimony of Mrs. Collins before the Select Committee for POW/MIA affairs on 3 December 1992 will be posted on RTR in an upcoming “Mighty Thunder” post…
RTR Quote for 18 October: P.C. WREN, Beau Geste: “The love of a man for a woman waxes and wanes like the moon…But the love for a brother is steadfast in the stars…”…
Lest we forget… Bear…