William Spencer’s world turned upside down as he felt his F-4 Phantom hit by a heat-seeking missile fired from an MiG-21 that had come up underneath him. In a split second it began cartwheeling its fiery way to the ground, its tail section and left wing missing. The 29-year-old Air
As a young Air Force public affairs sergeant in 1990, George Hayward learned firsthand accounts of Americans tortured in North Vietnamese prisons and a little-known story of escape. The telling came from retired Col. William Baugh, a civilian public affairs chief Hayward served under at Falcon Air Force Base— now
The date was Oct. 26, 1967. I was on my 23rd mission, flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a dive at about 4,500 feet, when a Russian missile the size of a telephone pole came up—the sky was full of them—and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk
March 29 is National Vietnam War Veterans Day. Two years ago, we were fortunate to receive a donation from the son of CAPT Kay Russell, a naval aviator who served time in a North Vietnamese POW (prisoner of war) camp. When I first saw the shirt he wore as a
Veterans of MacDill pause to reflect the passing of one of their finest, Colonel Leroy W. Stutz on July 9th. Stutz served 30 years at duty stations across the Air Force beginning his career in 1964 earning his wings as a RF-4C Phantom II pilot before completing his upgrade training