In 1960, Colonel Victor Vizcarra followed his older brother’s footsteps and was commissioned in the United States Air Force. Completing flight training, he was assigned to fly the Air Force’s premier supersonic fighter, the F-100 Super Sabre.  After finishing his first tour of duty he was again assigned one of the most technologically advanced fighters ever designed, the F-105 Thunderchief.  The war in Vietnam was growing and the F-105 was bearing the brunt of the air war hitting key targets in the most hostile and dangerous battle space in the history of air warfare.    In 1965 while flying with the 80th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Colonel Vizcarra flew a historical combat mission “Operation Spring High,” the first Counter-Air Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) mission ever conducted in the history of aerial combat and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.  In 1966, while on a combat mission over North Vietnam, he was forced to eject from his crippled F-105.  If it were not for the brave crew of HC-1 off of the USS Halsey who rescued him out of the jungle, he would have not returned from that mission. Too many combat rescues in Vietnam were made under fire with the rescuers flying in slow and vulnerable machines, yet The HC-1 Search and Rescue Crew remained way past the available fuel needed to get back to their ship, searching for him.  The “Gray Ghost helicopter had stayed well past their bingo fuel and if not for the ship intercepting at maximum speed they would have had to water ditch in the Gulf of Tonkin.  He would return back to Vietnam flying the F-100D Super Sabre in 1970 and accumulated a combined total of 185 combat missions between his F-105 and F-100 tours in the war.  Colonel Vizcarra continued to fly throughout his 24 year career flying the F-5 Tiger II and the F-4E Phantom.