Grendel as a Universal Infantry Cartridge

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I dropped BUFFs just as quickly as I could, figuring I'd rather guard a missile hole in North Dakota than set butt in another BUFF. I switched to the Air National guard and learned the reconnaissance F-4 world, the RF-4C as a WSO. At least B-47 flights were shorter so the pain was less...until you got to those planned one-way flights, I guess. Though, there were times I hoped the BUFF engines would flame out or even burn so we could land.

By the way, they did on occasion, and the single seat pilots got quite a charge when we declare an In-Flight Emergency with an inop engine - they called it the "Dreaded Seven Engine Approach!"

Heh heh, I love the old BUFFs. I'll never forget the first elephant walk I saw. I rotated between alert sentry and the WSA, and they had an elephant walk while I was outside on a SRT patrol by the WSA. We watched the Alert BUFFs quick start, role out of the alert area to the hammerhead, and then TAKE OFF!!!!!.................. What we didn't know was that there were other non-alert BUFFs behind a slight rise we couldn't see at that end. THOSE were the ones that took off. The whole WSA and about half the base went apesh!# on that one. It was a real cool trick they played on everybody, and really made you think. We always wanted to be sentry on "the day", hoping you guys would take us along to have a rifle on board if you ever really went. At 18 I never thought to wonder how we'd get back down, but we figured it would have been a heck of a ride if they ever actually had.

I did get to ride on the CINCLANT bird at Langley. That was cool. Not near as exciting as a one way trip on a BUFF would have been though.:eek: