Vet’s military service full of risky maneuvers
For Scotty James, there are three things that can make flying more dangerous than usual—flying at night, flying under fire and flying while fueling other planes.
James had to conduct all three of those tasks while serving as a fuel specialist for the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War.
“Both planes would have to fly at the same airspeed,” James, a Texarkana, Texas, resident, said as he recalled having to conduct in-flight, jet fighter refueling missions while flying low at night above enemy territory over Vietnam. “We refueled anything from B-52 bombers to C-5 Galaxy transport planes to U.S. Navy jet fighters.”
Born March 8, 1942, James grew up in a coal mining town of Princeton, W.Va. He joined the U.S. Air Force on Nov. 30, 1960, at age 18, because it was something he always wanted to do.
“Even as a kid, I was interested in flying,” he said. “When I left home, I told everyone ‘I’ll see you in 20 years’ and that’s exactly what happened.”
Sure enough, James, now 75, took his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Upon finishing boot camp, he took an aptitude test and the Air Force sent him to Chanute Air Field in Illinois for some advance training in missile fueling. There he stayed for about four or five months before being deployed to Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, N.M.
“We were put on special alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis (in October 1962),” he said. “We remained on special alert for about a month.”
James remained at Walker A.F.B until the Air Force closed it down in 1965.
“I fueled missiles, but after the based closed down, I had the chance to go to flight school, so I did,” he said.
James trained for 17 weeks of mid-air refueling at Castle Air Force Base in California and learned how to conduct mid-air refueling operations. This he learned to do by extending a 10-foot hollowed out hydraulic boom leading from his “refueler” aircraft to the “refuelee” plane in flight.
Such refueling was considered risky even in daylight, but for James the riskiest refueling operations occurred refueling U.S. jet fighters at night while flying low over enemy territory in Vietnam between 1967 and 1971.
“The jet fighters were smaller and lighter aircraft and therefore more susceptible to bouncing with the air currents,” he said. “Avoiding mishaps with both aircraft required very good eyesight and depth perception. It was nerve racking. It was by far the most stressful thing I ever did.”
Add to this the fact that James and his flight crew never knew they were being shot at from the ground until they landed.
“One time, we landed and shut down our engines and when we got out, our flight line crew chief looked underneath the fuselage and asked us what did we do to his plane,” James said. “We looked under and we could see dozens of small bullet holes.”
Following his last combat tour in Vietnam in 1971, James continued another 10 years in the Air Force before retiring at age 39, on Sept. 30, 1981.
“At the time, I thought that I had had enough, but I look back and sometimes think that I could have stayed in another 10 years and made it 30 years,” he said. “I was living in Spokane, Wash., when I retired.”
Besides Vietnam, James’ military career took him to places like Spain, England, Iran, Germany, Greenland, Japan and Korea. He received several military service medals—among them the Vietnam Service Medal, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal.
Following military life, James took on another job that basically became a second career. Having previously been stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base twice while still in the Air Force, James knew of the Texarkana area and when his wife took on a job at a library in Hope, Ark., he spent 16 years of his post-military life working as an emergency dispatcher for the Hope Police Department until he retired from there in June.
However, he still remembers the adventure the Air Force had to offer.
“Sometimes, I miss the Air Force because it really was serious adventure,” he said.