Free Two Souls Indivisible by James S. Hirsch

twenty minutes at treetop level, penetrated deep into North Vietnam—much farther than Halyburton had ever flown before. He knew how exposed they were and how they would have little means to resist or dodge enemy bullets or "flak," little gun bursts that would explode near a jet, spraying it with shrapnel. Fifty miles from the target and forty miles northeast of Hanoi, the jets flew over a hill and into a valley. They were suddenly about fifteen hundred feet aboveground, and Halyburton, looking straight ahead, saw karst ridges, the sheer limestone cliffs that were the marker for their next turn.
    "Stan, we're coming up to our next point," Halyburton said while peering at his map. "We're within five miles of karst ridge."
    "Roger."
    Then Halyburton saw three puffs of black smoke as enemy gunmen, waiting near a railroad intersection, fired exploding projectiles at the American onslaught. The snipers may have had radar, hidden by the valley, that alerted them to the jets; the pilots later described the ammunition as the size of tennis balls. Then Halyburton felt a thump. The F-4 was still flying straight, but he knew they were hit. He tried to key his microphone, in his oxygen mask, to notify the other airmen, but when he pressed the button he realized that the mask had been blown off.
    It was the first indication that he had seriously underestimated the impact of the shrapnel. He then leaned to the side and looked through a small tunnel into the cockpit. He saw Olmstead's head slumped over, his helmet off, papers blowing all over, and holes in the canopy. The cockpit had been hit from below, causing metal fragments to rip through the top. Halyburton realized that Stan was either dead or mortally wounded. He thought that if he had a control stick, he could turn the plane around and eject with some chance of being rescued. But there was no control instrument in the back seat of an F-4, and he knew the aircraft was doomed, though it continued to fly straight. Halyburton saw he was heading right for the karst ridge. In the seconds before impact, it occurred to him that he might be better off staying in the plane, that death might be better than ejecting into enemy hands. But he realized that wouldn't be right.
    He was wearing flight gloves, but when he looked down he saw that a piece of metal was sticking out of his hand. He pulled it out. Then he reached up for his ejection handle but instead felt twisted metal—remarkably, his knee board, which had been strapped to his leg, had flown up and somehow impaled itself around the handle. The ridge was fast approaching, and he had only seconds to escape. He then reached between his legs for the backup ejection handle. If it didn't work, he would be dead in moments. He yanked it, the canopy blew off, and he shot out of the plane, his seat falling away. His parachute opened as he heard his plane, with Stan Olmstead, explode as it crashed into the karst.
    Halyburton was saved but hardly safe. Descending, he heard bullets whip by. He hit the ground and tumbled into some scrub brush, suffering cuts and bruises. He pulled off his helmet and parachute harness and took from his pocket a green "survival radio," connected to a battery. Still dazed, he began yelling into the device. "Mayday, mayday! I've been shot down!" He heard nothing, however, not even static.
    It was a warm, sunny day, and he began looking for a place to hide. He had few options. He took a step toward some bushes, but stopped after he saw a snake heading the same way. Trying to distance himself from a nearby village, he scrambled up a hill, where he could partially conceal himself. He wanted to keep running, but he was breathing heavily, his mouth was cottony, and a tall white American had no place to hide in a country of diminutive Asians. A rescue helicopter was his only hope, so he tried the radio again, screaming, "I'm on the ground! I'm in danger of being captured!"
    But the radio's battery was dead, which