Kelly Almond USMC

Air Force pilot Joe Jackson was circling 9,000 feet above a Special Forces camp in Vietnam in his C-123 cargo plane, an aircraft with no guns, when the radio confirmed the last people had been flown out. Fighter jets were cleared to destroy what was left of the camp and the enemy with it. Then a voice broke in. 3 American airmen were still down there. The camp was Kham Duc, May 12, 1968, and it was falling. Thousands of enemy troops had it surrounded. Ammunition dumps were exploding, 8 aircraft had already been destroyed, and the enemy held gun positions on the runway itself. The 3 men, Maj. John Gallagher, Tech. Sgt. Mort Freedman and Staff Sgt. Jim Lundie, had been flown out earlier that day, then sent back in to help with the evacuation. Now everyone else was gone. They were hiding in a ditch beside the runway with 3 rifles. “I never felt so lonely in all my life,” Freedman said later. Another C-123 went in first. It landed under heavy fire, the crew couldn’t find the men, and the pilot pushed the throttles forward to get out. Just before liftoff they spotted the 3 men in the ditch, but it was too late to stop. The men watched what they thought was their last hope take off without them. Jackson was next. He had flown fighters in World War II and Korea, and he knew the enemy gunners expected him to come in low and slow like every cargo plane before him. So he didn’t. He pointed the nose down and dove almost straight at the runway from 9,000 feet. The gunners were caught by surprise. He pulled out just above the trees and landed on a strip littered with debris, where a wrecked helicopter had cut the usable runway to 2,200 feet. The 3 men ran for the plane and were pulled aboard. As they climbed in, a rocket skidded to a stop less than 25 feet from the nose. It didn’t explode. Jackson taxied around it and pushed the throttles all the way forward. Within 10 seconds, mortar rounds were landing on the spot they had just left. Tracers crossed the runway ahead of them. The plane had been on the ground for less than a minute. It took off through the fire with all 3 men aboard, the last Americans out of Kham Duc. “When I looked up and saw that C-123 coming in, it was like a miracle,” Lundie said. It was his 296th combat mission in Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson presented him the Medal of Honor at the White House. Jackson passed away in 2019 at 95. 🫡 🇺🇸 ♥️