J. J. White

He knew he was flying too low after the last sortie.  Usually, after a napalm drop, the altitude increased rapidly in the F4 Phantom, but for some reason the jet wasn’t responding.  He looked down at the laminated photo of Libby and the boys as she raised her head up from the sink and saw the dark green station wagon with the small gold letters, USMC, etched on the door.  She dropped the potato peeler into the sink and screamed “Oh God, no!  Not Adam!  Oh God, no!” as she watched the two officers step out of the car and adjust their caps. “Oh God, no!  This can’t be happening!” Major Adam Pennington yelled, when the Phantom lurched to the left as the surface-to-air missile blew the right side of the cockpit against him, pinning his right arm and shoulder.

“I’m so sorry Libby,” he said out loud, as the flames burned through his pressurized suit and seared his leg. “I’m so sorry,” the lieutenant colonel said as he handed the letter to the hysterical woman clutching her two boys.  She knelt down, pressed her forehead to the floor of the kitchen, and screamed, “Why me, God?  Why me?”  “Why me?  I have a wife and two kids.  This can’t be happening!” as the F4 veered left, losing altitude quickly.  Major Pennington tried, but couldn’t reach the ejector button, and resigned himself to his fate as the ground rushed up, two miles south of Khe Sanh.