The North Vietnamese's Easter invasion of South Vietnam in early 1972 is well known to most. In April 1972, the 4TFW at Seymour Johnson was in the early stages of a TAC Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI). Shortly following the mobility phase of the exercise, they received a top secret message that told them to stop the ORI and send two squadrons of F-4E's to Southeast Asia as part of Operation Constant Guard. They didn't know where their squadrons were going until after they had launched from Seymour on April 6th 1972. The first to deploy were the 334TFS Fighting Eagles and the 336TFS Rocketeers. After several changes of orders enroute, they eventually arrived at their beddown base at Ubon RTAFB, Thailand. These crews eventually became known as THE SUMMER HELP. The 334TFS returned to Seymour Johnson after 90 days in-theater and were replaced by the 335TFS Chiefs. In September 1972, the 334TFS headed back to Ubon to replace the 336TFS. During their stay at Ubon Septemberl 1972 until March 1973, the squadron participated in most phases of the Linebacker and Linebacker II campaigns. In addition, several of the 4TFW "summer help" crews volunteered for and were accepted into the 8TW's Wolf FAC program. 4TFW crews performed the majority of the 8TW's chaff laying missons in Route Package VI and a 336TFS crew (Capt Fred Sheffler and Capt Mark Massen) had the last Mig kill of the 20th century by a 4TFW aircrew.
