Stamler, Richard D.

Richard says flying the F-100 was “A career with more fun than the law allows (Ask any of my former Squadron CC’s!).”

Here’s a story about Richard from Issue 29 or The Intake:

After arriving at Tuy Hoa in April, 1969, assigned to the 306th TFS, my first combat mission was with Dumpy Wyrick in my back seat. Dumpy was the 31st TFW Director of Tactics. My roommate was leading the two-ship with another IP in his pit. We arrived at the target about 40 miles NW of Tuy Hoa, and when we contacted the FAC, he was really excited. He said he had a very large NVA force trapped on two heavily jungled hills.

With this juicy target at hand, Dumpy started complaining big time about being in the pit when he should be in a D-model…blah, blah. He was as excited as the FAC. Me, not so much, because I was really nervous about this being my first combat mission—and all I could see was jungle. I was sure I was going to be shot down, and Dumpy’s grouching was getting me really worked up. I was breathing hard and trimming like a bandit. We were on the downwind of a bombing pattern when, all of a sudden, there was a ka-thunk, as a 750 departed my bird. It seems in my adrenalin-heightened state, my thumb came off the trim switch and inadvertently hit the pickle button!

If Dumpy had been excited before, he then went off the chart. He told me to safe it up, called the FAC and told him we had a weapons malfunction. I, of course, knew what had really happened and, gathering all my courage, told Dumpy about the errant thumb and admitted I was at fault. I thought he was going to eject! (Or, if he could, eject me!)

When we landed, Dumpy braced me up against the wall in the hallway and breathed fire and brimstone up at my face (I was considerably taller than Dumpy: 6’2” to his 5’4”). I don’t think I needed to shave for two days!
To my surprise, I got to fly my next several missions with Dumpy. (You can bet we were both in D-models.) I supposed there was some sort of evaluation taking place. Finally, after several rather uneventful missions, there was another anomaly.

I was dropping napes and my last one was a dud. Whoa! Another SNAFU? The FAC said he had seen where the nape hit and put a WP as close to it as he could to try to set it off, with no success. So he asked me to strafe the general area, giving me pretty good references from his smoke. As luck would have it, I apparently hit the dud nape, it went up in flames and the FAC declared victory. Dumpy was ecstatic.

When we got back and walked into the squadron, Dumpy took me by the arm and paraded me around the duty desk, proudly telling everyone what HIS lieutenant had done. Thank God, I was finally off his sh.. list!