Vector To Destiny - Journey of a Vietnam F-4 Fighter Pilot

George W Kohn, Award Winning Author

George W Kohn, Award Winning Author George W Kohn, Award Winning Author George W Kohn, Award Winning Author
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George W Kohn, Award Winning Author

George W Kohn, Award Winning Author George W Kohn, Award Winning Author George W Kohn, Award Winning Author
  • Home
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AWARDS

INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS WINNER History Military Category

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT BOOK AWARD WINNER - Military Memoirs Category Excellence Book Content Quality

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT BOOK AWARD WINNER - Military Memoirs Category Excellence Book Content Quality

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT BOOK AWARD WINNER - Military Memoirs Category Excellence Book Content Quality

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT BOOK AWARD WINNER - Military Memoirs Category Excellence Book Content Quality

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT BOOK AWARD WINNER - Military Memoirs Category Excellence Book Content Quality

BOOK EXCELLENCE AWARD FINALIST Military Category

READERS FAVORITE GOLD MEDAL Non-Fiction Military

READERS FAVORITE GOLD MEDAL Non-Fiction Military

READERS FAVORITE GOLD MEDAL Non-Fiction Military

READERS FAVORITE GOLD MEDAL Non-Fiction Military

READERS FAVORITE GOLD MEDAL Non-Fiction Military

About the Book

  

Vector to Destiny – Journey of a Vietnam F-4 Fighter Pilot goes beyond the classic Vietnam war story to give you some insight into what it was like to grow up on a farm with a big dream. George’s journey takes you from farm fields in Wisconsin to the skies over Vietnam in F-4 fighter jets.  Share his struggles, failures, and exhilarations as he moves along his path toward a destiny.

His story is filled with riveting accounts of missions flown by a fighter pilot into intense enemy resistance. Along the way, there were indications of divine intervention. The reception upon returning home from the war was less than desirable. Understanding the plight of Vietnam Veterans is a prelude to respecting the contributions of 2.4 million Americans who fought to preserve the freedoms we cherish. 

• By Lucy Ripp lripp@hngnews.com · Dec 1, 2020


‘Vector to Destiny’: Local Vietnam veteran publishes autobiography

When George Kohn begrudgingly sat down to redo an English paper in high school, he had no idea it would irreversibly alter the course of his life. Self-admittedly, Kohn was not someone who took school very seriously as a teenager. So, when his teacher sent him back to the drawing board on a paper, he figured he may as well write about something that interested him. “I came up with the investigation of aircraft accidents as the subject [of the assignment], so I sent a letter to the Air Force at Truax requesting information for my paper,” Kohn said. Not only did his letter land him a great source for his paper, but Kohn also ended up befriending a local F-102 fighter pilot. “Sometime later, [the pilot] flew his jet very low and very fast directly over our farm and it got me excited about becoming an Air Force fighter pilot,” Kohn explained. Growing up in rural Wisconsin, Kohn was reminded daily of his familial destiny to take over his father’s farm; but as the Air Force jet flew over his home that day, he began to see a brand new destiny unfolding. After high school, Kohn enrolled in classes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as a college degree was required to become an Air Force pilot at the time. “It was the 1960s and the campus was a hotbed of anti-war activity. Wearing my Air Force ROTC uniform around campus was somewhat unsettling,” Kohn remembered. Despite the civil unrest brewing on campus, he made it through nonetheless. Upon earning his wings, Kohn was assigned to fly F-4 Phantom jets and landed a yearlong station in Danang AB, Vietnam. “There were good times and bad times,” Kohn said of his year in Vietnam. “One of the hardest times was watching my wingman’s airplane disintegrate and turn into a fireball on a strafing mission in Cambodia.” He details that experience in his brand new autobiographical novel, ‘Vector to Destiny: Journey of a Vietnam F-4 Fighter Pilot.’ Published on Nov. 15, it didn’t take long for Kohn’s book to start climbing the charts. Rave reviews swiftly rolled in, and the novel was named the top new Vietnam War history book on Amazon. As of Dec. 1, all reviews of the book on Amazon have given it five stars. The book follows Kohn’s journey from a small Wisconsin farm to a big college campus, all the way to the skies of Vietnam. “I felt like I had a story that was not just about war, but was also about the journey from farm to college, to pilot training and then on to Vietnam,” Kohn said on his motivation to write the novel. While many important parts of Kohn’s life are covered in the novel, there’s one era that isn’t. Years after leaving the military, Kohn would later go on to fulfill his secondary destiny of owning a farm. In 1993, Kohn and his wife Sandy bought West Star Farm; an organic farm nestled neatly between Cottage Grove and McFarland. Tragically, Kohn’s sister passed away after a deadly exposure to farm chemicals. This, coupled with his firsthand experience with toxic chemicals in Vietnam, inspired him to start a fully organic farm. He plans on making this the subject of his next novel. The farm is still up and running more than 27 years later, but is now owned and operated by Kohn’s son and daughter-in-law. It’s certainly no secret that Kohn and his wife have made a mark on the local community. The couple’s neighbor, Dolly Maurer, said she’s honored to know them. “[Kohn] is a quiet, humble guy,” Maurer said. “I’ve learned a lot from them, how to be a good neighbor in the neighborhood. Him and Sandy are just exceptional, exceptional people.” Through it all, Kohn is hopeful that, if nothing else, his story is an inspiration for younger generations to come and can help give people a new appreciation of Vietnam veterans. “One of my goals for the book is to bring about respect to all Vietnam veterans,” Kohn said. “It is my hope that my story can be an inspiration for young people by emphasizing that not all goals are easily attainable. Sometimes it takes a very strong desire to achieve them.”

MADISON MAGAZINE COLUMNS

  

Farm boy to fighter pilot: George Kohn’s ‘Vector to Destiny’

The story of a Dodge County kid who messed up a high school English paper and because of it wound up learning to fly fighter jets.

Posted: November 30, 2020 6:00 AM

Updated: November 27, 2020 3:29 PM

by Doug Moe

This is a story of a Dodge County farm kid who messed up a high school English paper and because of it wound up learning to fly fighter jets. He learned to write, too. On Nov. 15, George Kohn published a memoir, “Vector to Destiny – Journey of a Vietnam F-4 Fighter Pilot,” its publication coming almost exactly 50 years to the day after Kohn came home from Vietnam in November 1970. He eventually returned to farming – in 1993, Kohn and his wife, Sandy, started West Star Organics near Cottage Grove, an organic greenhouse business now operated by their son. George says his next book may be about organic farming, but “Vector to Destiny” – his first – is about learning to fly, going to Vietnam, what happened there, and coming back. It’s about luck and perseverance and I suspect more than a few readers will find Kohn’s journey inspiring. Which leads us back to that failed English paper. “When I was a junior and senior in high school, I didn’t put a lot of effort into it,” he says. He was a senior at Reeseville High School when his teacher returned the paper with instructions to try again with a fresh topic. “For some reason” – possibly because his father had a friend in the aviation industry – “I picked the investigation of aircraft accidents,” Kohn says. Kohn sent a letter addressed to the Truax Air Force Base in Madison asking for information on aircraft accidents. In theory this should have worked about as well as putting the message in a bottle and tossing it into Lake Monona. But somehow, Herb Ritke, an Air Force captain at Truax, got hold of Kohn’s request, and wrote him back, inviting him to tour the base. “I will show you my office,” Ritke wrote, “where I have considerable information about the investigation of aircraft accidents.” Kohn’s tour included the chance to sit in an F-102 fighter jet. His redone English essay was a success, and the visit began a friendship between the two families. Ritke had young sons who were interested in farm animals, so Kohn provided a reciprocal tour of his dad’s farm. A year or two on from high school graduation, Kohn was still uncertain about his future. He was working on the farm. One day – it was summer 1962 – Kohn was on a tractor combining grain when the earth seemed to shake beneath him. “There was deafening roar,” he says, “and the ground seemed to tremble.” He looked up in time to see a fighter jet flying low, just above the trees. “It came right over the top of me like a streak with fire coming out of its tail.” In moments the streak was gone. It was Ritke, of course. “After that,” Kohn writes in the new book, “my thinking was focused on one dream in life. I had to fly fighter jets.” Having a dream and realizing it are not the same thing. Ritke counseled him on what had to happen: To be an Air Force fighter pilot required a college degree and an officer commission. Kohn’s grades were just good enough to get him into the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where an administrator looked at his transcript and said, “You’ll never make it.” He did, though. And through ROTC, upon graduation he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Force. He had rigorous pilot training in Texas – out of a class of 100, 54 graduated. Kohn did well enough to be able to select the aircraft he wanted to fly. He picked the F-4, which likely meant Vietnam. “I wasn’t gung-ho to go to Vietnam,” he says. “But I chose that airplane because I wanted to fly fighters. That was my goal.” There was additional training on the F-4, survival instruction and more, and then in late 1969 Kohn went overseas. He flew 201 combat missions out of Da Nang Air Base and was awarded the air medal and the distinguished flying cross with two oak leaf clusters. There are good memories. “We had a great group of pilots, a lot of camaraderie, sharing stories. Leaving them when I came home was hard to do.” And there are other memories, some of which still trigger deep emotion. There was a mission that ended with Kohn zeroing in on an enemy supply truck. “I was just getting ready to transmit that we were in on the target,” he says. At the last moment, another F-4 pilot radioed that he was in. “We pulled off and went up to our orbit altitude,” Kohn says. From there, Kohn could see what happened next. The enemy truck was a decoy. There were camouflaged antiaircraft guns nearby. The F-4 was doomed. “He disintegrated into a fireball,” Kohn says, pausing for several seconds. “It was a long flight home.” After returning to the United States in November 1970, Kohn stayed on active duty until 1975. He joined the Air Force Reserve and became a commercial airline pilot in civilian life. On retiring, as noted, he and Sandy started the organic farm. Writing about his experience, Kohn says, “is something that has been stirring in my head for several years.” He estimates he spent between 25,000 to 30,000 hours flying and feels fortunate to have turned his young dream into reality. “It’s very satisfying,” he says, and chuckles. “Almost as satisfying as writing a book.”
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