Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady and Air Force Reserve Brig. Gen. Steve Ritchie have unique stories to tell.
O'Grady's daring rescue after his F-16 was shot down over Bosnia June 2 has drawn new attention to America's military. His personable demeanor has put an admirable and likable face on the nation's defense institution.Ritchie is a pilot who, because of advances in combat techniques and technology, should never have had the opportunity to become an ace but did. He broke the threshold that earned him ace pilot status when he shot down his fifth Russian-built MiG 21 during combat in Vietnam in 1972.
O'Grady and Ritchie are in Salt Lake City to tell their stories - and the Air Force story - in a recruiting effort that comes during only the second time the Air Force has been unable to keep up with its recruiting objectives.
O'Grady's endurance while eluding captivity for six days on the ground in Bosnia is now being tested again while on a media-and-publicity tour that is both backed and closely watched by the Pentagon.
"I'm having fun with it. I've had nothing but a good experience with the press, whether it was local, national or international," he said Friday. "But I like my privacy."
He is not scheduled to return to duty in Europe until August. Until then, he's telling people what he sees in the United States after being overseas for 31/2 years. "You might not notice changes day to day, but they really hit you if you've been gone for a while," he said. "I'm not sure where America's going. I'm not sure people feel grateful to be here."
O'Grady said America's youth are finding role models in basketball players and rock stars with their lifestyles of "glamour and fame" instead of fostering aspirations into careers "that would have some meaning."
"Whether it's me or somebody else, they need to have somebody to look up to that would give them a path they might not have looked at," he said.
He doesn't see his current publicity tour as a pitch for the military as much as a chance to help people reflect on what the military provides.
"We are public servants," he said. "Sometimes people look at the military as people who want to go to war. But we're peacemakers. We're the last ones who want to go to war because we're the ones who would have to go out there and put our lives on the line."
Ritchie flew to Vietnam after picking up a brand-new F-4 Phantom. "It only had eight hours on it," he recalled. This week, he "flew" to Utah from his home in Colorado on a Harley Davidson so new it wasn't due for its 500-mile checkup until he reached Salt Lake City. He'll take the stick of an Air Force T-38 supersonic trainer to open the weekend air show today.
Ritchie flew with the 555th Fighter Squadron in Vietnam, the same "Triple Nickle" squadron O'Grady is assigned to now.
Times, and combat, have changed since the Vietnam War. Ritchie recognizes that being a pilot ace is becoming a club with few members.
In World War II, "there were thousands of relatively inexpensive airplanes" dogfighting over Europe and in the Pacific. "There were more than 1,300 aces in World War II."
The Korean War came during the jet age, with faster but fewer and more expensive fighters. That conflict produced 29 aces, Ritchie said.
But during the Vietnam War, it was common for there to be only eight to 15 enemy MiGs flying over the whole combat theater at any given time. The North Vietnamese relied heavily on ground anti-aircraft batteries and surface-to-air missiles.
That made engaging enemy fighters the marked exception, rather than the rule. Ritchie took out two MiG 21s within 90 seconds of each other. That was the exception of the exception.
"As an institution, we stack up real well," he said of the Air Force. "We take an oath . . . we live by a code."
He said the Air Force's recruiting success has been better over the years than other branches of the military. As a result, the Air Force's $8.1 million advertising budget for the current fiscal year is one-fifth the budget the Army has.
But this year the Air Force is 4,000 shy of reaching its recruiting goal of 31,000 new enlistees.
Repeated news of military down-sizing, competition with colleges for recruits fresh out of high school, and new privacy laws in some states that keep the military from receiving results of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Tests given to high school students are all taking their toll on recruiting.
Showcasing the cream of the Air Force's crop, like O'Grady, "best tells our story," Ritchie said. "The real people are the most credible."