Col. Joe Jackson, revisited.
One of the more enjoyable side-bars to researching the Interwebs for items that may be of interest to my brother and sister TAH’ers, is coming across the unexpected, the item that tells the whole when before I just had a glimpse. Completing the circle if you will. This is such a case.
I was able to take Mason’s excellent Valor Friday work on Col. Jackson, format it, add a couple graphics and post it up- done, right?
Nope. I came across his video, and here it is. I asked Mason if he had any words to add; he was happy just watching the video. I think y’all will be, too.
Category: Air Force, Blue Skies, The Warrior Code, Valor
I’ve posted some of these Medal of Honor Book videos in WOTs of the past. For anyone who is a military history buff, they are absolutely incredible. They’re all short, under 10 minutes, and it’s hearing from the horse’s mouth how things played out. Well worth exploring the channel. You’ll never see a more humble group of men that have every reason to be boastful.
Forgot to add the link to the channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/MedalOfHonorBook/videos
“…Always do the right thing.”
All of that fire pouring toward that aircraft at basically point blank range, and not a single hit.
Thanks for the post AW1Ed. And Thanks to Mason for the linky. I’ll be burning up some bandwidth over there.
The Colonel says he was “the luckiest man in the world” who shed 9K feet at the edge of Vne* in a 270 degree turn towards final approach, plunked the bird down on the numbers, if there were any, and came to a stop without reverse thrust right by the three remaining Airmen. Never mind the being shot at the entire time part. Loaded up and took off; another day at the office.
Respectfully disagree, Colonel. That is not luck. That is amazing Airmanship.
C-123 Provider
*Vne. Velocity, never exceed. Very Bad Things will happen quickly if Vne is indeed exceeded.
Wings and stabilizers come off when you significantly exceed Vne. No airframes perform well after a wing or stabilizer comes off. My first flight instructor flew into unforecast severe turbulence in an old V-tail Bonanza. A stabilator came off from the turbulence; the aircraft went into a flat spin and crashed inverted. All three aboard died.
I am humbled by men and women such as this.
This is why we (USAF aircraft maintainers) always gave the aircrews the best aircraft we possibly could, no matter what it took.