November 4, 2007

Called to Serve
Loss of a comrade has profound effect on F-16 fighter pilot

By ED COX
of The Chronicle

Captain Mike Dietrich has no regrets about the time he spent flying F-16 fighter jets in Iraq, but he’s not itching to return, either.

“One time dropping a bomb and watching people die — that was enough for me,” says the 1993 The Dalles High School graduate, who visited his hometown, talked to students and sat down with The Chronicle as part of a special Oct. 19 trip.

Which is not to say he wouldn’t go back if deployed. “Sometimes you’ve got to be that guy,” he says, noting that being called on to kill (he doesn’t say the word) is “the price you pay” for freedom, serving your country and engaging your love of flying.

"And yet, what really took Dietrich out of combat was the price paid by someone who once flew alongside him.

Major Troy “Trojan” Gilbert was Dietrich’s flight lead on that fateful Nov. 27 of last year and was providing “sensor coverage” while Dietrich refueled in air.

At some point, Gilbert went into a strafe pass that apparently was too steep to pull out of. He died when his jet hit the ground, but Dietrich didn’t know until he finished fueling, failed to make radio contact and went looking for him.

“I couldn’t hold it together in the jet,” Dietrich recalls when he saw the impact site from the air. To this day, he doesn’t know how he managed to get back on the ground at the base southwest of Baghdad.

That happened in just the second week of Dietrich’s Iraq tour, which started with what he expected to be a 10-day turn-around trip to fly a replacement jet over.
Dietrich’s squadron had been deployed two months earlier, but he initially had orders to stay behind to fulfill other duties at the base in Clovis, N.M.

When he got to Iraq with the substitute jet, though, he was informed he’d be staying months rather than a week. He was immediately tapped for bombing missions.

After Gilbert’s death, Dietrich says, “I wasn’t useful anymore.”

He took four days off while he tried to “stop having nightmares” about the crash, then flew another sortie just to show that he could do it before being transferred to mission planning in Qatar and then deployed home with his squadron in January 2007.

Now, back at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, he’s “loving life.” He’s gone back to the T-38, a training plane, and allowed his F-16 certification to lapse, which means he is no longer immediately deployable.

There’s “less stress on the mind that way,” says Dietrich, who still loves flying and the F-16. He’s hoping to join the Thunderbirds, the U.S. Air Force’s demonstration squadron, or perhaps go back to school and get a staff job, then return to the jet.

Dietrich says he was grateful to receive special permission from the U.S. Air Force to come home and thank The Dalles community for donations to a fund for Gilbert’s wife and children.

Speaking at the high school gave him the chance to inspire students and catch up with family and some old friends, including retired science teacher Jerry Ryan, his “sole motivator” in eighth grade.

“Life’s too short to not communicate with people you’ve seen in the past,” says Dietrich, expressing perhaps one lesson learned from Gilbert’s death.

As for the one-and-only bomb he dropped, Dietrich’s comments seem to show a deep ambivalence — even a struggle.

“That really didn’t fray on the mind” at the time, he says, noting that he and his fellow pilot were reacting instinctively and concentrated on getting some trucks that had driven away from the site of the explosion.

“If you thought about it, you probably wouldn’t do it,” he interjects.

Dietrich later met some of the 12 Americans who likely owed their lives to his timely strike. “Afterwards, I though it was valid,” he says.

Not that that made it easy.

Dietrich says opposition to the war on the home front affects him little. “Each person has their own right [to an opinion],” he says. “That’s why we’re in the United States.”

He says if he hears someone opposed to U.S. actions, he might be tempted to ask why and make sure their views are based on full and correct information.

“Do you know what’s really going on?” he imagines himself saying. “Do you have someone in the military?”

He notes that the western United States misses out on a lot of what he calls the “positive spin” that comes from having significant numbers of military bases. And Oregon pilots are seldom heard about, he says.

“Even though I lost my flight lead, there are still some positives in this,” he concludes. “We’re doing a good thing [in Iraq]. I just don’t think we’re given the media we need.”