October 26, 2025 • 39 mins
During the Vietnam War, Major Robert Lodge was the foremost expert on "Combat Tree". The top secret program gave our fighters and advantage over the North Vietnamese MIGs.
After his aircraft was disabled in an aerial dogfight, Lodge told his weapons officer to eject. Knowing his own capture on potential revelation of the top secret knowledge he kept could endanger others, Lodge went down with his plane.
His friend and fellow Vietnam combat pilot Leonard "Lucky" Eckman is working to have Lodge awared the Medal of Honor.
After his aircraft was disabled in an aerial dogfight, Lodge told his weapons officer to eject. Knowing his own capture on potential revelation of the top secret knowledge he kept could endanger others, Lodge went down with his plane.
His friend and fellow Vietnam combat pilot Leonard "Lucky" Eckman is working to have Lodge awared the Medal of Honor.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
Is on the air. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to
American Warrior Radio. This is your host, Benbula Garcia American
Warrior Radio broadcast from the slender Central Studios. If you're
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Ladies and gentlemen, Today you're going to hear the tale
of two warriors, one who made it home and the
(01:02):
other who didn't. And we're very very pleased to be
joined by a young man who's uh. I won't guess
his age, but let's just say he has been around
seeing a few things. We're very pleased to be joined
today by Leonard Lucky Eckman. Leonard, Welcome to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It's my pleasure to be here and to speak on
behalf of my very overfull life and the life that
friend Bob Lodge gave a way to protect his secrets
and protect his country and to protect his wingman.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Now, can I call you Lucky?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You can go yep. That's that's certainly one of the
better things I've been called in life.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So we've only had one other Lucky on the show
here in American Warrior Radio, and that was Lucky Luckadoo,
who was the last surviving member of the Bloody one
hundredth of Flying Bombers in World War Two, and he's
since since flown. You've flown flown West, I guess, but
so it's good to have another Lucky here. Now I'm
stand Lucky. You were an army brat and you decided
(02:03):
that you wanted to serve as well, but your path
to the Air Force Academy was there's a big block
in the road. Apparently you're someone from your school.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, the dean of faculty at the at Georgia Military
Academy where I went to school was a West Pointer
and he said, don't go to the Air Force Academy.
You fifty years before that place mounts to anything. And
I said, yeah, boss, but I really want to go
fly jets. And he said, well, you could go to
West Point and cross commission. I said, no, I really
want to fly jets. And so I went to the
(02:34):
Air Force Academy and never regretted it.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
And what year was that?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
That was in nineteen fifty nine, as I graduated from
high school down there in Georgia, and I came here,
fell in love with the place, the beauty of it,
the architecture of the facilities, and the toughness of the regimen,
and it was just everything that I had ever hoped for.
And so so I stuck it out and had some
(03:01):
very good advice from some very good friends, upper classmen, contemporaries,
lower classmen, and here I am today.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So you were a graduator in the academy class of
nineteen sixty three, if I I've got that correct. And
then you went off to initial flight training. I think
that was at Williams Air Force Base there in Phoenix.
But then you went into you went to Nellison, you
started training in f one o five's and you were
actually the top gun for your class in F one
o fives, I.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Was, and it was tough competition, and it was down
to the last rocket pass or the last straight pass.
But they gave me a nice piece of wood with
a brass plaque on it at the end at the
Flamingo there when we had our graduation party, to my surprise,
because I was in very good company of some really
(03:51):
sharp folks. These guys were the cream of the crop,
and somehow I got in with them. And we were
the third class to come for pilot training, but only
the first class to be all people who had never
flown before military aviation. The first two classes were heavily
loaded with people who had been back seaters in air
(04:13):
defense airplanes, the RF the F one o one B
air defense airplanes, and in that era we had a
lot of them. We had twenty nine hundred total interceptors,
and probably one hundred or probably four or five hundred
of them were the F one o ones, and people
from the backseat to that airplane would go to pilot training,
(04:34):
and then they came into the one five with a
whole bunch of extra aviation skills. That we knew bees
that were straight out of pilot training lacked.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Now lucky, So the F one O five, the thunder Chief,
or effectually known as the Thud. I guess by the
people who flew it. I mean, that's a beast of
an aircraft. And in some ways I've heard that its
reputation was not so good at least in the early years.
Is that accurate?
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Because there were a lot of gainsayers, and it was
the first fighter to have a bombay, and that in
that bombay was a big plunger to eject a nuclear weapon,
because the Air Force could buy fighters in that day,
in those days, only for the utility to blow holes
in the Russian air defenses to let the beef fifty
(05:21):
twos get through in the event of nuclear war. And
so it had a big, a big bombay that would
carry a nuclear weapon and a plunger that would eject
the nuclear weapon. And so the people who didn't get
to fly it were jealous, I guess, and they called
it the Thud because they said that our real role
(05:42):
and our real utility was to taxi over a tank.
Our gear was very tall and hit them with that
plunger and crush the tank from above with a plunger
with a thud.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Hey, whatever gets the job done, man.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, indeed, well it turned out. You know, obviously it
began as a term of derision, and it became a
term of endearment, and then it became a of great
respect throughout the Air force.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
How lucky this just so if people weren't familiar with
I mean, this aircraft could carry a bigger payload than
a World War two B seventeen. I mean that's and
fly it MOP two. I mean that's a pretty impressive
engineering feed.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Well, to be honest, it could not do both at
the same time. Sure, because it carried its bombs externally.
Normally the Bombay was filled with the Bombay tank. But
we could load up and did load up and went
to war in short missions from Saigon with sixteen seven
hundred and fifty pound bombs count them. That's twelve pounds
(06:46):
of bombs, and I guess the B seventeen load was
somewhere around ten or so.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Okay, when we come back, I want to talk a
little bit more about your time in Vietnam. But tell
us about that you, I mean, you always wanted to
be a pilot. You wanted to fly fighters, and you
had absolutely no misgivings about going to war.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
No, I didn't. It was my country, my air force,
and the only war we had at the time, as
the old heads that I joined in the fighter squadrons
of the day said, and so we were all eager.
This was in nineteen sixty five. We were all eager
to get into conflict and to prove what we in
(07:27):
our machine could do together.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And explain to me that a little different. So the
F one o five came in both a single seat
model and a dual seat model.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Yes, that's correct. They did not let the people like
me go into the F one o five training until
I had a two seat model. But it turns out
the back seat in the two seat model had terrible visibility,
so none of the instructors would ride through a student's
landing in the back seat the original intent, And so
(08:00):
I ended up taking probably half of the one hundred
or so two seat models that were built and turning
them into wild weasels. And that was what I flew
on my third tour over there.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So you had a total of three tours in Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yes, I had a one TD WYD tour, one very
long PCs tour that stretched me out to a year,
and then one year's tour as a wild weasel with
a very competent electronic warfare officer in the back seat.
I was basically the nose gunner and the taxi driver
to get him into the conflict so he could gather
(08:35):
real time intelligence as to where the SAM sites were
so we could attack them.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
And I've got tremendous respect for you, Lucky, because I
understanding your first deployment. You were with the five sixty
second Tactical Fighter Squadron and you were there for four months,
but you volunteered to extend or to go back.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Well, actually I extended sort of. I went home for
Christmas because I was young and going home for Christmas
was important to me then, even though I didn't have
a family. So I came back with a different squadron,
riding at C one thirty all the way across the Pacific,
and let me tell you, that's a long long ride.
And when I got to Tackley, a different squadron scarred
(09:15):
me up and so I flew my second tour extended
tour in the three fifty fourth Tactical Fighter squadron.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Very good, sir. When we come back, I like you
to share some more stories about Vietnam. You had just
a ton of missions one hundred and eighty five total,
one hundred and fifty three over North Vietnam and one
mission your one hundred and thirty first didn't turn out
so good. Well, I guess at the end of the day,
it did turn out okay, but didn't turn out so
good for the plane. If you don't mind, pladies and gentlemen,
there's your host, Ben Biler Garcia. A real pleasure to
be talking with Leonard retired Colonel Leonard Lucky Eckman. Stick around,
(09:46):
We'll be right back. Don't forget this. And over six
hundred podcasts can be found at American Warrior radio dot com.
Please please share these important messages. We're back, Ladies and gentlemen,
(10:12):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. This is your host,
Ben Bler Garcia. We're talking to with Leonard Lucky Ekman.
Leonard is a retired colonel in our United States Air Force.
Saw quite a bit of action over the skies of Vietnam. Lucky.
We're talking about your just a number of missions you
flew and I was a little confused in looking at
your bios. So one hundred and eighty five missions one
(10:33):
hundred and fifty three over North Vietnam? Was that just
on your first deployment and then you had another two
hundred and eighty seven on your subsequent deployments.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
No, it was. It worked out that the first two
deployments was one hundred and one hundred and fifty three
over the north as a lieutenant and a wingman. And
then I went back and instructed at McConnel and taught
other people how to survive and be lethal in the
sky over North Vietnam. And then I went off to
(11:03):
scholarship in Switzerland for two years. Couldn't stand myself because
I had friends and people had trained in jail in Hanoi.
So I went, much to my wife's displeasure, back for
a third tour, and that one as a wild weasel,
added one hundred and thirty five missions to my total
over North Vietnam. So the total was three hundred and
(11:24):
fifty total, and two hundred and eighty seven of those
were over North Vietnam. I think. And the reason I
say I think is because before the war kicked off
in April with the of seventy two, with the invasion
of the North Vietnamese, I would fly what I thought
was the boundary between North and South Vietnam, the seventeenth Parallel,
(11:46):
trying to get them to shoot at me, which would
give me a border clearance to go in and attack
samsite that just shot at me. Well, it turns out
that the border between North and South Vietnam, for anybody
that cares about such things, is not the seventeenth Parallel.
It's the DMZ River. And so I had some missions
that inadvertently put me in North Vietnam without my realizing it.
(12:10):
But I never counted those, and nobody else did either.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So do you qualify for the Red River Valley Association?
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Oh? Yes, many times over. Probably of my two hundred
and eighty seven missions North, probably one hundred and niney
or so were in the upper packages right around Hanoi.
Early on, that was not such a dangerous place. Later
on it got to be very lethal. By nineteen seventy
two it was. It was not only lethal, but perfected.
(12:38):
As they had gone to school. The North Vietnamese had
gone to school during the three year hiatus between Rolling
Thunder and Linebacker and they had learned the lessons of
that earlier war as we had, and then we clashed
and collided with our lessons in hand on the tenth
(13:00):
of May nineteen seventy two when a linebackers started and
I think we came out on top. A lot of
people will say, well, we lost Vietnam, Well we didn't
lose it where I was.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
There, you go, And as I understand it, sort of
that that during there was a small period of time
where that was a most heavily defended airspace on the planet.
I mean, between Sam's and MiGs and Triple A. It
was a pretty nasty hornets nest it was.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
And well, we kind of helped the bad guys out
a little bit because once we under the Rolling Thunder series,
at least once a JCS target was released to us,
we could strike that target, but only that target in
a two week period. So after the first strike, guess what,
all the guns in North Vietnam showed up at that target.
(13:49):
And so at least for the pinpoint targets we were
being sent against, it was just very intense, with a
lot of flak eighty five millimeters bursting at eighteen twenty
thousand feet fifty seven millimeters bursting around ten or twelve
and thirty five thirty seven millimeters bursting right about where
(14:09):
we pull out of our dive bomb passes. And then
of course everybody on the ground had a gun and
when we went over, they'd just shoot straight up. So
the sky was full of really bad stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
And for people who aren't familiar, Lucky explain the Wild
Weasel mission? What is Wild Weasel and Iron Hand one
and the same, just different names for the same mission.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yes, and no. Iron Hand had to do with the
early pathfinder roll of the wild weasels dragging along bomb
carrying F one O fives, and the weasels would find
the find the SAM sites, either by getting him to
shoot at us or by marking them with our anti
(14:52):
radiation missiles, and then the bomb carrying F one o
fives would go in and destroy the site. That was
so what iron Hand was. The very first iron Hand mission,
by the way, occurred while I was at Tockley and
a Navy guy came over in a skip Anderson came
over loaded with snake eyes and the only raw gear
(15:13):
that was anywhere in the theater at the time was
in the A four and so he led a bunch
of my squadron mates to attack a SAM site or
two in North Vietnam. And as he went over the
SAM site, found by his radar homing a warning gear
and dropped his snake eyes, his A four were shredded
(15:33):
by the low altitude defenses, and our guys rolled in
and killed two SAM sites that day. That was not
the first. That was not the first attack, by the way.
The first attack was spring High in July of nineteen
sixty five when we first lost the first four to
a SAM and the McNamara beat his chest and said,
(15:56):
we are going to go take those out. And about
three days later they sent four forty six f one
oh fives against two SAM sites with what turned out
to be the wrong ordinance to the wrong SAM sites
that had been vacated and turned into flak traps. And
so of those forty six airplanes, we lost six.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
So explain, just to be clear about this. So you
volunteered to go up and get shot at. Is that
pretty much sum it up in one package?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, that's pretty much it. A lot of the guys
were flying strike missions thought we were crazy, but our
only job was to deflect the SAMs. To take them
out and if nothing else to would distract them and
get them to shoot at us where we could concentrate
on dodge and SAMs so they could go into their
targets and drop the bombs and get the job done.
(16:45):
And so that's what we did. The ESSAY two was
relatively easy to dodge. It was a mock two point
five missile designed for high altitude and shooting down B
fifty two's, so it was easy to out manu it
once you knew how, and so I only got hit
by one once. That that was because there's something called
(17:08):
doctor Pepper and the Russians and the North Vietnamese came
up with this tactic of engaging a single target with
multiple SAM sites from multiple quadrants at the same time,
and so they captured your eyes with one SAM site
cheot to SAM at you, and then engage you with
the other SAM sites that you couldn't see, one behind
you and one on the other side. That happened to
(17:31):
me one day. The North enemies had a particularly nasty
version of the SA two guidance system that was visual,
and so it was kind of like it was just
a visual keep the airplane and the crosshairs thing, but
no radar, so there was no strobe on our indication.
So I was getting ready to dodge a SAM and
(17:51):
getting ready for it, and a SAM blew up about
two hundred feet behind me. The people, the other wild
weasels in the area thought we were done for, but
fortunately the mission was coming up mark two point five.
Their warhead bursted regularly and at two point five, a
radiarly bursting warhead looks like a cone, and I was
right in the dead center of the cone where there
(18:12):
was no shrapnel. So we had one little hole that
knocked out our utility hydraulic system and we crawled out
of the valley with no afterburner, with some hydraulics missing.
But we survived that one. And that was a case
of knowing what we were doing, but not knowing entirely
(18:33):
what the bad guys were doing.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I'll tell you what lucky when we come back, I'd
like to share. You know, we opened the programs talking
about a warrior who came home and one who didn't.
So when we come back, so I'd like you to
share the story of your good friend, Major Robert Lodge.
Ladies and gentlemen, there's are host Benbula Garcia. You're listening
to American Warrior Radio. We'll be right back. Welcome back
(19:11):
to American Warrior Radio. Lasion and gentlemen, there's your host,
Ben Biler Garcia. We're coming to you from the Silencer
Central studio. Silencer Central is the largest soundsor dealer in
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(19:34):
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dot com. We're very pleased and privileged to be speaking
with Leonard Lucky Eckman here in American Warrior Radio today.
Lucky is a retired United States Air Force colonel, a
graduate of the Air Force Academy. And as I understand it, Lucky,
(19:54):
you were distinguished Graduate. What year was that? A couple
of years ago you were named the stinguished graduating and
you don't feel very comfortable with that.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Well, they must have been scraping the bottom of the
barrel that year. But it was twenty twenty one, and
some people thought the combination of my air force contributions
and my philanthropic contributions together made me worth the honor,
and so I've been trying to live up to it
ever since.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Let's talk a little bit about Major Robert Lodge. Were
you classmates?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
No, he was a class behind me, but he was
a friend. He was a Thud driver. He did his
first tour as an F one o five driver the
year after me. I was there in sixty five sixty six.
He was there in sixty seven, and he won two
Silber Stars, by the way, during that first tour in
the F one o five, and then he went back
(20:50):
and converted into the F four, went through weapons school,
and went into the four thirty second Tactical Reconnaissance Wing
at Oudorn with a mission to kill Megs and to
take out the Meg pilots who had killed our airplanes
during the Rolling Thunder series. So Bob was accorded behind
(21:11):
the green doors, we'd like to say, access to all
intelligence sources and methods, which normally you don't give to
air crews because those are very sensitive and can't be compromised.
More than that, he knew the details of something called
combat tree, which enabled the F four to employ its
aim seven missiles beyond visual range before they could see
(21:34):
the target. They could see it on radar, but they
know our roe required us to visually identify the target,
so we didn't shoot down a good guy. But the
combat tree enabled us to get a positive identification from
the F four D, the only airplane that could carry
it at the time. And so Bob brought those airplanes
(21:55):
down from Korea and had them there, and he knew
the engineering details of it, and so those were the
secrets that he knew that nobody else knew that he
ended up dying to protect. And he always said, and
he'd said this back as early as nineteen sixty seven,
he said, I can't allow myself to be captured because
(22:16):
I simply know too much, and the bad guys will
probably be able to get it out of me, as
they were during that era. If you talk to a
pow from that air everybody ended up breaking eventually, just
because of the complete control that the North enemy's captureds
had over our people and so Bob determined that he
(22:39):
had to if he got hit in a place where
he could not be rescued, that he had to ride
the airplane in and die with his secrets, which he
did on the tenth of May, the first day of Linebacker,
which he had planned not only the counter air missions
against the Megs, but also the strike packages. He made
numerous trips to Saigon setting up that whole air campaign,
(23:04):
and on day one of that he was out. He'd
already killed two Megs. He killed another one that day,
and he was guiding his a missile towards his fourth
MiG kill when he was jumped by two MiG nineteens
from Yenbay Airfield about ten miles away. His airplane was
set on fire, the fire was coming forward. His back
(23:25):
seater said, hey, boss, getting hot back here. I got
to get out, and Bob said, okay, go ahead. He
had Bob had briefed that flight and that day, and
had frequently discussed with his comrades there at at Udorn
that if I get hit where I can't be rescued,
I'm going to ride it in, and so that's what
he did. That's what he did that day, and that's
(23:45):
the stuff of a medal of honor. First pass through.
I failed to convince our great Air force of that.
So we're going to take another run at that here
in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Well, just and see another interviews Lucky and from people
that flew with him. I mean he no one knew
more about combat tree than Bob. I mean he was
he was the brain, the single brain, and that that
made a huge difference in our victories there. It's almost like,
I want to say, you're kind of the precursor to
(24:17):
the F twenty two and the F thirty five now
where you can actually, you know, fire at the enemy
beyond visual range. Now, one thing I want to clarify though,
is apparently neither the SAMs nor the AIM four missiles
could distinguish between friend or foe. So when you do,
when you have to get up close and personal, buckle
to buckle and have that dogfight. And as I understand that,
(24:38):
that's what eventually got Bob was it was thirty milimeters cannon.
It wasn't a.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
SAM, that's correct. It was the thirty milimeter cannons out
of the mid nineteens from Jenbay Airfield and the AIM
four missiles that his flight was carrying that day was
a air defense missile intended for use against Russian bombers,
and so it was a hit to ca killed missile,
which is pretty useless in a maneuvering fight because the
(25:03):
missile is gonna miss, but if it comes close enough
and explodes in proximity to the airplane, it will damage
it and knock it down. Well, his wingman had aimed
fours on and he could not distinguish between in the
aperture of the missile between the Bob's airplane which had
been hit by the cannon fire, and the mid nineteen.
(25:25):
So Hiss wingmen was helpless, helpless to help him, and
they had no gun. They were all F four d's
that day. Subsequent flights made killer flights went up with
a mix between the F four E and the F
four D. The F four E had an internal gun
and solved that problem, but Bob had to find that
out the hard way, and so but he made the
(25:48):
AM seven's work, And so the kills from Udor and
from our side of the MiG fight were predominantly AIM
sevens and the Navy because the AM seven responded poorly
to bouncing on a carrier deck and getting shot off
the carrier deck. Their AIM sevens were basically useless tubes
(26:08):
hanging on the airplane, and the Navy relied on the
AM nine heat seeker missile for their kills. So on
that same day, on the tenth of May, Randy Cunningham
and Willie Drisco became Navy aces by shooting down three
MiG seventeens with heat seeking air to air missiles. But
the Navy mostly faced the MiG seventeens on their eastern
(26:33):
side of the north of the North Vietnam, where our
people faced the mid nineteens and the MiG seventeens or
mid twenty ones rather the more lethal of the Meg
series and the AM sevens. We had become useful and
useful beyond visual range because of combat Tree, which by
(26:55):
the way, had continued relevance. Combat Tree was not declassified
until nineteen eight, and that was because it was useful
against the thousands of mid twenty one's that were out
there in North Korea in Europe, and so we had
to be able to shoot those guys beyond visual range. Parenthetically,
(27:15):
the mid twenty one was the most produced jet fighter
in history, with about ten thousand and five hundred of
those being built, and so they were everywhere, and we
had to be able to take out those threats. And
the combat trees, which were in the four D's only
the forties the East couldn't accept the technology, were critical
(27:39):
not only to what Bob was doing, but to subsequent conflicts,
pending conflicts. And that's another reason that he died to
protect those secrets, because he knew that they were relevant.
The combat tree was relevant far beyond Vietnam to back
to North Korea and to the European theater.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
You know, actually, i'd say again from my uneducated civilian
brain here, that you also in some ways played a
role there and I found it an interesting connection. I'd
like to come back to that after we take the
commercial break that came up in the later part of
your career when you're working on the weapons system's evaluation program,
and I don't know if you ever made that connection,
(28:19):
but I did, so when we come back and want
to talk more about that and about your your new
mission that you've undertaken to make sure that Bob receives
the proper honors. I mean, just what a heroic thing
to basically literally go down with his ship because he
knew that he would be saving so many lives by
doing that. Truly heroic, and so you've got a mission
to make sure that he receives the medal of honor.
(28:40):
Ladies and gentlemen, there's your host, Ben biler Garcia. Stick around.
We'll be right back. Please please download spread these important messages.
We need all the years to hear these heroic stories.
We'll be right back. Welcome back to American Warrior Radio.
(29:13):
Lationion and gentlemen, this is your host, Ben Buler Garcia.
We're talking with a retired Air Force Colonel Leonard Lucky
Eckman Lucky. I've got a quick question. Ben gets a
dumb question every show, So here comes Ben's dumb question.
What is the story behind your call sign? Is it
a family friendly one of so can you share it
with our listeners?
Speaker 3 (29:31):
It's very family friendly. My mom was eight months pregnant
with me. An Army wife based at Fort Cook, Nebraska,
later became off at Air Force Base and she was
going downtown to do what army wives had to do
in those days, by materials for a officer's wive cloak function.
And she found a parking space right in front of
(29:52):
the only department store in downtown Omaha. The lady riding
with her commented that little fellow riding with you is
really lucky that you found this parking place. So from
a month before I was born, I was called Lucky.
I was ten years old before I realized I had
another name. I went to the Air Force Academy and
tried to shed the name, but dear old mom sent
(30:14):
letters addressed to Lucky Ekman. In those days, the upperclassman
handed out the mail, and the upperclassman class of six,
he said, who is this guy, Lucky Eckman, And I said, sir,
that is I. And so he said, good, give me
twenty pushups if you really real, Lucky.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
That is a good story. Lucky. Let's talk about the
mission that you're undertaking now, and that's to get the
Medal of Honor awarded to your friend, Major Robert Lodge.
And he literally was the supreme holder of this highly
classified technology that the Combat Tree. And as you said,
he told everybody who listened to you know, if he
(30:54):
was ever going to get shot down in a place
where he couldn't be rescued and potentially captured, is going
to go down with his ship. And that's precisely what
he did. And I just that that is such a
such a heroic thing that he did. Now his back seater,
Roger spent, Roger Locker Loker, he spent, He got out
of the aircraft, he spent twenty three days of aiding capture.
(31:17):
And is my understanding that the commander of the Air
Force in Vietnam at that time, when they when they
finally heard from him, Sony picked up his distress call.
He set aside one hundred and fifty aircraft to go
in there and get Roger. Do you know if that's
accurate or not.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yes, that is correct. General Vought when we heard that
Roger was there on the hills overlooking Enbay Airfield and
Yenbay Military Area. General Vought shut down the war the
first the first time, the day that Roger came up
on the radio, they tried a quick snatch, but the
(31:54):
the helicopter driver, a guy named Dale Stovall, went in
and ended up being aged by a MiG seventeen, which
is not a particularly fair fight, but he didn't get
shot down, and so he came back the next day.
We came back with everything we had. General Vatt shut
down the war, put all one hundred and fifty sorties
that day over North Vietnam into Yen Bay and sanitize
(32:17):
the place, and Dale stoveall did a big end around,
came down the backside the north side of thud Ridge
to snatch Roger and then take him back out. And
then General Vaught met Roger there as he landed at Oudorn.
And because Roger was a very important guy, nobody knew
(32:38):
how much Bob had shared with Roger. They were crued together,
they always flew together. And it turns out that Bob
had kept those secrets from Roger so that Roger didn't
have to make the same Dercnian choice that he Bob
had to make to protect the secrets.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Oh wow, I didn't know that, Okay, Yeah, And as
my understanding, Roger was one of the few guys that
could kind of keep up with Bob, and that's why
him made a good pair, I mean, lucky. Let's talk. So,
in fact, the Congressional Medal of Honors is somewhat of
a misnomer. I mean that the medal is presented by
the President on behalf of Congress. So what's involved in
(33:15):
getting this done? For Bob, and what can our listeners
do to help? I mean, I'm sure if somebody's got
the President's cell phone, they can just dial them up.
But for most of us, what can we do. Is
there a formal letter writing campaign, or can we talk
to our congress persons or our senators, or what can
we do to help you get it done? Because I
got it honestly, I'm sold. I mean what he did
(33:37):
was truly Medal of Honor level kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Well, I hope we have warriors of all services listening,
because it is a joint service review process after it
gets out of the submitting service, the Air Force. In
the case of our initial submission, I failed to present
the case adequately or can convincingly enough to make it
(34:01):
out of the Air Force. So far the case hasn't
made it out of the Air Force and we got
a denial letter, three page denial letter from the Secretary
of the Air Force. No for the following reasons. I
really think it was written by the General Counsel of
the Air Force and the Air Force Staff JA because
it's very legalistic and it cut us off from any
appeal to the Board for the Correction of Military records,
(34:23):
which is why we're trying to go back in at
the top of the Air Force to appeal, but at
the same time the other services have to agree. It
goes up into the Department of Defense and then is
farmed out to the other services to agree or disagree
that this truly merits the Medal of Honor. And so
we're trying to join forces with the US Navy. In
(34:43):
the case of Royce Williams, the Navy aviator who shot
down four Soviet Make fifteens during the Korean War over
the Sea of Japan, and that would potentially have widened
the war to include Russia. So nobody would let him
talk of They wouldn't recognizeing for it for years. The
critical thing is, and Representative Daryl isa is working this problem,
(35:08):
is that there's a five year statute of limitations on
Medal of Honor submissions. Well, the Army managed to waive
that for one hundred and sixty years later for the
kids that stole the train. The great locomotive Chase may
have heard of it during the Civil War, and they
made it up through the Confederacy, almost got all the
way through, tearing up railroad tracks as they went chased
(35:30):
by another locomotive and the Confederates caught them and hanged them.
But those kids just got the Medal of Honor one
hundred and sixty years later. I would hope we don't
have to wait this long for Bob Lodge. But it
is a joint service process, and so the other services Army, Navy,
Marine Corps, they need to be listening and understanding that
(35:53):
we in the cockpits of our fighters and our machines
that go to war have valor and extreme valor as
we fight our fight uh in the comfort relative comfort
of an air conditioned cockpit. But we do some extraordinary things,
and Bob Lodge was certainly the poster child for doing
an extraordinary thing in an airplane. By the way, Bob
(36:16):
was Boba was Catholic, and so the idea of sacrificing
his life was potentially counter to his Catholic beliefs. And
he had everything to live for and uh, and he
didn't know what that everything was. But I've got to
live it in my life since those days, and I
(36:36):
can tell you that he missed a whole hell of
a lot and uh and uh, but but he laid
all that down, gave all that up to protect the
secrets that he knew had to be protected if his
comrades were going to be successful in the counter campaign
against North Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
I tell you what, sir, it's been a true honor
to talk with you in hear firsthand Bob's story, and I,
like I said, I shuddered to think of someone having
to make that kind of decision. But I'm grateful every
day that there are warriors out there who will do that.
You know, very often you tell people when they raised
their right hand and took the oath, they were writing
(37:14):
the rest of us a blank check, payable up to
and including their own lives if necessary to protect our
nation and our constitution. And Bob is just a shining
example of that. So I'll when we post the podcast, Lucky,
I'll make sure we put the contact information or you know,
information where other people can jump in and help one
other thing.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
I parenthetically had to make the same decision six years earlier,
and I was just a dumb lieutenant didn't know anything.
But I was south of the Red River, about fifteen
miles from where Bob bailed out, and so I could
be recovered. And so I'm very much attuned to the
decision he had to make. Sitting in a burning airplane
(37:56):
with a binary choice live or die is a moment
of truth. As they say in bullfighting terms, that I
made one choice and it turned out beautifully for me,
and I got to lead a wonderful life with a
great wife for kids, and a lot more combat missions,
a lot more great airplanes flown, a lot more great
Air Force experiences, and Bob gave all that up to
(38:18):
protect his secrets.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Well lucky. I just want we're running out of time here,
I've got about the minute left, but I just want
to share when you're working on this weapon system evaluation
program later in your career. I've heard read a quote
you had that basically you wanted to make sure that
when our younger warriors, when they press that pickle button,
you know their missiles are going to fly straight and
right to the target, and so they wouldn't have to
(38:40):
deal with what you and some of your comrades had
to deal with in Vietnam. So I think that's just
very special, sir. We're literally out of time, but I
just wanted to say real quick, you're also a philanthropist.
I encourage people to check out usaf A dot org.
That's a foundation that is I understand you helped create
to help support the Air Force Academy there.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Yes, I'm blessed with a great income stream from my
retired and VA sources, and we don't need that. We've
got a house that's paid for, cars paid for, kids
that don't need our help, and so the extra resources
go to support our academy in places that are fall
below the budgetary cutline.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Fair enough, lucky, I tell you what has been a
real privilege, sir. Thanks for spending your time with our
listeners today.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Thank you, Ben, pleasure was all mine.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Thirty gold. Ladies and gentlemen, please please share these important messages.
Until next time, all policies and procedures are to remaining place.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
You've been listening to American Warrior Radio. Archived episodes may
be found at Americanwarriorradio dot com or your favorite podcast
platform
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
first responder communities, and these are their stories. American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Is on the air. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to
American Warrior Radio. This is your host, Benbula Garcia American
Warrior Radio broadcast from the slender Central Studios. If you're
thinking of getting a silencer for one or more of
your weapons, there's never been a better time to do it.
For a limited time, our friends at silencer Central will
(00:40):
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to your front door, making silent simple. Sensorcentral dot com.
Ladies and gentlemen, Today you're going to hear the tale
of two warriors, one who made it home and the
(01:02):
other who didn't. And we're very very pleased to be
joined by a young man who's uh. I won't guess
his age, but let's just say he has been around
seeing a few things. We're very pleased to be joined
today by Leonard Lucky Eckman. Leonard, Welcome to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It's my pleasure to be here and to speak on
behalf of my very overfull life and the life that
friend Bob Lodge gave a way to protect his secrets
and protect his country and to protect his wingman.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Now, can I call you Lucky?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You can go yep. That's that's certainly one of the
better things I've been called in life.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So we've only had one other Lucky on the show
here in American Warrior Radio, and that was Lucky Luckadoo,
who was the last surviving member of the Bloody one
hundredth of Flying Bombers in World War Two, and he's
since since flown. You've flown flown West, I guess, but
so it's good to have another Lucky here. Now I'm
stand Lucky. You were an army brat and you decided
(02:03):
that you wanted to serve as well, but your path
to the Air Force Academy was there's a big block
in the road. Apparently you're someone from your school.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, the dean of faculty at the at Georgia Military
Academy where I went to school was a West Pointer
and he said, don't go to the Air Force Academy.
You fifty years before that place mounts to anything. And
I said, yeah, boss, but I really want to go
fly jets. And he said, well, you could go to
West Point and cross commission. I said, no, I really
want to fly jets. And so I went to the
(02:34):
Air Force Academy and never regretted it.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
And what year was that?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
That was in nineteen fifty nine, as I graduated from
high school down there in Georgia, and I came here,
fell in love with the place, the beauty of it,
the architecture of the facilities, and the toughness of the regimen,
and it was just everything that I had ever hoped for.
And so so I stuck it out and had some
(03:01):
very good advice from some very good friends, upper classmen, contemporaries,
lower classmen, and here I am today.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So you were a graduator in the academy class of
nineteen sixty three, if I I've got that correct. And
then you went off to initial flight training. I think
that was at Williams Air Force Base there in Phoenix.
But then you went into you went to Nellison, you
started training in f one o five's and you were
actually the top gun for your class in F one
o fives, I.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Was, and it was tough competition, and it was down
to the last rocket pass or the last straight pass.
But they gave me a nice piece of wood with
a brass plaque on it at the end at the
Flamingo there when we had our graduation party, to my surprise,
because I was in very good company of some really
(03:51):
sharp folks. These guys were the cream of the crop,
and somehow I got in with them. And we were
the third class to come for pilot training, but only
the first class to be all people who had never
flown before military aviation. The first two classes were heavily
loaded with people who had been back seaters in air
(04:13):
defense airplanes, the RF the F one o one B
air defense airplanes, and in that era we had a
lot of them. We had twenty nine hundred total interceptors,
and probably one hundred or probably four or five hundred
of them were the F one o ones, and people
from the backseat to that airplane would go to pilot training,
(04:34):
and then they came into the one five with a
whole bunch of extra aviation skills. That we knew bees
that were straight out of pilot training lacked.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Now lucky, So the F one O five, the thunder Chief,
or effectually known as the Thud. I guess by the
people who flew it. I mean, that's a beast of
an aircraft. And in some ways I've heard that its
reputation was not so good at least in the early years.
Is that accurate?
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Because there were a lot of gainsayers, and it was
the first fighter to have a bombay, and that in
that bombay was a big plunger to eject a nuclear weapon,
because the Air Force could buy fighters in that day,
in those days, only for the utility to blow holes
in the Russian air defenses to let the beef fifty
(05:21):
twos get through in the event of nuclear war. And
so it had a big, a big bombay that would
carry a nuclear weapon and a plunger that would eject
the nuclear weapon. And so the people who didn't get
to fly it were jealous, I guess, and they called
it the Thud because they said that our real role
(05:42):
and our real utility was to taxi over a tank.
Our gear was very tall and hit them with that
plunger and crush the tank from above with a plunger
with a thud.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Hey, whatever gets the job done, man.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, indeed, well it turned out. You know, obviously it
began as a term of derision, and it became a
term of endearment, and then it became a of great
respect throughout the Air force.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
How lucky this just so if people weren't familiar with
I mean, this aircraft could carry a bigger payload than
a World War two B seventeen. I mean that's and
fly it MOP two. I mean that's a pretty impressive
engineering feed.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Well, to be honest, it could not do both at
the same time. Sure, because it carried its bombs externally.
Normally the Bombay was filled with the Bombay tank. But
we could load up and did load up and went
to war in short missions from Saigon with sixteen seven
hundred and fifty pound bombs count them. That's twelve pounds
(06:46):
of bombs, and I guess the B seventeen load was
somewhere around ten or so.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Okay, when we come back, I want to talk a
little bit more about your time in Vietnam. But tell
us about that you, I mean, you always wanted to
be a pilot. You wanted to fly fighters, and you
had absolutely no misgivings about going to war.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
No, I didn't. It was my country, my air force,
and the only war we had at the time, as
the old heads that I joined in the fighter squadrons
of the day said, and so we were all eager.
This was in nineteen sixty five. We were all eager
to get into conflict and to prove what we in
(07:27):
our machine could do together.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And explain to me that a little different. So the
F one o five came in both a single seat
model and a dual seat model.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Yes, that's correct. They did not let the people like
me go into the F one o five training until
I had a two seat model. But it turns out
the back seat in the two seat model had terrible visibility,
so none of the instructors would ride through a student's
landing in the back seat the original intent, And so
(08:00):
I ended up taking probably half of the one hundred
or so two seat models that were built and turning
them into wild weasels. And that was what I flew
on my third tour over there.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So you had a total of three tours in Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yes, I had a one TD WYD tour, one very
long PCs tour that stretched me out to a year,
and then one year's tour as a wild weasel with
a very competent electronic warfare officer in the back seat.
I was basically the nose gunner and the taxi driver
to get him into the conflict so he could gather
(08:35):
real time intelligence as to where the SAM sites were
so we could attack them.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
And I've got tremendous respect for you, Lucky, because I
understanding your first deployment. You were with the five sixty
second Tactical Fighter Squadron and you were there for four months,
but you volunteered to extend or to go back.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Well, actually I extended sort of. I went home for
Christmas because I was young and going home for Christmas
was important to me then, even though I didn't have
a family. So I came back with a different squadron,
riding at C one thirty all the way across the Pacific,
and let me tell you, that's a long long ride.
And when I got to Tackley, a different squadron scarred
(09:15):
me up and so I flew my second tour extended
tour in the three fifty fourth Tactical Fighter squadron.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Very good, sir. When we come back, I like you
to share some more stories about Vietnam. You had just
a ton of missions one hundred and eighty five total,
one hundred and fifty three over North Vietnam and one
mission your one hundred and thirty first didn't turn out
so good. Well, I guess at the end of the day,
it did turn out okay, but didn't turn out so
good for the plane. If you don't mind, pladies and gentlemen,
there's your host, Ben Biler Garcia. A real pleasure to
be talking with Leonard retired Colonel Leonard Lucky Eckman. Stick around,
(09:46):
We'll be right back. Don't forget this. And over six
hundred podcasts can be found at American Warrior radio dot com.
Please please share these important messages. We're back, Ladies and gentlemen,
(10:12):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. This is your host,
Ben Bler Garcia. We're talking to with Leonard Lucky Ekman.
Leonard is a retired colonel in our United States Air Force.
Saw quite a bit of action over the skies of Vietnam. Lucky.
We're talking about your just a number of missions you
flew and I was a little confused in looking at
your bios. So one hundred and eighty five missions one
(10:33):
hundred and fifty three over North Vietnam? Was that just
on your first deployment and then you had another two
hundred and eighty seven on your subsequent deployments.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
No, it was. It worked out that the first two
deployments was one hundred and one hundred and fifty three
over the north as a lieutenant and a wingman. And
then I went back and instructed at McConnel and taught
other people how to survive and be lethal in the
sky over North Vietnam. And then I went off to
(11:03):
scholarship in Switzerland for two years. Couldn't stand myself because
I had friends and people had trained in jail in Hanoi.
So I went, much to my wife's displeasure, back for
a third tour, and that one as a wild weasel,
added one hundred and thirty five missions to my total
over North Vietnam. So the total was three hundred and
(11:24):
fifty total, and two hundred and eighty seven of those
were over North Vietnam. I think. And the reason I
say I think is because before the war kicked off
in April with the of seventy two, with the invasion
of the North Vietnamese, I would fly what I thought
was the boundary between North and South Vietnam, the seventeenth Parallel,
(11:46):
trying to get them to shoot at me, which would
give me a border clearance to go in and attack
samsite that just shot at me. Well, it turns out
that the border between North and South Vietnam, for anybody
that cares about such things, is not the seventeenth Parallel.
It's the DMZ River. And so I had some missions
that inadvertently put me in North Vietnam without my realizing it.
(12:10):
But I never counted those, and nobody else did either.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So do you qualify for the Red River Valley Association?
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Oh? Yes, many times over. Probably of my two hundred
and eighty seven missions North, probably one hundred and niney
or so were in the upper packages right around Hanoi.
Early on, that was not such a dangerous place. Later
on it got to be very lethal. By nineteen seventy
two it was. It was not only lethal, but perfected.
(12:38):
As they had gone to school. The North Vietnamese had
gone to school during the three year hiatus between Rolling
Thunder and Linebacker and they had learned the lessons of
that earlier war as we had, and then we clashed
and collided with our lessons in hand on the tenth
(13:00):
of May nineteen seventy two when a linebackers started and
I think we came out on top. A lot of
people will say, well, we lost Vietnam, Well we didn't
lose it where I was.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
There, you go, And as I understand it, sort of
that that during there was a small period of time
where that was a most heavily defended airspace on the planet.
I mean, between Sam's and MiGs and Triple A. It
was a pretty nasty hornets nest it was.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
And well, we kind of helped the bad guys out
a little bit because once we under the Rolling Thunder series,
at least once a JCS target was released to us,
we could strike that target, but only that target in
a two week period. So after the first strike, guess what,
all the guns in North Vietnam showed up at that target.
(13:49):
And so at least for the pinpoint targets we were
being sent against, it was just very intense, with a
lot of flak eighty five millimeters bursting at eighteen twenty
thousand feet fifty seven millimeters bursting around ten or twelve
and thirty five thirty seven millimeters bursting right about where
(14:09):
we pull out of our dive bomb passes. And then
of course everybody on the ground had a gun and
when we went over, they'd just shoot straight up. So
the sky was full of really bad stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
And for people who aren't familiar, Lucky explain the Wild
Weasel mission? What is Wild Weasel and Iron Hand one
and the same, just different names for the same mission.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yes, and no. Iron Hand had to do with the
early pathfinder roll of the wild weasels dragging along bomb
carrying F one O fives, and the weasels would find
the find the SAM sites, either by getting him to
shoot at us or by marking them with our anti
(14:52):
radiation missiles, and then the bomb carrying F one o
fives would go in and destroy the site. That was
so what iron Hand was. The very first iron Hand mission,
by the way, occurred while I was at Tockley and
a Navy guy came over in a skip Anderson came
over loaded with snake eyes and the only raw gear
(15:13):
that was anywhere in the theater at the time was
in the A four and so he led a bunch
of my squadron mates to attack a SAM site or
two in North Vietnam. And as he went over the
SAM site, found by his radar homing a warning gear
and dropped his snake eyes, his A four were shredded
(15:33):
by the low altitude defenses, and our guys rolled in
and killed two SAM sites that day. That was not
the first. That was not the first attack, by the way.
The first attack was spring High in July of nineteen
sixty five when we first lost the first four to
a SAM and the McNamara beat his chest and said,
(15:56):
we are going to go take those out. And about
three days later they sent four forty six f one
oh fives against two SAM sites with what turned out
to be the wrong ordinance to the wrong SAM sites
that had been vacated and turned into flak traps. And
so of those forty six airplanes, we lost six.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
So explain, just to be clear about this. So you
volunteered to go up and get shot at. Is that
pretty much sum it up in one package?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, that's pretty much it. A lot of the guys
were flying strike missions thought we were crazy, but our
only job was to deflect the SAMs. To take them
out and if nothing else to would distract them and
get them to shoot at us where we could concentrate
on dodge and SAMs so they could go into their
targets and drop the bombs and get the job done.
(16:45):
And so that's what we did. The ESSAY two was
relatively easy to dodge. It was a mock two point
five missile designed for high altitude and shooting down B
fifty two's, so it was easy to out manu it
once you knew how, and so I only got hit
by one once. That that was because there's something called
(17:08):
doctor Pepper and the Russians and the North Vietnamese came
up with this tactic of engaging a single target with
multiple SAM sites from multiple quadrants at the same time,
and so they captured your eyes with one SAM site
cheot to SAM at you, and then engage you with
the other SAM sites that you couldn't see, one behind
you and one on the other side. That happened to
(17:31):
me one day. The North enemies had a particularly nasty
version of the SA two guidance system that was visual,
and so it was kind of like it was just
a visual keep the airplane and the crosshairs thing, but
no radar, so there was no strobe on our indication.
So I was getting ready to dodge a SAM and
(17:51):
getting ready for it, and a SAM blew up about
two hundred feet behind me. The people, the other wild
weasels in the area thought we were done for, but
fortunately the mission was coming up mark two point five.
Their warhead bursted regularly and at two point five, a
radiarly bursting warhead looks like a cone, and I was
right in the dead center of the cone where there
(18:12):
was no shrapnel. So we had one little hole that
knocked out our utility hydraulic system and we crawled out
of the valley with no afterburner, with some hydraulics missing.
But we survived that one. And that was a case
of knowing what we were doing, but not knowing entirely
(18:33):
what the bad guys were doing.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I'll tell you what lucky when we come back, I'd
like to share. You know, we opened the programs talking
about a warrior who came home and one who didn't.
So when we come back, so I'd like you to
share the story of your good friend, Major Robert Lodge.
Ladies and gentlemen, there's are host Benbula Garcia. You're listening
to American Warrior Radio. We'll be right back. Welcome back
(19:11):
to American Warrior Radio. Lasion and gentlemen, there's your host,
Ben Biler Garcia. We're coming to you from the Silencer
Central studio. Silencer Central is the largest soundsor dealer in
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then select from a huge variety of suppressors. They'll complete
(19:34):
all the paperwork and ship right to your front door,
making silent simple since two thousand and five. That's slentracentral
dot com. We're very pleased and privileged to be speaking
with Leonard Lucky Eckman here in American Warrior Radio today.
Lucky is a retired United States Air Force colonel, a
graduate of the Air Force Academy. And as I understand it, Lucky,
(19:54):
you were distinguished Graduate. What year was that? A couple
of years ago you were named the stinguished graduating and
you don't feel very comfortable with that.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Well, they must have been scraping the bottom of the
barrel that year. But it was twenty twenty one, and
some people thought the combination of my air force contributions
and my philanthropic contributions together made me worth the honor,
and so I've been trying to live up to it
ever since.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Let's talk a little bit about Major Robert Lodge. Were
you classmates?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
No, he was a class behind me, but he was
a friend. He was a Thud driver. He did his
first tour as an F one o five driver the
year after me. I was there in sixty five sixty six.
He was there in sixty seven, and he won two
Silber Stars, by the way, during that first tour in
the F one o five, and then he went back
(20:50):
and converted into the F four, went through weapons school,
and went into the four thirty second Tactical Reconnaissance Wing
at Oudorn with a mission to kill Megs and to
take out the Meg pilots who had killed our airplanes
during the Rolling Thunder series. So Bob was accorded behind
(21:11):
the green doors, we'd like to say, access to all
intelligence sources and methods, which normally you don't give to
air crews because those are very sensitive and can't be compromised.
More than that, he knew the details of something called
combat tree, which enabled the F four to employ its
aim seven missiles beyond visual range before they could see
(21:34):
the target. They could see it on radar, but they
know our roe required us to visually identify the target,
so we didn't shoot down a good guy. But the
combat tree enabled us to get a positive identification from
the F four D, the only airplane that could carry
it at the time. And so Bob brought those airplanes
(21:55):
down from Korea and had them there, and he knew
the engineering details of it, and so those were the
secrets that he knew that nobody else knew that he
ended up dying to protect. And he always said, and
he'd said this back as early as nineteen sixty seven,
he said, I can't allow myself to be captured because
(22:16):
I simply know too much, and the bad guys will
probably be able to get it out of me, as
they were during that era. If you talk to a
pow from that air everybody ended up breaking eventually, just
because of the complete control that the North enemy's captureds
had over our people and so Bob determined that he
(22:39):
had to if he got hit in a place where
he could not be rescued, that he had to ride
the airplane in and die with his secrets, which he
did on the tenth of May, the first day of Linebacker,
which he had planned not only the counter air missions
against the Megs, but also the strike packages. He made
numerous trips to Saigon setting up that whole air campaign,
(23:04):
and on day one of that he was out. He'd
already killed two Megs. He killed another one that day,
and he was guiding his a missile towards his fourth
MiG kill when he was jumped by two MiG nineteens
from Yenbay Airfield about ten miles away. His airplane was
set on fire, the fire was coming forward. His back
(23:25):
seater said, hey, boss, getting hot back here. I got
to get out, and Bob said, okay, go ahead. He
had Bob had briefed that flight and that day, and
had frequently discussed with his comrades there at at Udorn
that if I get hit where I can't be rescued,
I'm going to ride it in, and so that's what
he did. That's what he did that day, and that's
(23:45):
the stuff of a medal of honor. First pass through.
I failed to convince our great Air force of that.
So we're going to take another run at that here
in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Well, just and see another interviews Lucky and from people
that flew with him. I mean he no one knew
more about combat tree than Bob. I mean he was
he was the brain, the single brain, and that that
made a huge difference in our victories there. It's almost like,
I want to say, you're kind of the precursor to
(24:17):
the F twenty two and the F thirty five now
where you can actually, you know, fire at the enemy
beyond visual range. Now, one thing I want to clarify though,
is apparently neither the SAMs nor the AIM four missiles
could distinguish between friend or foe. So when you do,
when you have to get up close and personal, buckle
to buckle and have that dogfight. And as I understand that,
(24:38):
that's what eventually got Bob was it was thirty milimeters cannon.
It wasn't a.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
SAM, that's correct. It was the thirty milimeter cannons out
of the mid nineteens from Jenbay Airfield and the AIM
four missiles that his flight was carrying that day was
a air defense missile intended for use against Russian bombers,
and so it was a hit to ca killed missile,
which is pretty useless in a maneuvering fight because the
(25:03):
missile is gonna miss, but if it comes close enough
and explodes in proximity to the airplane, it will damage
it and knock it down. Well, his wingman had aimed
fours on and he could not distinguish between in the
aperture of the missile between the Bob's airplane which had
been hit by the cannon fire, and the mid nineteen.
(25:25):
So Hiss wingmen was helpless, helpless to help him, and
they had no gun. They were all F four d's
that day. Subsequent flights made killer flights went up with
a mix between the F four E and the F
four D. The F four E had an internal gun
and solved that problem, but Bob had to find that
out the hard way, and so but he made the
(25:48):
AM seven's work, And so the kills from Udor and
from our side of the MiG fight were predominantly AIM
sevens and the Navy because the AM seven responded poorly
to bouncing on a carrier deck and getting shot off
the carrier deck. Their AIM sevens were basically useless tubes
(26:08):
hanging on the airplane, and the Navy relied on the
AM nine heat seeker missile for their kills. So on
that same day, on the tenth of May, Randy Cunningham
and Willie Drisco became Navy aces by shooting down three
MiG seventeens with heat seeking air to air missiles. But
the Navy mostly faced the MiG seventeens on their eastern
(26:33):
side of the north of the North Vietnam, where our
people faced the mid nineteens and the MiG seventeens or
mid twenty ones rather the more lethal of the Meg
series and the AM sevens. We had become useful and
useful beyond visual range because of combat Tree, which by
(26:55):
the way, had continued relevance. Combat Tree was not declassified
until nineteen eight, and that was because it was useful
against the thousands of mid twenty one's that were out
there in North Korea in Europe, and so we had
to be able to shoot those guys beyond visual range. Parenthetically,
(27:15):
the mid twenty one was the most produced jet fighter
in history, with about ten thousand and five hundred of
those being built, and so they were everywhere, and we
had to be able to take out those threats. And
the combat trees, which were in the four D's only
the forties the East couldn't accept the technology, were critical
(27:39):
not only to what Bob was doing, but to subsequent conflicts,
pending conflicts. And that's another reason that he died to
protect those secrets, because he knew that they were relevant.
The combat tree was relevant far beyond Vietnam to back
to North Korea and to the European theater.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
You know, actually, i'd say again from my uneducated civilian
brain here, that you also in some ways played a
role there and I found it an interesting connection. I'd
like to come back to that after we take the
commercial break that came up in the later part of
your career when you're working on the weapons system's evaluation program,
and I don't know if you ever made that connection,
(28:19):
but I did, so when we come back and want
to talk more about that and about your your new
mission that you've undertaken to make sure that Bob receives
the proper honors. I mean, just what a heroic thing
to basically literally go down with his ship because he
knew that he would be saving so many lives by
doing that. Truly heroic, and so you've got a mission
to make sure that he receives the medal of honor.
(28:40):
Ladies and gentlemen, there's your host, Ben biler Garcia. Stick around.
We'll be right back. Please please download spread these important messages.
We need all the years to hear these heroic stories.
We'll be right back. Welcome back to American Warrior Radio.
(29:13):
Lationion and gentlemen, this is your host, Ben Buler Garcia.
We're talking with a retired Air Force Colonel Leonard Lucky
Eckman Lucky. I've got a quick question. Ben gets a
dumb question every show, So here comes Ben's dumb question.
What is the story behind your call sign? Is it
a family friendly one of so can you share it
with our listeners?
Speaker 3 (29:31):
It's very family friendly. My mom was eight months pregnant
with me. An Army wife based at Fort Cook, Nebraska,
later became off at Air Force Base and she was
going downtown to do what army wives had to do
in those days, by materials for a officer's wive cloak function.
And she found a parking space right in front of
(29:52):
the only department store in downtown Omaha. The lady riding
with her commented that little fellow riding with you is
really lucky that you found this parking place. So from
a month before I was born, I was called Lucky.
I was ten years old before I realized I had
another name. I went to the Air Force Academy and
tried to shed the name, but dear old mom sent
(30:14):
letters addressed to Lucky Ekman. In those days, the upperclassman
handed out the mail, and the upperclassman class of six,
he said, who is this guy, Lucky Eckman, And I said, sir,
that is I. And so he said, good, give me
twenty pushups if you really real, Lucky.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
That is a good story. Lucky. Let's talk about the
mission that you're undertaking now, and that's to get the
Medal of Honor awarded to your friend, Major Robert Lodge.
And he literally was the supreme holder of this highly
classified technology that the Combat Tree. And as you said,
he told everybody who listened to you know, if he
(30:54):
was ever going to get shot down in a place
where he couldn't be rescued and potentially captured, is going
to go down with his ship. And that's precisely what
he did. And I just that that is such a
such a heroic thing that he did. Now his back seater,
Roger spent, Roger Locker Loker, he spent, He got out
of the aircraft, he spent twenty three days of aiding capture.
(31:17):
And is my understanding that the commander of the Air
Force in Vietnam at that time, when they when they
finally heard from him, Sony picked up his distress call.
He set aside one hundred and fifty aircraft to go
in there and get Roger. Do you know if that's
accurate or not.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yes, that is correct. General Vought when we heard that
Roger was there on the hills overlooking Enbay Airfield and
Yenbay Military Area. General Vought shut down the war the
first the first time, the day that Roger came up
on the radio, they tried a quick snatch, but the
(31:54):
the helicopter driver, a guy named Dale Stovall, went in
and ended up being aged by a MiG seventeen, which
is not a particularly fair fight, but he didn't get
shot down, and so he came back the next day.
We came back with everything we had. General Vatt shut
down the war, put all one hundred and fifty sorties
that day over North Vietnam into Yen Bay and sanitize
(32:17):
the place, and Dale stoveall did a big end around,
came down the backside the north side of thud Ridge
to snatch Roger and then take him back out. And
then General Vaught met Roger there as he landed at Oudorn.
And because Roger was a very important guy, nobody knew
(32:38):
how much Bob had shared with Roger. They were crued together,
they always flew together. And it turns out that Bob
had kept those secrets from Roger so that Roger didn't
have to make the same Dercnian choice that he Bob
had to make to protect the secrets.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Oh wow, I didn't know that, Okay, Yeah, And as
my understanding, Roger was one of the few guys that
could kind of keep up with Bob, and that's why
him made a good pair, I mean, lucky. Let's talk. So,
in fact, the Congressional Medal of Honors is somewhat of
a misnomer. I mean that the medal is presented by
the President on behalf of Congress. So what's involved in
(33:15):
getting this done? For Bob, and what can our listeners
do to help? I mean, I'm sure if somebody's got
the President's cell phone, they can just dial them up.
But for most of us, what can we do. Is
there a formal letter writing campaign, or can we talk
to our congress persons or our senators, or what can
we do to help you get it done? Because I
got it honestly, I'm sold. I mean what he did
(33:37):
was truly Medal of Honor level kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Well, I hope we have warriors of all services listening,
because it is a joint service review process after it
gets out of the submitting service, the Air Force. In
the case of our initial submission, I failed to present
the case adequately or can convincingly enough to make it
(34:01):
out of the Air Force. So far the case hasn't
made it out of the Air Force and we got
a denial letter, three page denial letter from the Secretary
of the Air Force. No for the following reasons. I
really think it was written by the General Counsel of
the Air Force and the Air Force Staff JA because
it's very legalistic and it cut us off from any
appeal to the Board for the Correction of Military records,
(34:23):
which is why we're trying to go back in at
the top of the Air Force to appeal, but at
the same time the other services have to agree. It
goes up into the Department of Defense and then is
farmed out to the other services to agree or disagree
that this truly merits the Medal of Honor. And so
we're trying to join forces with the US Navy. In
(34:43):
the case of Royce Williams, the Navy aviator who shot
down four Soviet Make fifteens during the Korean War over
the Sea of Japan, and that would potentially have widened
the war to include Russia. So nobody would let him
talk of They wouldn't recognizeing for it for years. The
critical thing is, and Representative Daryl isa is working this problem,
(35:08):
is that there's a five year statute of limitations on
Medal of Honor submissions. Well, the Army managed to waive
that for one hundred and sixty years later for the
kids that stole the train. The great locomotive Chase may
have heard of it during the Civil War, and they
made it up through the Confederacy, almost got all the
way through, tearing up railroad tracks as they went chased
(35:30):
by another locomotive and the Confederates caught them and hanged them.
But those kids just got the Medal of Honor one
hundred and sixty years later. I would hope we don't
have to wait this long for Bob Lodge. But it
is a joint service process, and so the other services Army, Navy,
Marine Corps, they need to be listening and understanding that
(35:53):
we in the cockpits of our fighters and our machines
that go to war have valor and extreme valor as
we fight our fight uh in the comfort relative comfort
of an air conditioned cockpit. But we do some extraordinary things,
and Bob Lodge was certainly the poster child for doing
an extraordinary thing in an airplane. By the way, Bob
(36:16):
was Boba was Catholic, and so the idea of sacrificing
his life was potentially counter to his Catholic beliefs. And
he had everything to live for and uh, and he
didn't know what that everything was. But I've got to
live it in my life since those days, and I
(36:36):
can tell you that he missed a whole hell of
a lot and uh and uh, but but he laid
all that down, gave all that up to protect the
secrets that he knew had to be protected if his
comrades were going to be successful in the counter campaign
against North Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
I tell you what, sir, it's been a true honor
to talk with you in hear firsthand Bob's story, and I,
like I said, I shuddered to think of someone having
to make that kind of decision. But I'm grateful every
day that there are warriors out there who will do that.
You know, very often you tell people when they raised
their right hand and took the oath, they were writing
(37:14):
the rest of us a blank check, payable up to
and including their own lives if necessary to protect our
nation and our constitution. And Bob is just a shining
example of that. So I'll when we post the podcast, Lucky,
I'll make sure we put the contact information or you know,
information where other people can jump in and help one
other thing.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
I parenthetically had to make the same decision six years earlier,
and I was just a dumb lieutenant didn't know anything.
But I was south of the Red River, about fifteen
miles from where Bob bailed out, and so I could
be recovered. And so I'm very much attuned to the
decision he had to make. Sitting in a burning airplane
(37:56):
with a binary choice live or die is a moment
of truth. As they say in bullfighting terms, that I
made one choice and it turned out beautifully for me,
and I got to lead a wonderful life with a
great wife for kids, and a lot more combat missions,
a lot more great airplanes flown, a lot more great
Air Force experiences, and Bob gave all that up to
(38:18):
protect his secrets.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Well lucky. I just want we're running out of time here,
I've got about the minute left, but I just want
to share when you're working on this weapon system evaluation
program later in your career. I've heard read a quote
you had that basically you wanted to make sure that
when our younger warriors, when they press that pickle button,
you know their missiles are going to fly straight and
right to the target, and so they wouldn't have to
(38:40):
deal with what you and some of your comrades had
to deal with in Vietnam. So I think that's just
very special, sir. We're literally out of time, but I
just wanted to say real quick, you're also a philanthropist.
I encourage people to check out usaf A dot org.
That's a foundation that is I understand you helped create
to help support the Air Force Academy there.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Yes, I'm blessed with a great income stream from my
retired and VA sources, and we don't need that. We've
got a house that's paid for, cars paid for, kids
that don't need our help, and so the extra resources
go to support our academy in places that are fall
below the budgetary cutline.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Fair enough, lucky, I tell you what has been a
real privilege, sir. Thanks for spending your time with our
listeners today.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Thank you, Ben, pleasure was all mine.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Thirty gold. Ladies and gentlemen, please please share these important messages.
Until next time, all policies and procedures are to remaining place.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
You've been listening to American Warrior Radio. Archived episodes may
be found at Americanwarriorradio dot com or your favorite podcast
platform
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