Fighter Pilot Tells Liberty Common High School Students about Vietnam War

Northern Colorado Connection: Fighter Pilot Tells Liberty Common High School Students about Vietnam War

Fort Collins, CO - He flew approximately 250 combat missions during the Vietnam War. Today, U.S. Air Force Col. (ret.) Ron McMillan completed two more assignments in front of students at Liberty Common High School.

Now a Fort Collins resident, McMillan said he enjoys speaking to students about his Vietnam-War experiences. "I've looked through your history book at the chapters on Vietnam and they have it about right," he said to students in Duane Staton's first-period and fourth-period history classes.

McMillan described his 27 years in the Air Force starting as a cadet in the Reserve Officers Training Corps. Growing up, he envisioned himself in the Navy. "I always thought I'd be in a submarine, but the Navy didn't have an ROTC program at the university I attended and the Air Force did," he said.


"I didn't plan on flying jets either," McMillan said. However, the better pay earned by pilots persuaded McMillan to give pilot school a try and he did quite well. From there, he became a pilot instructor and went back to college earning a graduate degree in Electrical Engineering.


Then the war in Vietnam broke out.


McMillan was sent to Korea and Hawaii for various planning, management and training assignments. He went to Vietnam first to provide tactical consultation.


Soon thereafter, he was deployed as a fighter pilot flying the Cessna A-37 "Dragonfly" jet fighter. "It was a good aircraft," McMillan recalled. "It had plenty of power."

"Whenever the situation got too hot, you could just push the throttle forward to get yourself out of there long enough to settle down and get yourself back into what you were supposed to be doing," he said about the plane.

The radio call sign of McMillan's squadron was "Dice." Pointing to the pair of dice he wore on the front zipper of his flight suit, he explained to students how each pilot in his squadron answered to a different number, for example "Dice 21."

McMillan's deployment in Vietnam occurred from 1969 through 1970. He spent most of his deployment at Bien Hoa Airbase north of Saigon and at other bases in Vietnam. "I didn't have occasion to interact often with Vietnamese people," he said.

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