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jsummers
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I wrote a poem "Ode to Hanoi Jane". Dedicated to many of my friends that went back from LRAFB to CCK and friends still at CCK when i left.  during the end of the war. Lots of battle damage to the squadrons and needed airframes and crews. I was asked if I wanted to go back TDY for 60 days in summer of 72 but turned it down. Its kind of long like 4 pages. I'll see if the bosses here mind if I post it..

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This is the my motivation for my poem

Notes: This was written from both personal experiences and experiences of close friends. Some didn’t have the happy ending and the entire crews were lost. Thankfully I was never shot down. I wrote in first person purely for the effect of the story. The end of the War gave us some of the most hazardous flying duty for the C-130 crews as most of the airstrips had very little security.  All search and destroy missions had ended leaving The Viet Cong to operate at will. The new rules of engagement would no longer allow patrols to secure the flight paths into the remote airfields. They could only “defend” their positions and no longer do search and destroy missions required to secure the flight paths.

 

Several bases were under siege and low level airdrop was the only method of delivery of supplies and ammo.

 

Jane Fonda spent August of 1972 with the NVA anti-aircraft gunners and helped boost their morale even though none of them had any idea who she was. During the summer of 1972 and while Hanoi Jane entertained the NVA, my squadron lost several C-130s on missions like the one I wrote about in my satirical poem.

 

I flew 133 Combat Missions in Vietnam with some of the best flight crews to ever crew a C-130 aircraft. I was one of Capt. Elwood’s “Mission Hackers”. I am forever grateful for his pilot skills and thank him and all my Pilots for bringing me safely home after all our Combat Missions. 

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Ode to Hanoi Jane

 

Sgt. BR Lang USAF

 

 

 

Welcome home a hero you are. All I did was survive a war

Those words ring hollow so save your breath as 50 years have passed and I gave it my best.

Been a half century since that stage in my life, now I have two kids and a wonderful wife.

Flew the skies of Vietnam for a year and a half I look back now and I just have to laugh.

 

 

From Saigon to Chu Lai to Khe Sanh and Kontum

hauling bullets and beans well be back real soon.

 

 

More ammo to Hue for the boys to fight I hope no more KIAs

going with us tonight.

The “Screaming Eagles” were bad to the bone looks like 6 boys in bags we’re taking them home.

 

Came home on leave for 30 short days. My mind was a mess all filled with haze.

Saw the news for the first time it seemed like a year. Protest filled the streets cops in riot gear.

Then on the news to my dismay was Jane Fonda big as day.

She was hanging with Commies and manning the guns. Boy looked like they all had fun

She sat with the gunner looking up to the sky as they screamed hey John McCain you gonna die.

She laughed and joked with that Commie fellow but he never even saw her boobs in Barbarella.

She had plenty of fame because of her name but showing some skin was her only game. Now back to the News!!!!!

 

 

Protest filled the streets and “why are you here?” “Drugs and chicks do I look queer?”

  “Life is a party and to Nam I ain’t going and it’s back to the streets and the party were throwing.”

I looked at that guy his name was Howard…I knew then he was simply a coward.

 

 

Then John Kerry uttered those words. “They are Baby Killers I tell ya”. I thought that’s absurd

 How would he know with his protected

status?  He didn’t have a clue of the crap thrown at us.

 

 

Leave is over back in a combat zone. Hooked up with my flight crew this felt like home.

The war’s winding down and the airfields ain’t secure. Pulled all the patrols out crews gonna die for sure.

Boys are in trouble and need bullets and beans. Low level airdrop is our only means.

Fly low and slow to hit the drop zone. Hope like hell that Charlie’s  gone home.

Fly 600 feet the drop zone is in sight. I thought holy crap as I look off to the right.

There was Charlie shooting his gun 20 MM shells ripping through One.

One’s on fire and we feathered the prop

We gotta keep on and make this last drop.

 

 

“Loads clear” as we continue to burn. We bank to the right in a low slow turn.

 We need some altitude or we gonna die. Then I saw the SAM coming up in the sky.

 I then saw Charlie getting away. He didn’t have the balls to stay and play.

 He was down in a rice field ridding a Honda and I see on the back I think that’s Jane Fonda.

 

 

The SAM hit Three and we are going in. I never thought this is how it will end.

The plane hit hard as we hit with a thud it seemed like forever as we skidded through the mud

 

 

By the grace of God we all survived but now had the end finally arrived.                                                                                                           The plane was burning and we gotta get away. I grabbed my weapon as this was not my last day.

 

 

We hid in the bush waiting for rescue. We looked at each other and that’s when we knew. We had cheated death and dropped the load too.

 

 

We stayed real low as Charlie approached the plane. There came that Honda and our girl Jane

 

They danced around the plane as flames hit the sky I couldn’t help but wonder if we’re gonna die.                                               

 

 

We called for air cover as the Chopper arrived. We might just get out of this alive.

Up in the sky was a fighter jet. That was the best thing we had seen yet.

  He dropped two large bombs on the burning plane. Got the Honda, the dancers and maybe even Jane.

 

 

The chopper lifted off as it began to rain. I thought to my self was that John McCain?

 

**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

We were ordinary people that did extraordinary things. One in fifty thousand enlisted troops

were on flying status. How was I so lucky to make the cut.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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