WART HOGS AND WILD WEASELS ARE ON OUR SIDE

My young boy friend and I talk war. Not just generalities but specifics. He like the Wart Hog. I like the Wild Weasel. Newspaper pictures of these and other fighting planes are on my refrigerator door, not for artistic purposes, not war mongering attitudes, but for our edification so we will know, when we read or hear about the activities of these "flying animals," that they're not really animals at all.

How puzzling it must be to a child, who probably knows what a weasel looks like and most assuredly a hog, to hear snatches of war news about the fighting hogs and weasels. I know a little boy who, in his tender years when another when another war was raging with guerrillas fighting in the mountains, asked, "Mom, where do they get all those gorillas.?"

My young friend knows more about airplanes than I do, understands the use of the ailerons, elevators, rudder and stick. So, to balance our input, I go on and on about wart hogs and weasels the real ones. Not that I've ever seen either while it was living and breathing. I have, with some sorrow, seen the little black-tipped white tails of the weasel which is part of its winter coat. We call it ermine then. Kings and queens and high muckety-mucks who wrap themselves in such fur, no doubt, like the word ermine better. Knowing the connotation of the word, weasel, (someone who backs out of a commitment in a sneaky or cowardly manner) who would say, "Let me show you my weasel coat."

So who dubbed the U.S. F4 the Wild Weasel? And why? The one who named it must have known the same thing about the furry weasel that I do, having honed up on it lately. It is slim, swift and very bloodthirsty and never seems to grown tired of chasing rats and mice. The rats and mice the F4 chases and kills is the radar facilities of enemy planes and installations. Slim and fast it "weasels" its way in and out of enemy territory, enemy "radar blood" dripping from its mouth.

My young friend, no doubt, will be making a model of the Wart Hog plane as soon as it is on the market.

Wart Hog. What a name! It is so blatt, so arragh, so phugg, yet so apt, both for the plane and the animal.

I have, of course, never seen a living, breathing wart hog. And like the purple cow, I hope I never see one. I'd have to go to Africa to do so, unless some zoo has one stashed away somewhere here in the States. I do have a detailed picture of one, warts and all. It is said to be the world's ugliest animal. I agree. The plane, too, is uggggly in comparison to the majestic B-52 bomber or the sleek, stealth bomber which, in the sky, looks like a bat that has been on steroids.

Someone, adept at humor and analogy and acquainted with the aspects of flesh and blood wart hogs, named the unsightly plane. It is not just the sight of it that might scare the enemy. To alliterate a little, the pilots declare the wonderful Wart Hog a work horse warrior that won't weasel out of worthy, winged work!

Who knows? This African swine might some day be domesticated for a pet as are the little, black, Chinese, belly-touching-floor pigs. Rooting around in your yard, two foot tusks curving up and inward from its broad mouth as if to hide the three pairs of large warts right under its eyes, it might afford cheap protection from rapers and robbers as the winged Wart Hogs protect our army from various, arms, awful atrocities, artillery, and Attila-the Hun-like attackers.

Before these wonderful, warty, weasel-ly words find their way into newspaper print, the engines of the Wart Hogs and Wild Weasels might be red hot, or refueled for their journey home. Then my young friend and I ain't gonna study war no more.

REJOICE!