On November 12, 2014 at 20:06, bluesmaker said...
Fins, I meant Davet2020 instead of Ernie. I guess I'm the only war veteran here.
Here is an explaination of the YGBSM that appeared on our Squadron patch.
The new Weasel crews were shocked to hear of their new mission, which was nothing short of a suicide mission. One of the new weasels, EWO Captain Jack Donovan, summed up the feelings of all the Weasels about their new mission, when he said, " You want me to fly in the back of a little tiny fighter aircraft with a crazy fighter pilot who thinks he's invincible, home in on a SAM site in North Vietnam, and shoot it before it shoots me, you gotta be shittin me!" Despite the apprehension, the Weasel crews went forward with their suicide mission, and in early November 1965, they deployed to Korat AFB in Thailand to begin their Wild Weasel missions
It always amazes me that those in command order people in service to do things that they couldn't have imagined when they were in action. Telling someone to intentionally fly through an area with SAMs so they can be targeted, in hopes that someone else can destroy the SAMs may work, but it definitely makes me think they considered pilots and other service people only as 'inventory', regardless of how often they said they considered them to be valuable.
Thanks for your service.
