UPI
In 1967, he joined the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.
He earned the Navy Cross and two Silver Stars. He flew F4 Panthom jets.
“With complete disregard for his own personal safety, he continued his attack through a hail of cannon fire to rescue his wingman,” the citation for one of his Silver Stars read.
“We flew 170 combat missions together and we were in some pretty harrowing situations,” Willy Driscoll, the only other naval aviator to earn ace designation during the Vietnam era, said. “Randy was the consummate professional as an aviator, constantly working to improve his knowledge of fighter tactics and committed to excellence in the air at all times.”
He rose to the rank of commander before retiring in 1967. More
His fight to the death with one of North Vietnam’s finest was recreated in the History Channel Series premiere of “Dog Fights.” The battle begins at the 54:20 mark. Watch
Quite so. The Army is famous for training crack carrier pilots.
God speed
“Reach out, and touch the face of God”
RIP
(Slow salute)
Joined U.S. Army in ’67…flew F-4 Phantoms…made Commander…awarded Navy Cross?! Wow! I spent 3 decades in the USA, IN…later branch-detailed MI. Nobody told me a Navy branch detail was an option…(coulda been an astronaut)! \sarc\
Referenced article stated he was inspiration for the Top Gun Maverick character. Also mentioned he represented San Diego area in Congress, for 15 years, before being sent to the ‘Big House’ for corruption (accepting defense contractor bribes). Was an R, form a heavily lib district…his unindicted Dim-corruptocrat cohort are still lucratively ‘serving’ in DC.
Oh, that same article also stated that, after attaining rank of Commander, he retired in 1967. Was that before, or after he joined the Army?
The Top Gun movies clearly left some tantalizingly crazy plot angles on the editing room floor!
IATS
TWD
I met him at Wings Over Houston a few years back, and again last fall. My daughter has his autograph on the “legends” poster for the show a year or three back, along with Gene Kranz. He was quite the gentleman, and I got to spend almost an hour on the drive home explaining to my teenage daughter exactly who she had met, and just what he had achieved and how extraordinary it was to even meet someone with his combat record.
Having said that, Duke got caught up in the system and made some really profound mistakes. I will leave it to other to decide if he was entrapped, or just a greedy politician. He paid for it, made restitution, and was ultimately pardoned. I pray he found Christ and went to his grave with his salvation secured.
KR
COMPARE THIS ACE TO JOHN MCCAIN
RIP SIR, WELL-DESERVED
Kali, I bet that was an interesting conversation, for both you and your daughter. 15 years, or so back, I had the opportunity to take my granddaughter up to Denver to meet Buzz Aldrin. Was great to hear his presentation, and to meet him. She wants to go to Mars.
By his own admission, Cunningham made some incredibly poor judgement calls, and to his credit, blamed no one but himself. Was truly unfortunate that a otherwise superlative military record was so stained.
He is flying better skies now.
Duty – Honor – Country!
IATS
TWD
There is no comparison to John McCain. McCain got there because both his father and grandfather were Admirals in the US Navy. And McCain despite his POW status during the Vietnam war was not a good person or a good Navy officer. As you can tell I am not a fan of John McCain, and I wouldn’t have wanted to have been his plane captain who was killed when McCain’s A-4 Skywalk blew up during the huge fire on board the USS Forrestal along with 135 or so other airmen and sailors.
@GEOFF, 👍👍👍👍👍
@Geoff,
I didn’t serve, but I’m a Navy kind of guy with some loose connections to the era… McCain was a 3rd generation Navy playboy. I believe you can go look at the edits on his Wikipedia page and figure out that his legacy was posthumously edited into existence after his death. Maybe they’ve cleaned it up further… For my part, I usually refer to him as “Johnny Wet Start”. And I simply don’t believe anything about who’s plane got struck by what… May his Forestall shipmates rest in peace.
KR
During a week of firefighting school which was mandatory for us before we went out to sea for the first time, we were shown the video of the fire on the Forrestal, and it still scares the hell out of me even all these years later. We had our own small fire in the middle of Dec. 1973 when we were between Guam and the Philippines that killed 8 sailors down below in the engine room. I spent all that night riding the brakes on my assigned F-4 Phantom being towed from one part of the ship to another to get our planes as far away from the forward starboard side of the Kitty Hawk where the fire was located below decks. When I got to the Philippines and the Subic Bay Navy base about a week later right around Christmas, I called home collect for 5 minutes, it must’ve cost my parents $20 dollars to make that phone call to let my folks know about the fire and that I was OK. It was $20 dollars well spent because they were glad that I was OK.
RIP
Twenty dollars was worth a lot of money in 1973.
^^^^^geoff
$200 in todays money…..
(10×1970’s money…..gotta love that inflation)
Who writes this shit anyway? How the hell can you join the ARMY and become a Naval aviator? And then to top it off he turned out to be a crooked politician and did prison time!
@ Ed357 I use $20 bills to light my BBQ these days!