The Sentinel, The Wonderful Charlie Plumb

      This is what Charlie looked like parachuting out of his burning F-4 over Hanoi.

      I just finished reading his book, “I’m No Hero” by Charlie Plumb. Charlie was an F-4 Phantom pilot during the Vietnam war. He was on his first cruise on the USS Kitty Hawk flying bombing missions over north Vietnam. I did not know it at the time, but he and I were on the same ship at the same time. He was in a fighter squadron VF-114 while I was in early warning squadron 11. We never met, but I am sure I saw his plane take off and land. I loved watching the F-4 planes launch off the catapults at night. The pilots would light off the afterburners just before takeoff. There would be two huge flames shooting out of the jet engines (more than enough to dry roast anyone standing behind the plane). The planes would be shot off the catapult and there would be a fiery trail coming out the exhausts as they climbed up to altitude and then the lights would flicker out.

      The ship worked on through month after month. I was working plane maintenance on the flight deck, while Lieutenant Plumb was flying bombing missions over Vietnam. On May 19, 1967, we were just scheduled for 5 days more of operations before turning to 090 degrees and heading home. That day Lieutenant Plumb’s F-4 was hit by enemy fire and went down. He and his radar officer ejected from the plane, parachuted to the ground and were captured. Charlie spent 7 years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, commonly known as ‘The Hanoi Hilton'. Of course that was a very dark joke, not really a joke at all. The pilots and enlisted men there went through a living hell with physical torture, mental anguish and near starvation. I cannot imagine how a single one of them survived the ordeal. I know I could not have made it there. Imagine 2555 days in a row of what I just described. I cannot fathom it myself.

      Charlie Plumb did it and came out a great man who travels around these days as a motivational speaker! Once when he was sitting having breakfast alone in a diner after his release from captivity, he noticed man in another booth staring at him. Charlie began to get uncomfortable wondering why that man was staring at him. The man got up and walked over to him and asked if he was Lieutenant Plumb. Charlie replied that he was Charlie Plumb. The man said, "I packed your parachute and I am glad it worked." That man was the parachute rigger for Charlie's squadron.

      I had 1 day of training in survival, escape and evasion school inside a mock prison camp. The marines who ran the school beat on people (more so on officers) they put us in small boxes where I, skinny, 140 pounds had my knees up to my chin for an few hours. When they finally pulled me out my legs would not straiton out. They then took me to interrogation where I was knelt on a concrete floor with a broom handle behind my knees and then pushed backwards until my back was on the floor. The pain was escruciating! I knew then I would rather have been killed than go through the real thing with real Vietnamese torture and interrogation.