I got up early with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. I felt as though the anvil I had been carrying around on my chest had disappeared. I had a new lease on my life in the 51st Fighter Wing, and I was anxious to get started at my new job as Don’s assistant Operations Officer in the 16th Squadron. I ran into “Hunk” and Frank in the Mess hall and had breakfast with them. We talked happily about how good it was going to be to have us all together again. Hunk wasn’t flying, but Frank was so the two of us walked down to the Flight Line. When we walked into 16th Squadron Operations I greeted Don with a mock salute and asked him.
“Boss, what do you want me to do first?”
But, I knew immediately from the look on his face that something had…show more content… I stopped walking, turned and studied him for a minute and then asked him what the hell was up, why he was behaving so strangely? Then my friend became really uncomfortable. Always an up-front, plain-spoken youngster, he uncharacteristically began hemming and hawing as he stood before me nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Frank was one of the sharpest lieutenants in my Flight. He was bright, an excellent pilot and great wingman. And on the ground he was quiet, competent and importantly to me, a thinker. Of the lieutenants I had in my Flight, Frank was my favorite. Since I had known him, I had never seen him so nervous and ill at ease. But, at my insistence, he finally told me what was bothering him. He said that while I had been in Japan on R & R he had been hearing some different little bullshit lies about me around Ops and at the Club. He said it was not just the same old crap that had been going around about me being a "bluenose", “ not really one of the boys”and being "a different kind of fighter pilot". He said that the thrust of the new gossip was that I was a "weak…show more content… Despite the fact that an Air Force Officer had been killed by the negligence of his leader, the accuracy of my findings, the honor of my position and the dishonor of the Captain Dunn, his other two pilots, the other Board members and whoever it was that made the decision to falsify my signature on the report and forward a false and dishonest report to higher headquarters, it was I who was made the “bad guy” in the whole sad and disgusting affair. It was an unbelievable turn of events in which the reputation I already had as an officer who was “different”, who was a “Boy Scout”, an “outsider”, who was “not one of the boys”, and as someone who was “out to get Dunn” was reinforced by what quickly became known as “the Lagoyda affair”.
There was no question about it. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Although there was not a shred of truth to the accusation, I had become an easy target for anyone who wanted to start a whispering campaign around the fighter group about my rumored lack of aggressiveness in pressing attacks against the MiGs. It didn’t take much imagination or courage for anyone who had the desire to make
