MY ENEMY MY FRIEND

Anyone who has studied the air war over Vietnam in detail may recall an action on April 16, 1972, in which F-4D Phantom pilot Major E. Daniel Cherry engaged in a difficult and frustrating four-minute pursuit of an elusive MiG-21 before finally blowing off its right wing with an AIM-7 Sparrow missile. For Dan Cherry, the most memorable postscript to the engagement was narrowly passing the enemy pilot, hanging beneath his parachute.

He eventually would rediscover the Phantom in which he scored his victory and that he would have it restored to its original 1972 markings as the first of a series of warplanes flown by Kentuckians to be displayed at the newly established Aviation Heritage Park in his hometown of Bowling Green. Even less likely, he was eventually invited in 2008 to appear on television in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he met Nguyen Hong My, the North Vietnamese pilot he'd shot down years before.