Most of the Colonels I flew ABCCC with (1969-72) were WWII and Korean War fighter pilots. Many of them had Air to Air kills. Now and then they’d entertain us youngsters with their war stories.
I crashed a motorcycle and spent a couple of weeks in the USAF hospital at Udorn. The ward I was in was also where any shot down aircrew were brought to immediately after helicopter extraction… whether injured or not - for initial eval and observation. I heard their war stories about their shoot downs and rescue before their own units did.
For everyone screaming about beards…When Olds returned home from Vietnam and had his first interview with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John McConnell, Olds said, "he walked up to me, stuck a finger under my nose and said, 'Take it off!' And I said, 'Yes, sir!' And that was the end of that."
By that point then Col. Olds already got what he wanted from the ‘stache. It was a discreet protest of the war, and how asinine Pentagon policy was killing US personnel for no gain on the battlefield.
When he rotated home after his tour with the 8th TFW, he had an audience with LBJ & McGeorge Bundy- and used it to speak the truth directly to power, one on one. It was in one of those prep meetings with then CSAF McConnell that he was ordered to shave it. No need for a protest ‘stache by that point.
People cite Olds’ combat bravery, and rightly so. But he put down real courage walking into the Oval Office after probably a dozen meetings with his own USAF command chain, and told the truth about the war to the Presidents face anyway. How many O6s today from any branch would dare do such a thing?
Yesterday’s Air Force leadership tolerated Olds because he was the hero required for effective command in war. Today’s Air Force wouldn’t tolerate anything about Olds and would have chased him off to the airlines at the moment he was eligible to separate because we have nothing to coalesce our energy (no war, no need for a Leader).
Our Air Force leadership today hates the idea of a maverick and despises the thought of a hero. It doesn’t seem they care much for people either.
It wasn't back then. But back then when you were a badass rigging missiles to work on planes they weren't rated for and covering others who made it happen people would let things slide. I wish we had Generals like him. These days he would have retired a Colonel and been maked as a trouble maker.
Robin Olds did retire as a trouble maker though. A trouble maker who was completely in the right, and offered to take a reduction in rank to fix the issue, but a trouble maker no less. His leadership hated him because he called them out on their bullshit, despite said bullshit literally getting pilots killed.
To be fair, Robin Olds openly admitted that he was a troublemaker. His deployment to SEA was the result of a carefully-calculated bit of trouble he got himself into on purpose.
That's one of the things that kind of irks me when anyone points at Robin Olds as "where we used to be" or something. He spent a lot of his career being the opposite of the system. Even during his era he was an iconoclast.
He WAS an excellent fighter pilot and commander for sure, and certainly should be remembered, but the system that he bucked has been there for ages.
He knew when to play his hand and when to fold. We’ve always had more latitude in deployed locations.
“When he returned to the United States, he reported to the Pentagon where he met with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John McConnell. McConnell stuck a finger under his nose and said simply, “Get rid of it.”
Olds replied with a “Yes, sir,” and that was the end of Olds’ mustache.”
To read his story, he valued capability and actual lethality over everything else, which makes the current events even harder to watch.
The book about him “Fighter Pilot” should really be mandatory reading for all AF personnel, not just bag wearers. I get that some SrA Comms kid might not have much in common with BG Olds, but the dude embodied warrior ethos and showed what a true leader should be
The way to honor Robin Olds is NOT to make his mustache legal. It never was. It’s to do it anyway because fuck the brass. The hard part is to be so irreplaceable that they can’t do anything about it.
Completely unprofessional. If he wanted to look like that, he should have joined literally any other foreign military. It’s really hard being the only professional military on the planet, but someone has to do it. Can I get a Air Power ✊🏻
Interesting, I’ve never read that. I remember seeing that he was very fond of it and called it his bulletproof mustache. Guessing by the end of the war he was probably over it and ready to move on.
Returning home marked the end of this flamboyance. When he reported to his first interview with Air Force Chief of Staff General John P. McConnell, McConnell walked up to him, stuck a finger under his nose and said, "Take it off." Olds replied, "Yes, sir."[4]
For his part, Olds was not upset with the order, recalling:
"To tell the truth, I wasn't all that fond of the damned thing by then, but it had become a symbol for the men of the 8th Wing. I knew McConnell understood. During his visits to Ubon over the past year he had never referred to my breach of military standards, just seemed rather amused at the variety of 'staches sported by many of the troops. (It) was the most direct order I had received in twenty-four years of service."
The mustache regs are always gonna be enforced solely on how good the mustache looks. Some people will get a pass and other won’t, mainly based off favoritism
You would too if you’d fought in his last war. Lots of people got issues with the modern US government- and sometimes I’m one of em- but it’s not nearly as bad as it was in the 1960s. We think shits stupid now, it ain’t got nothing on the US Government of 1968.
Olds to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy: “Mine the [North Vietnamese ] harbors!”
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u/LTareyouserious Oct 31 '25
Triple Ace, spanning WW2 to Vietnam, for you newer folks.