What F-102 units were called up for Viet Nam

Juvat wrote in message . ..
Kevin Brooks posted:


By deploying them into the theater of operations from their current
station would be one manner of "calling up" an AC unit.

OK but that's not how I would interpret it when I was active duty.
Different strokes...

I took it as a total force question.

Again, fair enough...not how I read it.

Take away the "strictly"; as it was indeed used in ground attack
missions, albeit not very effectively...why put blinders on only in regards to the F-102's
history?

Not trying to put blinders on it, I did post that Scott was incorrect
on this score. He made an easy mistake.

Sorry to inform you of this, but this thread began to meander
(something that is rather common in Usenet) after Scott made his post
and tried to link it to an anti-GWB thrust. As others have commented,
the only folks who seem restricted to the ANG-only approach appear to
be you and Scott.

OK, guilty as charged I was honestly trying to keep it on topic.
Respectfully, I'm happy NOT to discuss GWB service record. Nuff said.

OK. So your earlier statement that no ANG units were deployed was
apparently misworded--I would assume that you mean no F-102 units were
activated?

You are correct on that score, I fumble fingered the text when I left
out F-102.

Which would be true enough--but that leaves one wondering
whether F-102 units would indeed have been activated if sufficient
*volunteers* had not stepped forward?

A very small detail regarding F-102 pilots on active duty from Colonel
(PhD) Gross' "Prelude to the Total Force..." page 150

"Pilot shortages due to Southeast Asia operations increasingly
affected the Air Guard. Small numbers of Air Guard F-102 were
encouraged to volunteer for temporary active duty overseas. In July
1968, twenty-four of these pilots were on active duty at bases in
Holland, Germany, Alaska, the Philippines, and Okinawa."

I believe what he is describing here was the Palace Alert program; I
had thought that was a SEA-only operation, but in reading some info
found on the web during this discussion I noted that the program sent
ANG pilots to various locales. Since it was/is impossible for the USAF
to activate individuals (other than IRR, which likely had few F-102
pilots at the time), the use of volunteers was required. Had those
volunteers not materialized, the only real solution (given that they
were apparently *required*, not just "nice to have along" assets)
would have been to activate an F-102 squadron (and this could easily
have been the case in 68, as you are well aware of the other
activations of both ANG and ARNG units that happened at this time).



Gee, I was unaware you were so picky... Good enough?

The devil is in the details...

Well, the folks in Bien Hoa did not have to deploy into the theater of
operations after the Gulf resolution, now did they (see, this playing
with finite word definitions can work both ways)?

You win...my sincere apologies for not staying on topic.

I did read where the 509th FIS claims to have been the first
unit to deploy into the RVN after the GT incident--is that wrong?

My humble apologies again, since there were so many deployments to SEA
from back in 1961 up until the GT incident, I honestly don't think a
great deal about which outfit gets the "honor" of being first.

But it is germane to the fact that the USAF already regarded the ANG
as a real, honest to goodness go-to-war asset well before the entry of
GWB into ANG service.

I encourage you to read Gross' book, it might get you to reconsider
that remark.

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....

Anyway lots of great stuff in the book. Good and bad.

Not unusual. That the units had problems with the ORI is not a
surprise; it leaves wanting the more important question of how good
the pilots and their ground crews were (and yes, a unit, be it ground
or air, with superlative crews could still bust a major inspection,
for as you note "the devil is in the details"). As to the question of
nuclear versus conventional delivery training, the fault would have to
lie with the AC on that one--those units training plans had to be
approved ultimately by the AC side of the house, and if they were that
far off-track, then they had to have either (a) been given bad
training guidance, or (b) were given guidance without requisite
resourcing to allow accomplishment of the additional tasks.

I can recall one of my (Regular Army) tac officers in college, who had
entered active duty back in the mid-70's, commenting about the quality
of Guard units--he was amazed at the teamwork they displayed, if not
their (universal) military bearing. He laughed about his active duty
mortar platoon having been rather humiliated in a competition with an
ARNG mortar platoon that was training with them, said they may have
looked like old geezers who called each other by their first names,
but by golly could they hustle in setting up their tubes and putting
rounds downrange and on-target. And this was during one of the Guard's
worst periods (but then again, it was not such a swell time to be in
the "Volar" army, either).


No bad blood. But I get a bit tired when folks like Scott traipse out
the old "the Guard was a bunch of draftdodgers" mantra, ...
The first is a gross exaggeration born of enough folks making the
claim in the past, so it must be true, right?

Again read Gross, he writes..."President Johnson's decision to rely on
draftees rather than reservists raised questions about the expense and
military utility or reserve programs. Many Americans were incensed
that their sons and husbands were being drafted to risk death in
Southeast Asia while men who received drill pay stayed home. The
draft-exempt status of the National Guard, as well as other reserve
programs, became a major incentive to volunteer for those programs."

You can disagree with Gross, but I think he nailed it.

"Many Americans" also served in the Guard, or had friends or relatives
who did. More than a few thousand of them served in Vietnam (and yes,
there were even cases of Guardsmen volunteering for active duty during
the war), and ISTR something like seven to eight thousand ARNG troops
found themselves deploying to Vietnam during the 68-69 timeframe (a
few arty units, a lot of CS/CSS units, and that infantry brigade that
was broken down to provide replacements to the AC divisions already in
country; even, IIRC, Co D/51st Inf Rgt (Ranger), which was an Indiana
ARNG LRRP unit). I believe Mr. Gross is making a generalization that
does not serve the purposes of accuracy, either in the fact that
Guardsmen did indeed serve in Vietnam (and LBJ's mistake was not their
doing), or that there was some kind of universal groundswell of
identifying the Guard as a "draftdodgers haven".


Finally...my apologies, reasonable men can disagree (still scratching
my head over Dan's post) and with that you are welcome to the last
word.

Hey, I have not seen you step beyond the bounds of amicable discussion
here, nor have I seen you really endorse all of Scott's comments, so
no problem.

Brooks


Juvat