John Carrier wrote:
All true. Nobody would have accused Duke of being the consummate naval
officer. He was a mark-one, mod-zero aviator and nothing more. He wasn't
even necessarily the best Phantom driver, but he was quite possibly the best
PREPARED Phantom driver in Vietnam circa 1972. He was presented
opportunities quite by chance and capitalized on them to the tune of 5
kills. There were more than a few guys in theatre with equal skills and at
least some of the opportunities and came away with nothing (due to a failure
to reset the gunsight for A/A, failure to turn on missile cooling, etc etc).

And with all due respect for you, Duke and the other theatre aviators,
I'm reminded of the old maxim that success requires no explanation, and
failure allows no excuses.

--
St. John
"Never complain, never explain"
-Some admiral