GEORGETOWN, Ky. (LEX 18) — He flew in 132 combat missions in Vietnam, even earning the Distinguished Flying Cross medal, but Bruce Gordon will take part in a different kind of flight Saturday.
Gordon and 65 other veterans will travel to Washington D.C. on an Honor Flight, visiting the memorials dedicated to their service.
Ahead of the flight, LEX 18 sat down with Gordon, who explained that his duty to serve felt almost innate.
Gordon was born in the Philippines where his dad worked for the Eastman Kodak Company. In 1939, the family relocated to Hawaii.
Shooting BB guns on the beach with his brother, Gordon remembers the smoke and screaming from the surprise attack that started it all.
“When I was a 7-year-old child, I remember the attack on Pearl Harbor,” said Gordon.
From that point on, Gordon said he had an awareness of the military, so when he was accepted into the Air Force ROTC and eventually served in Korea and Vietnam, his calling had come.
“I flew many different aircrafts, the fighters not the trainers,” said Gordon, rattling off the aircrafts. “The F86, the F100, the F82, and the F106.”
War stories fill the pages of Gordon’s book, “The Spirit of Attack.”
The author and fighter pilot chronicles his most notable stories throughout his 20-year career in the military, including 132 combat missions.
In one story, Gordon recalled flying a fighter escort for an electronics intelligence aircraft near North Korea.
“The North Koreans sent out 20 MiGs, and there were four of us, and we turned into them and we were attacking. They turned around and went back, so I lost my chance to get a MiG but there were 20 of them and 4 of us and it was sort of like Custer's Last Stand...a target rich environment we called it,” said Gordon.
Most would call it guts, but Gordon joked that it was just foolishness propelling him through each mission. That, and a sincere love of flying.
“There is that feeling of power when you're flying at 43,000 feet and all the other people are flying around beneath you, and they're leaving contrails, you're above the contrails looking down at these people, and they're passing by your permission,” Gordon reminisced. “This is the greatest 'king upon a thunder throne.' You can't beat that.”
For the pilot who’d seemingly seen it all by the time he came home from Vietnam, there were still some surprises.
“The truth is, when I got off the plane, the micro-skirts had come in for the women, and that was what struck me more than anything else, was the micro-skirts. I couldn't believe it!,” Gordon expressed.
The lighthearted memories and the dark ones too will all be top of mind when Gordon and his comrades fly to Washington D.C. for their Honor Flight.
There, Gordon and three other veterans have been chosen to lay a wreath at The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
“To think I would be laying one of the wreaths is very impressive. It's a great honor, it's a great honor, it's one I totally did not expect,” said Gordon.
