In honor of my grandfather, Lt. Col. Harold "Red" Smith, USAF
To every veteran and your families: thank you for your service.
By Marshall Smith, IAUA Certified Property Appraiser and Umpire (CPAU) · Published November 11, 2026 · 2 min · Filed under Veterans Day
Photo: Lt. Col. Harold "Red" Smith with the "Flying Circus" Firebee drone, Bien Hoa Air Base, Vietnam.
This Veterans Day, I'm thinking of my grandpa, Red. He was the USAF's first drone officer and was over the SECRET Firebee drone program, with missions including:
- Lightning Bug: photo reconnaissance over Vietnam
- Long Arm: decoy drones
- Combat Angel: electronic warfare
- Combat Dawn: electronic intelligence, built on a timeline the NSA's own engineers said couldn't be done
- Defense Suppression: in December 1971, a Maverick missile fired from an unmanned aircraft hit a simulated SAM site nine seconds after launch, built and flown in under a year (RPV-007 is on display at AUVM, the Lone Survivor out of the 7 made for the HAVE LEMON TASK 05 project to prove the strike drone concept)
Red enlisted in 1947 and served 32 years. In 1968 he was at Bien Hoa Air Base through the Tet Offensive, working drone navigation problems, and by 1969 he was Chief of the Air Force's Drone Projects Division. He earned the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star, and his work kept countless pilots out of harm's way.
He spent the rest of his life building the largest private collection of military drones in the world. He was 86 and just starting his museum when he was killed by a drunk driver in 2017. Our family finished it for him. Today the Aviation Unmanned Vehicle Museum in Caddo Mills, Texas is the only U.S. military drone museum in the country, with 40+ restored aircraft from the 1930s to today's General Atomics MQ-1B Predator. It's open the third Saturday of each month.
To every veteran and your families: thank you for your service.