“It seemed to be that the whole world was out of focus,” Broughton later wrote. One theory expressed by Broughton’s supporters is that the case was driven by animosity toward him by a ranking general. The pilot, his wingman and Broughton were faced with charges of violating a direct order not to fire on Soviet ships. To protect his pilots from criticism by civilian and military officials far removed from the realities of the war, Broughton ordered the destruction of the gun-camera film so that no evidence could exist. The Soviet Union complained bitterly to Washington. In June 1967, as the war intensified, a pilot under Broughton’s command told him that he may have fired at a Soviet freighter in the North Vietnamese port of Cam Pha while attacking an anti-aircraft site. Broughton then willfully acted as a decoy to divert hostile aircraft approaching the strike force.”įor all his bravery in the air, it was a mission Broughton did not fly that proved his undoing. “Disregarding the crippled condition of his aircraft, which minimized his chances for recovery to friendly territory, Col.

“Despite serious aircraft malfunctions, marginal weather and grave damage to his aircraft from an exploding surface-to-air missile, he placed his armament directly on target, scattering fire and debris,” the citation read. 5, 1967, when Broughton was flying an F-105 Thunderchief. The Air Force Cross (second only to the Medal of Honor for Air Force personnel) was bestowed for a mission over North Vietnam on Feb. In Vietnam he flew 102 missions and received an Air Force Cross and two Silver Star citations. After the war ended, he was assigned as an instructor and then as the commander of the Air Force aerobatic instructional team, the Thunderbirds, which prided itself on being the nation’s first supersonic aerobatic team. In Korea he flew 114 missions and deployed the experimental air-to-ground antitank rocket credited with protecting U.S.

He attended West Point during World War II but did not graduate soon enough to fly in combat. 4, 1925, in Utica, N.Y., and was captivated as a youth by tales of derring-do by military pilots. A swashbuckling skyjock of the old school, he wanted nothing more than to roll out his fighter jet every day and ‘go to work,’ ” David Gelman, who covered the Vietnam War for Newsday, wrote in his review of “Going Downtown.” In a modern era where political and military objectives are intermixed, Broughton was “something of an anachronism.

Jack broughton rules