Faherty may be last Vietnam-era aviator serving on active duty

Friday, May 9, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL Now that he’s retired from the Navy after 39 years in uniform, Huntingtown resident Denis Faherty wants to spend a few months fly fishing and golfing before he starts looking for a job in the civilian world. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo Photo courtesy of Denis Faherty Denis Faherty had only been a naval aviator a few years when this photo of him was taken during a stop in the Philippines in 1972.

The Navy asked Faherty to retire once he turned 62. He celebrated his birthday in mid-April and set his schedule to retire on the first day of the next month, which means he hung up his uniform on May 1.

Faherty was born and raised in Queens, N.Y. He graduated from St. Francis University in Loretto, Pa., at the end of 1968, during the height of the Vietnam War, with a degree in biology.

‘‘As soon as I graduated,” he recalled, ‘‘I knew I’d be eligible for the draft, and I knew I didn’t want to go into the Army.”

Faherty had several conversations on the subject with his father, a naval reservist, who ‘‘always spoke highly of Navy aviators. There’s been someone in my family in the Navy ever since 1939, so I decided to look there.”

Faherty was accepted for flight training in Pensacola, Fla., and was sworn into the Navy ‘‘on the same weekend in August [1969] when all my friends were at Woodstock, listening to rock ‘n’ roll music,” he said with a laugh.

During flight school Faherty first earned his commission, then his wings. He was named a naval flight officer in June 1970 and reported to Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego to train as a radar intercept officer — a RIO — on the F-4 Phantom jet.

In February 1972 Faherty joined the VF-114 ‘‘Aardvarks” fighter squadron aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, as the aircraft carrier was preparing to deploy to Vietnam. But the significance of Faherty’s first operational assignment wouldn’t be recognized until he retired, more than three decades later.

At the age of 62 and still on active duty until last week, Faherty may be the last active duty naval aviator to have flown combat missions during the Vietnam War.

‘‘Doing the math,” said retired Vice Adm. Brent Bennitt, who was Faherty’s boss later in Faherty’s career and is now a vice president at defense contractor Wyle Labs in Lexington Park, ‘‘I think that’d be right ... I think he’s the real deal, the last Vietnam-era naval aviator. I’d be willing to bet that every one of the others retired years ago. Denis is 62 and still wearing the uniform? Yeah, I’d bet he is the last one.”

During his time on the Kitty Hawk that year, Faherty and his pilot flew 150 missions over North and South Vietnam. Twice, he said, his planes were hit by enemy fire. One of those times, he added, they didn’t even know it until they returned to the ship.

‘‘That time,” Faherty recalled, ‘‘as soon as we landed, we were preparing to be re-armed, so we could launch for another mission.” But Kitty Hawk’s air boss signaled to them, ordering them to park their Phantom immediately.

‘‘When we got out of the plane,” Faherty said, ‘‘we saw that we’d been shot. There was a hole, all the way though the tailfin. We had no idea until then that we’d even been hit.”

Following his first deployment, Faherty attended the Navy’s Fighter Weapons School — Top Gun — and then returned to the Kitty Hawk, back in the waters off Vietnam. By then, however, a ceasefire had been ordered and no more combat missions were being flown.

Other schools and more training followed. Faherty moved to an F-14 Tomcat squadron and, in 1974 trained to be an F-14 RIO flight instructor. He later became an air combat tactics instructor, an electronics warfare officer and was made an Iranian aircrew flight instructor.

For about a year in the mid-1970s, Faherty was on a Navy team that delivered Tomcat aircraft to the Iranian Air Force.

Following a 1977 cruise, again on the Kitty Hawk, Faherty transferred to the Navy Reserves. In his civilian life he worked in real estate in San Diego. In 1986, as a reservist, he was named commanding officer of Commander Fighter Airborne Early Warning Wing, U.S. Pacific Fleet, based at Miramar.

‘‘Then,” Faherty said, ‘‘in 1995, I got a phone call from the Navy. They said they had something in mind that’d be just right for me and my abilities, and asked if I wanted to return to active duty.”

He did. For 13 months, starting in November 1995, Faherty served as safety officer for Commander Naval Air Force Pacific Fleet.

‘‘Denis was part of my team,” recalled Bennitt, ‘‘our air safety team.” In the months leading up to Faherty’s return to active duty, Bennitt said, there had been several F-14 crashes, and the Navy wanted to know why and what needed to be done to prevent them.

‘‘Our team,” Bennitt said, ‘‘was there to try to understand what was happening to our aircraft. After two years of hard work, we had the lowest mishap rate we had ever enjoyed. And Denis played a significant role in making that happen. He helped bring down, and keep down, the [aircraft] mishap rate.”

Faherty was later named the first operational risk management director for Commander Naval Air Pacific. In 2002 he was sent to the Navy War College in Rhode Island, where he earned his master’s degree in national security and strategic studies.

‘‘Sept. 11 changed a lot of things for a lot of people,” he said. ‘‘It gave me the opportunity to go to the War College, to continue my career.”

The following year Faherty was assigned to the National Defense University’s National Strategic Gaming Center, an opportunity for him to travel around the world, teaching and speaking at seminars.

For the past few years Faherty has been making an early morning commute from his home in Calvert County to his office in Crystal City, Va., where he serves as the CNO’s liaison officer to the U.S. Fleet Forces Command.

‘‘I leave the house every morning around 4:30,” he said, ‘‘and I go to the gym at Fort McNair for an hour or so before going to work.

‘‘I’m still young,” he said in mid-April. ‘‘I still have a lot to offer and can’t see myself sitting still too long. But I’m going to take the summer off and enjoy myself for a while before I start looking for a job.”

Faherty’s military awards include nine air medals, two Navy Commendation medals with Combat V attachments, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.