Political considerations with regards to communist forces engaging in a civil war inside Laos and fears of the civil war spreading into Thailand led the Thai government to allow the United States to covertly use five Thai bases beginning in 1961 for the air defense of Thailand and to fly reconnaissance flights over Laos.

[6]: 179 [7] The 8th Tactical Fighter Wing The Wolfpack arrived at Ubon on 8 December 1965 from George AFB, California as part of the US deployment of forces for Operation Rolling Thunder and became the host unit.

[4]: 21 At Ubon, the 8th TFW's mission included bombardment, ground support, air defense, interdiction, and armed reconnaissance.

In late December 1966 the 8th TFW commander Colonel Robin Olds developed a plan to lure North Vietnamese MiGs into combat and destroy them.

The F-4D had improved radar-bombing capabilities and could deploy the AGM-62 Walleye television-guided bomb, but replaced the AIM-9 Sidewinder with the infra-red AIM-4 Falcon which proved to be inferior.

From March 1966 C-130A Project Blind Bat flareships of the 315th Air Division began operations over Laos from Ubon, increasing to 6 aircraft and 12 crews before their mission was superseded by newer systems in June 1970.

[15] LORAN-equipped 8th TFW F-4Ds began the Operation Igloo White sensor-dropping mission over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos from February 1968 taking over this role from the more vulnerable CH-3s and OP-2E Neptunes.

[16] On 27 February 1968 the first prototype AC-130A Gunship II began operations from Ubon, destroying 9 trucks and 2 services areas in Laos on its first sortie.

The aircraft had a very long nose fairing that housed a forward-looking radar and two internal aluminum weapons dispensers for CBU bomblets but no side-firing guns.

[17] The 13th Bombardment Squadron was deployed to Thailand and attached the 8th TFW from MacDill AFB, Florida on 1 October 1970 with a modified version of the Canberra medium bomber designated as the B-57G.

[19] Initially manufactured as B-57Bs in the early 1950s, the B-57G was fitted with a moving target radar as well as a low light level television system and a forward-looking infrared camera carried in a pod underneath the nose for use as night intruders over South Vietnam under a project known as Tropic Moon III.

Operations with the B-57G continued until April 1972, when they were moved to Clark Air Base in the Philippines to make room for the deployment of F-4E squadrons arriving from the United States.

[20] On 13 May 1972 8th TFW F-4s equipped with laser-guided bombs succeeded in dropping a span of the Thanh Hóa Bridge which had been unscathed despite hundreds of previous attacks.

[13]: 235 On 10 June 1972 8th TFW F-4s successfully destroyed the 3 generators of the Lang Chi hydropower plant 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Hanoi, without damaging the dam itself.

In a 21 December attack an 8th TFW laser-guided bomb aimed at the Hanoi thermal power plant lost guidance and instead destroyed a Communist Party of Vietnam office building.

[13]: 278 Ubon was attacked by sappers on 3 separate occasions during the Vietnam War period: On 2 October 1972 36 mortar rounds were fired at the base causing no losses.

In 1973 until 1974 the 1982nd Radio Maintenance section maintained the electronic sensor intrusion detection system on the perimeters of both the base and the bomb dump.

[28]: 136 Two A-1 Skyraiders of the 1st Special Operations Squadron were usually based at Ubon to escort combat search and rescue missions over southern Laos and Cambodia.

Congressional pressure in Washington grew against these bombings, and on 30 June 1973, the United States Congress passed Public law PL 93-50 and 93–52, which cut off all funds for combat in Cambodia and all of Indochina effective 15 August 1973.

On 11/12 April Ubon served as a staging base for 8 HH-53s of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron as they took part in Operation Eagle Pull, the evacuation of US civilians from Phnom Penh.