Jim Lopez flew an amazing one thousand combat missions. For perspective, World War II bomber crews were required to fly 25-35 missions before they rotated out. Even in today’s high paced combat, the 1,000 mission threshold is still rather rare. Jim joins us as part of our educational partnership with the Distinguished Flying Cross Society.

Jim and all six of his brothers served in the military. When one brother was wounded in Korea, Jim decided it was his duty to enlist. He served three years in the Marine Corps but didn’t see any potential to fly so he transferred to the Air Force.

He began his Air Force career in aerial photography. Jim recalls one mission that was classified as top secret at the time.  They were ordered to fly out of Iceland and photograph a submarine. It wasn’t until years later when he saw the photo in LIFE Magazine that he realized they had photographed the USS Nautilus submarine on one leg of its historic transit under the North Pole.

Jim says he didn’t even know what a “Loadmaster” was when he was transferred into that duty.  He flew C-130’s from 1964 to 1968. He finished his career flying C-5’s.

Jim was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for one of the resupply missions he flew in support of the besieged Marines at the Battle of Khe Sahn. Because any aircraft that landed became a “mortar magnet”, they employed low attitude parachute extraction systems where the pilot flew just above the runway while the supplies were pulled out the back with a drogue parachute. Over 12,400 tons of supplies were delivered in 1,100 missions.

Jim also participated in resupply missions during the Yom Kippur war. They flew tanks directly from California to Tel Aviv. Years later he met an Israel Defense Forces Veteran who said “If it wasn’t for you guys we would have never survived.”

We spend some time talking about the importance of the educational mission. Jim encourages his fellow Veterans to speak at local schools about patriotism as much as possible. “Preserving democracies is our mission. Nobody loves America more than those countries that don’t enjoy the freedoms we do.”