Two Souls Indivisible Read Free Page B

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    Cherry's race increased his pressures to perform. Before 1948, the military had segregated blacks for many reasons; not least was the belief that they were unfit to lead whites into battle. In 1964 the dearth of black officers ensured that it rarely happened. Cherry was an exception, and he gladly defied the racist stereotypes of black commanders. Not only did he lead whites into bat tie, whites pleaded to be in his flight, just as white students asked to be in his gunnery classes. Cherry's nickname, Chief, connoted his authority and respect. He also dazzled his commanders—one said he moved through the air "like an eel." Major Bobby J. Mead, in an evaluation, wrote on March 6, 1964: "I consider Captain Cherry one of the most effective officers of his rank that I have worked with during my entire Air Force career." As Ed Kenny, one of his early gunnery instructors, said, "Fred always had that little man in him that kept wanting him to do better."
    For Cherry's part, social statements were incidental to his ambition. What motivated him was the excitement of airborne combat, in which do-or-die engagements were the ultimate test of skill, daring, and courage. Like all great fighter pilots, he never had any qualms about his work. He believed that if a pilot couldn't pull the trigger, he should fly cargo planes. Cherry otherwise had few hobbies, pastimes, or interests. Flying combat missions was what he did best, and Vietnam gave him one more chance.
    While the U.S. Navy could send jets from carriers off the coast of Vietnam, the Air Force could not do the same from distant Japan. It needed cooperation from Thailand, where in 1964 the Americans turned primitive air fields in Korat and Takhli into crude bases. Air Force personnel built wooden hooches on stilts to avoid the cobras, waded through six-inch puddles that formed in minutes from fierce downpours, brought in air-conditioned trailer homes for senior officers, and cut through the thick vegetation that covered the runway lights. The work was difficult and sometimes hazardous, but it put American aircraft within striking distance of Vietnam.
    The initial bombing runs sought to destroy supply lines on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. Then, in February 1965, after an attack on an American compound and helicopter base in South Vietnam, the targets moved to North Vietnam. The next month, the Johnson administration launched the bombing campaign Operation Rolling Thunder, its name derived from a hymn; it would continue, with incremental expansions and occasional pauses, for three years. By April, the Air Force and Navy were flying 1,500 sorties a month against the North, which increased to 4,000 in September. In June, the United States had 75,000 combat troops in South Vietnam. By the end of the next month, that number had increased to 125,000.

    Cherry knew little about the conflict except that he was fighting the Communists, that the South Vietnamese had a right to choose their own form of government, and that initially everything was very secret. The bombings were categorized as "classified missions," so classified that he didn't tell his wife, Shirley, who assumed he was still sitting on alert in Korea. (He eventually told her the truth.)
    At the outset, using intelligence information, the squadron leaders identified a slew of targets, such as ammunition dumps, radar sites, airfields, bridges, industrial centers, power plants, and the flood control system of the Red River Delta. They mapped their routes and determined what bombs to use, but the plans were never implemented. Instead, they were ordered to blow up roads or mountainsides, sometimes to start a rockslide that would bury a passage. They were allowed to hit early detection radars, but those sites were soon removed from the target list. Cherry assumed the country's civilian leaders were choosing low-impact targets to avoid unnecessary destruction, but he also knew that this was no way to fight a war. During the