Juvat wrote:

Regarding the Berlin call-up (there's that expression again) there
were bright spots (no aircraft lost in the deployment) and some less
than stellar deals like three of the four provisional Fighter Wings
BUSTING their ORIs, one actually busted twice. All deployed ANG
tactical fighter (versus interceptor) squadrons were not currently
qualified in conventional surface attack, but had mistaken qualified
in nukes....

Sometimes stuff just jumps out at me and I've got to comment.

The "omigod, they busted an ORI" business, for example. In January of
'73, the 388th wing at Korat had an ORI. This, commencing just days
after the end of Linebacker II, when the Korat wing exclusively flew
all of the SAM-suppression, both day and night for all the effort.
When we flew all of the EB-66 counter-measures and where we had
successfully absorbed and integrated the three squadron wing of the
354th with A-7s.

The LG, Chief of Maintenance, Chief of supply and Munitions Squadron
CC were all off the base within 24 hours. I became exec to Jack Chain
*(later CINCSAC), as he moved from Wing DO to become LG and "fix"
things as well as respond to the IG report.

Was Korat not "operationally ready"? By whose warped interpretation?

Or, there was the "operationally ready" issue when after a bit of time
in the F-4, I asked if I qualified for the Operational Readiness
Medal, which took three or four years of OR status. I learned that my
time in the F-105 didn't count. I was never "operationally ready"!!!
Despite 110 combat missions, I was never OR, because I never had the
requisite checkride.

Something is occasionally rotten in Denmark and in the Inspector's
offices. It ain't always what the reports say that indicates the fact.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038