A Life in the Air Force  – From the Curb to the Cockpit

By Frank Delzingaro

It is 1945. I am eleven years old, and World War II has just ended. My brother and I are sitting on the curb in our neighborhood watching the victory parade when a red Pontiac convertible rolls past. Seated in the back, in full uniform, medals glinting in the sun, is a World War II fighter pilot. I nudge my brother and say, “That’s what I’m going to do one day.” That moment started everything.

We lived in Glenside, PA, a sleepy little town in Pennsylvania.

I sought new horizons, so seven years later, at eighteen, I joined the Air Force during the Korean War — over my parents’ strong objections.

After basic training I was selected for electronics school and assigned to repair flight simulators: the F-86D, F-89, and F-102. Climbing in and out of those cockpits to test them only deepened the hunger. I applied for officer candidate school, earned my commission as a second lieutenant, and was accepted into pilot training, where I flew the T-37 and T-33. The T series were trainer jets.

Suiting up

Frank with his T-37   

One year later, I had my wings. The dream was real.

My first operational assignment placed me in C-130 transports, stationed in Okinawa. From there I flew countless missions in and out of Vietnam, first as a copilot, then as an aircraft commander. After four years, I was transferred to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, flying the massive C-133 — at the time the largest aircraft in the Air Force inventory, capable of carrying three combat helicopters in its cargo hold. We flew those helicopters back into combat in Vietnam at the height of the war.

My next assignment sent me back to Vietnam in a completely different role: forward air controller, flying the small, slow O-2 aircraft at low altitude, locating and marking targets for artillery and fighter aircraft. It is one thing to fly a giant transport at altitude. It is another entirely to skim the treetops, peering through the haze, knowing that every target you mark will eventually mean fire and consequence.

The O-2 – Low and Slow

I also served as Chief of Maintenance, responsible for forward air controller aircraft across Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia.

From there I was assigned to Nakhom Phanom Air Base in Thailand as maintenance chief on AC-119K gunships, before returning to the United States for B-52 training in California.

At Griffiss Air Force Base in New York, I was upgraded to aircraft commander and ultimately to instructor pilot in the B-52. I was then sent on temporary duty to Guam, where for six months I flew ArcLight missions — the B-52 carpet-bombing strikes over Vietnam and Cambodia. There is something that stays with you when you fly missions at that scale. The targets are coordinates on a map, but you understand, in the silence after wheels-up, what those coordinates mean on the ground.

A B52 model gifted to Frank. His favorite aircraft.  

Returning to Griffiss, I was offered command of the aircraft maintenance squadron. After a year, I was selected to join the Strategic Air Command Inspector General’s team at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, where I spent four years conducting no-notice inspections across the entire Strategic Air Command.

My final assignment was as Chief of the Gyro Division at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. Not long after arriving, I suffered a heart attack. At forty-three years old, with a wife and five children depending on me, I was forced into medical retirement as a Lieutenant Colonel after twenty-six years of service.

Frank’s 5 kids holding “get well” sign after heart attack – Age 43

I won’t pretend that was easy. I had been on track for Full Colonel, possibly Brigadier General. Suddenly all of it stopped. The uncertainty of that moment — for my family, for our future — was the hardest thing I faced in a career that had taken me through two wars.

But when I look back honestly, I did fulfill the dream of that eleven-year-old boy on the curb. I flew many different aircraft in combat. I witnessed, up close, the senseless atrocities of war. And I came home.

None of it would have been possible without my family — my wife, who held everything together through the deployments and the moves and the years of uncertainty, and my five children, who grew up with an absent father and loved him anyway.

Frank and Donna at their home in Marsh Creek

I am at peace now, here in this beautiful Marsh Creek community with Donna, and surrounded by wonderful, loving neighbors.