A RADAR SCOPE VIEW OF THE VIETNAM WAR

My father was in the 175th IR of the 29th ID landed at Omaha Beach. He received the Bronze Star. This is a picture of him when he arrived in Paris during WWII.

My late father-in-law was in a Tank Destroyer Unit in Patton’s 3rd Army. He thought of me and loved me as his son and I thought of him and loved him as my father. Because of that and our veteran connection he told me stories about his war and his stories about the race to Bastogne to join the brave men of the 101st Airborne Division always brought me to tears… He turned down two Purple Hearts because he thought his mother would worry about him even more. Those men were heroes one and all and they will always be this Nation’s Greatest Generation.

Lt. Col. Alton L. Teasley was my classmate at the Citadel and missed Vietnam. He served with the USAF as a pilot and flew F-111’s and died in 2014 of cancer. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery. This picture shows Al Teasely and Connie on the right and my wife Peggy and myself on the left.

My brother was awarded the Airman’s Medal before he left for Vietnam for pulling the pilot out of a jet that had crashed at Moody AFB that was on fire. I became a 2nd Lt. when I graduated from The Citadel in 1971 and volunteered for Vietnam in 1972 and served with the USAF at Nakhon Phanom RTAFB Northern the most fixed radar site in SEA. I got my wish and had a great view of the war on radar. We could hit a golf ball to Laos almost on the Mekong River closer to North Vietnam than any other US base.

I was Tactical Weapons Controller with the 621st Tactical Control Squadron. We provided classified and secret tactical radar control in South Vietnam for northwest Vietnam, Laos and parts of other places. Almost all USAF bases were in Thailand not Vietnam for lots of reasons… We were tactical weapons controllers and had weapons release authority when required, which meant that all tactical controllers were commissioned officers. The radar coverage among sites was overlapping to some extent but NKP was the northern most fixed radar control center in South East Asia. We were closer to North Vietnam than any US bases and north of the DMZ between North and South Vietnam. NKP turned south to form a narrow water border between Thailand and Laos and a narrow portion of land separating Laos from Vietnam and further south was separating Thailand from Cambodia.

NKP had rescue planes on base that went after Americans shot down. The HH-53 helicopters had machine guns and a wire cable hoist with a jungle penetrator at the end to get through the thick jungle canopy and could lift the airmen, the Sandy’s that provided firepower to protect the downed airmen, and the Bronco’s that the forward air controllers used to mark target with rockets that gave off various colors so the fighters could see the target by the lower flying FAC’s were all critical with specific missions.

The group picture shows me on the far left on the horn before the bombing cease-fire ended on Christmas Eve 1972. The bombing of Hanoi got the North Vietnamese back to the Paris peace talks but the war went on while they argued. The Christmas bombing went on 24/7 for about 12 days with fighters by day and B-52’s at night and massive support aircraft jammers, the Wild Weasel to take out North Vietnamese radar and SAM sites.

One memory that stays with me was when an F-4 was downed after the Christmas bombing ended. It was part of a four ship of F-4’s flying cover for an AC-130 gunship a Spectre working the trail one dark night over Laos. The request for the SAR was rejected by higher ups but Air America was flying and it was an Air America helicopter pilot that requested the bearing and a discrete frequency. I was asked for an initial bearing and a working frequency while working with a pilot while airborne. We worked together and I was able to put him within a .5 mile of downed airmen. One was alive and the other was killed after hitting a tree in the dark with his parachute. They were able to return them to us. I was in the same seat for almost 9 hours when we notified the base hospital and the base ATC of the inbound chopper. I drank a lot of nasty coffee but I was not moving until I knew that Hotel 17 and his precious passengers, all Heroes were on the ground.

I went to West Germany and afterward went to Eglin AFB at USAF TAWC working on the mission simulator for the E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System. I was on active duty for seven years and practiced law for 30 years in South Carolina.

I spent 30 years as a trial lawyer and I am working on exposing more about the horrors of Agent Orange.
~ Rick Wieters, USAF Veteran

Veteran Stories Interviewed and Collected by Jenny Lasala www.JennyLasala.com