Richard Lance Honey

On November 2, 1969, an F-4D from the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) ripped along at high speed and low altitude above a dirt road through northern Laos. The big fighter essed back and forth across the track so the two-man crew could look for targets to strike — North Vietnamese supplies earmarked for use against U.S. forces and their allies. The jet's weaving flight path also made it more difficult for antiaircraft gunners to track the green, black, and tan camouflaged Phantom II.

Suddenly, a single .50 caliber bullet smashed through the canopy quarter-panel and struck the back-seater in the chest. Only two years out of college, 1st Lt. Richard Lance Honey bled to death in the time it took his pilot to race at supersonic speed to the nearest air base.

Four decades have seen bitter debate among Americans about the morality of the war in Vietnam. Yet, to a fighter pilot, the answer to the question of why Rick Honey was in Southeast Asia was an easy one: his nation called.

Their call sign was Laredo 03, and their mission was to find targets along the stretch of dirt highway known as Route 7. The small, dusty road ran from the Laos–North Vietnam border westward to the Plain of Jars in central Laos. Laredo 03 was a fast forward air controller (FAC) mission. Once they found a target — typically a truck or two, or perhaps a poorly hidden supply cache — they would rendezvous with other fighters, guide them to the target, mark it with a white phosphorous smoke rocket, and then direct the other fighters' bombs onto the target.

The scheme of fast FACs directing flights of other fighters onto small targets was the predominant interdiction tactic used in Laos along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but it was very ineffective. Even the fast FAC familiar with his area had a difficult time finding targets, because he had to fly fast enough to survive AAA (antiaircraft artillery), and he had to fly high enough to stay out of the small arms fire — such as that which killed Honey.

When Honey was killed in November 1969, it was "halftime" in the air war over North Vietnam — the time between Rolling Thunder (1965–1968) and Linebacker (1972). Attacks in North Vietnam were not allowed between the two major campaigns while negotiators attempted to end the war through diplomacy. The only targets were the difficult-to-find and harder-to-hit traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Waves of multimillion-dollar jets sought, on a daily and nightly basis, to destroy trucks worth only a few thousand dollars each.

The answer was simple: with the equipment and training they had, it was the only way to try to get the job done.