Page 47 - DFCS NEWS MAGAZINE 2020-1

Calamos related one other flight that stood out in his memory. “I was flying and got a call from an infantry unit under attack from the NVA. They were in deep forest as I flew over. I was on the radio with the jets and the guys on the ground. I needed to know where they were and the guy says, ‘I’ll send up some red smoke,’ so suddenly there were two red smokes coming up from the woods. That meant the enemy was listening in. So, then the guy says, ‘I’ll send up green smoke!’ Again, two green smokes.”
While this was happening, the jets were orbiting nearby waiting for their cue. “Then the guy says, ‘Sending up yellow smoke!’ And only one yellow smoke comes up. ‘I don’t have yellow smoke! Get them!’ So, I radio ‘Cleared in hot! Target is the yellow smoke!’”
Just another day at the office for a Forward Air Controller in Vietnam.
“I flew over one thousand hours during my tour in Vietnam; 833 of those hours were in combat,” he said. “I made
four hundred flights, but I don’t know if each flight could be called a ‘mission,’” he chuckled. “That’s up to the Air Force.” Surprisingly, after rotating back to the states in May 1969, Calamos went back to flying B-52s out of Minot AFB in
North Dakota. He spent five years on active duty and twelve in the reserves flying A-37 jet fighters. One can’t help but wonder what the Air Force had in mind taking him from B-52s to making him a FAC, then putting him back in the Stratofortress. But as for his year in the O-2A, there are some Green Berets who are very glad it worked out that way.
As for myself, I now have a much greater respect for the men who flew those tiny unarmored Cessnas over hostile and deadly battlefields, calling in air strikes, coordinating combat air rescue, and doing a dozen other jobs that could only be done by the FACs. Next time you meet a Forward Air Controller, buy him a beer. -Mark Carlson
Drawing by John Mollison of USAF Cessna O-2A “Lopez 58”
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