By Shelby G. Spires
During the Vietnam War, Johnston’s was the job of a jet fighter pilot blended with a forward air controller, or Fast FAC, he marked targets, controlled air strikes and found targets all from the front seat of an F-4. Finding the cave, marking it and setting loose two Navy aircraft on it is a prime example of what a forward air controller did on a daily basis. In Southeast Asia, the FAC had two general roles: support troops on the ground who were fighting off enemy soldiers and try to find targets to destroy with air strikes. The basic concept of Fast FAC was fulfilling the requirement for forward air controllers in a high threat area.:
For the sake of preserving historical accuracy, the call sign of the FACs at Ubon was “Wolf”” and at Udorn it was “Laredo”.