With the wide assortment of literature and movies portraying the ‘typical’ Vietnam-era GI, one might be led to believe that most Americans involved in that war were either bloodthirsty warmongers or soldiers tripped out on drugs. For the majority of the personnel who served their country in Southeast Asia (SEA), the truth was exactly the opposite. This was certainly the case with the F-4 maintenance troops of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, during the 1972 Linebacker II air offensive.

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Most of the maintenance personnel assigned to the F-4 section were young airmen in their late teens or early 20s. Considering the fact that F-4E Phantoms were designed to be maintained by an experienced crew chief with a ‘technical sergeant’ skill rating, it was quite a responsibility for a young airman to be assigned as a crew chief on this multimillion-dollar weapon system. The reason for the shortage of experienced personnel was that, in late October 1972, President Nixon had halted all bombings north of the 20th parallel in North Vietnam in anticipation of a negotiated cease-fire. For the next several weeks, most of the Americans stationed in SEA felt that an end to the war was imminent. Apparently, the manpower planning staffs also felt that way because the flow of replacement personnel was reduced to a trickle.

Throughout the months of October and November, maintenance and other support organizations lost experienced personnel at a far higher rate than normal due to a large number of expired DEROS (dates of expected return from overseas) for completed one-year tours, as well as the end of many TDY (temporary duty) cycles. Since many U.S. Air Force personnel had deployed directly to SEA during the April-May period following the North Vietnamese (NVA) Eastertide invasion into the South, they had finished their 180-day TDY cycles and were therefore due for a return to their home stations. In light of the bombing halt situation, there appeared to be no reason to retain the TDY people. But by the end of November, the realization finally struck a number of commanders that unless the personnel pipeline was reopened, the flying units would be in a situation of trying to maintain an in-place force without adequate manpower to do so.

Finally, during the first part of December, relief in the form of new TDY personnel arrived from a number of Stateside bases and from areas in the Pacific. Some of the more experienced men who were due to rotate just before Christmas were also involuntarily extended to January or February 1973 dates. This was a highly unpopular action as most of the extended troops had families expecting them home for the holidays, but as things later turned out, it proved to be a very fortuitous decision. Since many of the new TDY people were somewhat unfamiliar with working on F-4 aircraft, it was up to those extended crew chiefs to provide them with quick on-the-job training.

Although most units were still sitting far short of their normal manning requirements, the maintenance officers were reasonably confident they could handle the kind of flying schedule that the squadron wing had supported during Linebacker I operations from March to October 1972 in response to the NVA Eastertide Offensive. That effort had been characterized as a’standard’ schedule whereby missions were flown by day, and night shift was used as a time for the maintenance system to correct all discovered major discrepancies to get the aircraft ready for the next day’s schedule. The demands of concurrent aircraft launch and recovery operations required greater manpower loadings during the day shift. The men on night shift could usually perform their jobs with a less than full complement since their main role was to act as a coordinator for specialists doing the actual troubleshooting or repair actions on the aircraft. Under these kinds of conditions, the maintenance officers and senior NCOs felt that even with shortages the troops could ‘hack the program.’

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