Pericles Vergados: The Greek-born US Air Force pilot who fought in Vietnam

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“I was flying a small plane and ‘marking’ targets on the ground so the pilots could hit the targets in the jungle,” the pilot recalled

“My name is Pericles Vergados, I come from Boston, Massachusetts. My father was from Sparta, my mother from Kythira and I was a pilot in the Vietnam War…” The Greek-born American Air Force pilot was in Greece for a few days last September and shared, speaking to the APE radio station -MPE “Agency 104.9FM”, some of the unique moments of air combat he experienced flying over the deadly jungles of Vietnam.

“I was ten years old when my father said to me ‘let’s go to the airport, they have brought the first jet aircraft there.’ We finally went with my parents and at some point the pilot came up to me. It was then that I told my parents “one day I will be a pilot”. My mother then… kicked me out and told me she didn’t want me to go to the Air Force. But I did it. I was 22 years old, in college, when I went to pilot training and found myself serving in the Air Force for 23 years”, recounts veteran Pericles Vergados, answering about the beginning of his “love affair” with flying.

Surviving above the Vietnamese ‘Triple Canopy Jungle’

It was the time when America found itself fighting on a battlefield that proved as deadly as few. “For a year I was a co-pilot on a B-52 bomber when the Vietnam War came. Then I gave my name, I wanted to be a fighter pilot. In three months I received the paper to go for training to learn how to fly fighter jets. So from 1967 to 1969 I was in Vietnam. I returned home in June 1969,” explains the straight-laced and energetic 25-year veteran pilot as he relays some moments from his aviation history.

“My role there and my missions were specific. I was flying a small plane and special rockets with white smoke. In cooperation with the Army I marked targets on the ground so that the pilots with the fighters loaded with weapons could hit the targets in the jungle. We are talking about a very special jungle, with an incredible “Triple Canopy” jungle – a term that refers to a rainforest with three levels, the “canopy” which is the top level that covers most of the forest, the middle level, the “mezzanine ” and the lower level called the forest floor, another level characterized by intense vegetation”, he notes.

The experience of the war of attrition

“It’s hard to describe what the war was like there. Some days it was quiet, some days it was very bad. I can’t describe inside myself how I am, how I feel… Every day I remember the war. Every day. Maybe something small, something big, this reminds me of the war. I saw, for example, in Athens at the air show Bell Huey helicopters, a type that was also in Vietnam and I remember at that time such a helicopter that had weapons, guns on it and was fighting, or other Hueys that brought the wounded soldiers, the children who had to go to the hospitals. If one watches the TV series M*A*S*H, which took place in such military field hospitals, the images I experienced were similar to what the series showed…” recounts the pilot, one of the few Air Force pilots of the USA with Greek origin.

The end of the war found him returning home to the USA where he remained a pilot for 16 years in the US National Guard in Massachusetts. “I retired from flying after a total of 23 years. I always miss the flight, too much. Every time, every moment. All pilots miss flying, every moment…”, he confesses. Behind his aviator glasses a broad smile is combined with a look of joy, as he momentarily raises his eyes again to the Greek sky where jets are flying. One more look, hours before the return trip to the US begins.

RES-EMP

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