We bombed the trail day and night for several years. Lost a lot of aircraft and a lot of people. Very few of our guys ever came home from Laos. So when you see those names on the flight card, those guys were probably dead soon after that.
The only airman that I personally knew who returned from a Laotian shoot down was captured by the North Vietnamese regulars who were guarding the trail. He got shot down near Chepone. They took him to Hanoi and later he came home.
So when I say 'been shot at and missed, been crapped on and hit' some of the shots were fired on the trail.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER