Letters From War Wednesday: Vietnam War – Scotty Greiling.

This Letters From War Wednesday features a note from naval aviator, Scotty Greiling, serving aboard the carrier, USS America, treading water off the coast of Vietnam. Greiling wrote the letter to his brother, Paul, on June 4, 1968, 43 years ago this week.

Scotty Greiling - Attack Squadron VA-82 Marauders

Fifth day “on the line” and like all wars a great deal of the life is pretty boring but a few moments of terror. The first day was last Friday the 31^st. I was in the first launch of the air group; took off at 4 A.M. and as is normal for all new carriers they sent us in to South V.N. for the first bombing run. I encountered lots of flak, didn’t get hit at all, but I had a notion to tell those guys that they weren’t supposed to shoot for the first few days. Later on that same first day on one of the other flights from our squadron in the exact same spot, got shot down. You will probably eventually hear about him because he survived and evaded for two days with the enemy with 50 yards around him. … He got out with negligible injuries. No one has evaded for that long a period before so he is famous already, on his first hop. After he went down, his wingman stayed over him as long as he could until other people came to take over, in going back to the ship, he ran out of fuel and had to eject over the ocean, but was picked up the first half hour uninjured. All in all the squadron was a little shook after that first day.

Since then we’ve been going into North V.N. and although there is some natural nervousness, so far I’ve (or anyone else in our squadron) seen nothing whatsoever in the way of opposition. Can’t believe there will be six more months though and then a whole new cruise. The main problem is literally sleep, between planning and briefing and flying and a little look at my job as administrative officer, I’m normally up from 4 A.M. till midnight and everyone is like that. I’ve really learned to catnap. I can catch 5 minutes in the cockpit after manning it but prior to burn up.

We normally spend about 30 days on the line and then go into Cubi Pt. in the Philippines for 5 or 6 days. Unfortunately Cubi has to be the most nothing port in the world, there is nothing to do except drink and in the tropics that gets to you quickly. We hope to get into Hong Kong in September but it doesn’t look like Japan this cruise. … If nothing else I hope to get a good set of golf clubs this cruise. Maybe I’ll just buy my skipper’s, he is a red hot golfer and has a very good set which he wants to sell to get some new aluminum shaft clubs out here.

Gail and Bob (Scotty’s sister and brother-in-law) wrote and said … you had seen both Kennedy and McCarthy, what is your impression? Gail said she was going to vote “NO” for president. All of our news is completely associated with the war so I’m a little out of contact with the world. I haven’t heard if there have been any civil rights riots yet this summer.

Greiling’s A-7A Corsair was lost on a bombing run over North Vietnam on July 24, 1968. His remains were never recovered. For some, the search continues today.