In my past readings, I seem to recall a ban somewhere in the later stages of Vietnam where O-6 and above were prohibited from flying combat missions due to the loss rate and costs and intel risks of losing a senior officer into a POW camp.  If the guy is running the wing and not flying as much as the  majority, his skillset probably isn't what it was when he was an 0-3/0-4.  Could this have hindered his usage of defensive measures and possibly contributed to getting shot down?  Or cockpit rank gradient?  It's a thing and there is a risk associated with those things.  It sounds like we lost a fortune in equipment during this effort and it wasn't a seamless operation.  I suspect we will get a movie out of this someday with such a rich story and events to work from.  Apparently someone leaked that this guy was missing and the government is after the leaker now.  The media is never a trustworthy ally and that goes back since forever.  Probably contributed to some of the problems encountered and certainly raised the risks.  

Probably Wing Commander. Wonder how junior the pilot crewed with him was.

MGBrattland Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S23 5G, an AT&T 5G smartphone

_______________________________________________
Helobubbas mailing list -- helobubbas@helobubbas.com
To unsubscribe send an email to helobubbas-leave@helobubbas.com