Shadow Pilot: A Combat Homecoming
Read the storyMy name is Tom Wood, Captain Tom Wood, USAF, that is. I am 30 years old, 6', 170 lbs, and handsom, my mother always said. Graduated from AFROTC at Utah State Univerity in 1961 and entered active duty in May 1962. After a year in Navigator Training at James Conally AFB, Waco, Texas, I was assigned to Travis AFB, Californig flyin C-130E and C-141A primarily in the Pacific region. I was away from home over have the time flying usually to Vietnam, delivering new troops and supplies and returning with Air Evacuations of wounded troop or deceased troop (we could carry 80 coffins). It was a hard time indeed. I received orders for Vietnam and after over 9 months of training at Lockborne AFB, Ohio, I was sent to Vietnam where I had served for a year flying AC-119 Shadow Gunships in night combat with enemy (Viet Cong) forces. I flew 625 Night Combat Hours providing firepower and support for America ground troops, always at night! One week from the end of my tour of duty, I received a "Dear John" letter from my wife of 10 years who was living in Salt Lake City, Utah while I was in Vietnam. On Nov. 15, 1969, just weeks before returning home to my family in Utah, the biggest antiwar demonstration in US history was held, in Washington D.C. when half a million people gathered to demand an end to the war in Vietnam. Anti-war sentiment was running high as we continued our nighttime combat missions. In mid-January 1970, with the "Dear John" letter in my pocket, I left the Vietnam battleground, boarded a civilian contract airliner and headed back to the United States of America for a less than amicable reunion!