old battered F-4 brings former enemies together

[jebglx]

this is an old story but i just ran across it...pretty cool

Years had passed since that dogfight over Vietnam. The American F-4D Phantom fighter jet had enjoyed a long, distinguished career, moving on to South Korea, then Air Force bases in Oklahoma and Ohio.

Like other old F-4s, it was marked for retirement at an aircraft boneyard outside Tucson, Ariz., but the plane was deemed too damaged to fly.

Instead, it found itself marooned in a grassy field outside the officers’ club at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, but it wasn’t done yet.

There was one more mission to serve — one that would bring together three men who might never have met otherwise, improbable friends linked by acts of wartime aggression but bound by reconciliation.

Dan Cherry, the American pilot who served two tours of duty in Southeast Asia. Nguyen Hong My, the North Vietnamese pilot whose fighter jet Cherry shot down in 1972. And John Stiles, a crewman aboard the plane Hong My had shot down earlier that year.

On Saturday, they’ll tell their stories at the annual Jalonick Memorial Lecture Series at the University of Texas at Dallas.

In early 2004, Cherry, a retired Air Force brigadier general, and some pals from Bowling Green, Ky., drove up to see the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton.

Museum staff told them another plane — possibly the F-4 Cherry had flown years earlier — was sitting outside a VFW club about 20 miles away, so they went over to check it out before leaving town.

There it was, sitting in a thicket of weeds. Birds had had their way with the exterior. But underneath the crud, Cherry could still make out the last three figures on the tail number.

Phantom 550. His old plane.

the rest of the story

[Rabbitguy21]

That's pretty cool

[Brendan@bwalkauto]

That is a truly amazing story.

[NickWVU]

Great read

[mx5er]

Wow, very powerful Their story makes all the petty differences with friends and family look trivial.

Another touching story:

[jebglx]

thanks for posting that!

i found the reunion of the two pilots from the original post on the sidebar of the video you posted

[vdubjb]

lol, my favorite plane of all time.

[Henni]

Crazy as it seems I met Dan Cherry when he was traveling through Charlottesville, Va a few years ago. He and his wife stopped by our shop to get his Audi's tire fixed. When I checked him in I thought he looked familiar and then I saw his name. So I asked him was he the F-4 pilot who graduated top of his class and flew in Vietnam. The only way I knew this I regularly watched Dogfights. He said yeah. Pretty crazy.

Amazing man, we had some very interesting conversations.