From a small farm town in Georgia to the cockpit of a C-7 Caribou over Vietnam, to eleven years flying B-52 Stratofortresses at the height of the Cold War — Buddy Herrington's story is one of the most remarkable we've covered on Ask A Vet. In this episode, Buddy walks us through four years at the Air Force Academy, two tours in Vietnam, a career that touched Guam, the Pentagon, and Space Command, and the unexpected call that led him from the cockpit to the pulpit as a Methodist minister in St. George, Utah.
CHAPTERS:
01:30 Growing up in Alabama & rural Georgia
11:24 The roommate who introduced him to the Air Force Academy
14:47 Arriving at the Academy and basic training
30:20 Graduation — Nixon, and backpacking across Europe
42:18 Pilot training begins
45:29 Learning to fly the C-7 Caribou
50:35 First tour: flying into Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam
1:02:26 Dodging ground fire in a plane with no defenses
1:09:03 The jump from Caribou to B-52
1:12:09 Inside the B-52 "Stratofortress"
1:14:06 Water-injection takeoffs and life on Guam
1:24:16 Aerial refueling — "a planned collision"
1:42:18 The scariest moment: SAM missiles over Hanoi
1:48:23 Alert duty and the Middle East crisis
2:01:01 Looking back on Vietnam and the Wall
2:04:44 Space Command, GPS, and the Cold War
2:10:11 Retiring — and the call to ministry
2:10:47 Flood relief and building community in St. George
2:18:07 Closing thoughts
🎖️ Thank you to Buddy Herrington for his 28 years of service and for sharing his story with us.
