Local author recounts military experience in new book

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MARQUETTE - Ben Mukkala has traveled faster than a speeding bullet.

During the Cold War, Mukkala flew a B-58 jet bomber capable of Mach 2 supersonic flight.

"The muzzle velocity of some of the slower rifles and pistols is somewhere around 1,200 - 1,300 feet per second and in that airplane I've traveled at 1,600 feet per second. And I have also leaped tall buildings in a single bound," he added with a laugh.

In his latest book "The Gift of Wings: An Autobiography of a Life in the Sky," Mukkala writes about his involvement in the Korean, Vietnam and Cold wars and his love of flying.

In 1950, during the beginning of the Korean War, Mukkala - who described himself as a "grease-monkey" with no future aside from "the next Saturday night and going out and having a party and chasing girls" - was drafted.

Not wanting to go in either the Army or the Marine Corps - "I'd seen John Wayne fighting in the mud in (the film) 'Sands of Iwo Jima' and I thought 'Jesus, I don't want that,' '' he said - Mukkala chose the U.S. Air Force.

He flew a variety of fighter planes and jet bombers in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. During the Vietnam War he started flying an F-4 Phantom supersonic fighter bomber.

One such mission in the F-4 was the rescue of two U.S. soldiers caught behind enemy lines in Laos, he said.

"We had guys in Laos on watch groups ... they were hidden, watching these trails and they would radio out what was going on, who was going where," Mukkala said. "One of these watch groups had been caught, not captured yet, but they'd been located and the Viet Cong were after them."

Mukkala, his co-pilot Dennis Lipp and another pilot crew were assigned to provide cover for two soldiers - one badly injured - pinned down by Viet Cong forces until rescue helicopters could arrive.

Once the location of the two soldiers was confirmed by the forward air controller, Mukkala dropped cluster bombs to drive off enemy forces.

As Mukkala's plane continued to circle the area, its fuel supply got dangerously low.

"When we got to the minimum fuel, the forward air controller said 'Listen you guys, those are Americans down there and if we don't do something they're not going to make it.' So that's why we stayed there with them," he said.

Both soldiers were rescued, but tragically the injured soldier fell from one of the rescue helicopters because he was not strapped into his seat.

Mukkala described himself and other veterans of Vietnam as the "rejected generation."

"When we came back to the states from Vietnam and landed in California they advised us not to wear a uniform and put our civilian clothes on," he said. "Because if you got off the plane, train or bus and you were military, demonstrators were running around calling you baby-killers and that sort of thing."

Mukkala said the United States should never have gotten involved in Vietnam and many people, especially college-aged people, realized this.

"There was a theory called the domino theory and the idea was that if one of those little countries went Communist then they'd go Communist in the next one - and we had to stop them.

So we ended up backing a regime in South Vietnam that was crooked as a dog's hind leg," he said.

Following the war and his involvement in the military, Mukkala piloted local ambulance flights and took sportsmen into camp sites in Canada.

He said delving into his memories to write the book was easy.

"Once it gets flowing it's just there. Once you start writing it, once you start living through it again, one thing leads right to another," he said.

His book is available in most local bookstores in the region.