In article ,
(B2431) wrote:


Why is it that most of those people are far less gung-ho about that
conflict than people such as yourself who flew high above the ground?
I'm not trying to denigrate any type of combat experience, but 24/7
dangers faced on the ground apparently fostered different impressions.

The primary differences between those of us on the ground and those in the
air
was we had a shorter distance to fall and they had better quarters.

And also faced with the day to day real possibilities of close quarter
brutal combat.

We spent
98% of the time bored out of our minds, they had a lot less boredome time.
Are
you under the impression all Ed had to do was hop into his 105 fly for 2
hours
then hop out and go to the club?


Nope. That's not what I said or meant to say.

I assure you between mission planning,
briefing, preflight, ops, debrief etc he had a longer period of activity in
his
day than those on the ground. We could relax and watch the grass grow at
least.


Having flown some 6-7 hundred missions (peacetime) myself, I'm quite
well aware of what is involved outside the actual flight itself. Still,
I would much rather take my chances in the air than on the ground.




Nobody questions the dangers faced by aircrews who flew missions in
Vietnam. However, in a fast-mover your odds of getting back to base
outside the country for a cold beer and a hot meal are much better than
the grunt in the jungles with an M-16 even surviving.

That's funny. Did you happen to notice the vast majority of the grunts in the
field actually survived?

As did the vast majority of aviators.


I don't see how
that can be denied. It's one of the reasons I wasn't a grunt...even
though I knew the chances of surviving any more than a handful of
potential CSAR missions was not good.

And you got this data where?


From the 1/3 of the pilots in my helicopter squadron who flew CSAR in
Vietnam; CSAR training, and real-world CSAR exercises where we were
constantly lit up. Is that a good enough source for you, or do you know
better?



--Mike