This is Jockel Podcast number 364 with Dave Burke and me, Jockel Willink. Good evening Dave. Good evening.

The Misty's who volunteered were among the most talented, hard-working, courageous group of men I have ever encountered.

To a man, they were remarkable pilots.

They worked long hours, days on end, to get the program started.

During the early missions we were consumed with establishing procedures, deciding on tactics, constructing our maps, testing varied equipment and aircraft configurations and learning the area.

It was really hunt and peck, trial by fire.

We decided on three cycle missions using two in-flight refuelings.

We were looking for road traffic, storage areas and sams, which were beginning to move into the lower parts of the pack.

Those early Misty missions were really hairy as we experimented with how to survive in a dense, AAA environment while marking targets and directing strikes.

Though facthing was not a new concept, the US Air Force had employed facts since World War II.

Fast facthing was new and we were truly plowing new ground.

We had to learn to operate and survive in a very dense threat environment while operating for extended periods at low altitude, dicey stuff.

Our loss rate during the first six months was 42%. A steep, expensive and tragic learning curve.

I cannot emphasize too strongly the courage of the first group of men who raised their hands.

They were going where no jet pilot had ever been before to do dangerous things no one had ever done.

That right there is an excerpt from a book called Misty, which is the book is made up of a bunch of first person accounts of Misty pilots in Vietnam.

That particular account was from a man named Bud Day, who was the founder and the first commanding officer of the Misty Squadron, which he commanded for about two months.

Before he was shot down, he was captured by the communists. He actually escaped his initial captivity, but he was shot and recaptured.

Then he was sent to the Hanoi Hilton where he spent five years and seven months as a POW. Upon his release, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his personal bravery and his leadership in the face of extreme enemy pressure.

But even while he was in captivity, the rest of the squadron, the Misty pilots, they continued on. They flew the F-100 Super Saber, which is known as the Hun.

There were 157 pilots that served as Misty, fast facts and facts stands for Forward Air Controller. They were around from 1967 to 1970.

As Forward Air Controllers, they did that from the sky. They were marking targets and directing other aircraft to take out those targets. It was a very dangerous job, especially because the Misty pilots did a bulk of their flying in North Vietnam where they were exposed to the most intense of the enemy air defenses.

...