I remember reading somewhere, but I don't remember where, that the best pilots were moved up to the newest planes, so your A-4 pilot could have moved to F-16s. I also know a pilot who served in 1982 who flew A-4s. I spoke to him about his experiences once and seem to remember that he was fairly newly qualified at the time and he said that once he was more experienced he would be moved on to more advanced aircraft. He told me about having to hit targets accurately in urban Beirut with only dumb bombs when the targets (mortars, heavy machine guns, ammo dumps etc) were pretty close to civilian targets such as schools, mosques, churches etc or firendly troops. He said that it was pretty hairy to start with but that they got so proficient that the ground units started to request them specifically rather than wait for an aircraft armed with LGBs or a helicopter gunship with TOWs.