The FAA always had people at VF121 and VX-4 (which is not a training organisation btw). Michael Doust (VX4 '66-68) mentions the same thing as this article. What puzzles me a bit is that Doust (LT CDR at the time) said that he was at conference trying to bring about a change in the situation (of insufficient preparation in air combat of the USN F-4 crews). He mentions a lack of an AWI-type school similar to the RN's and he also said by the way that the RAF also lacked a similar establishment. Now, about the latter I'm not sure. Weren't IWI courses run at individual OCU's? Wasn't that similar? Later these became QWI courses..so I am not sure what Doust was getting at.
As for air to air experience no the FAA did not have any air to air kills by the time Dick Lord and co appeared on the scene (apart from Pete Carmichael's kill in Korea). The USN did not have an astounding record in it either...well the FAA just didn't participate in wars, the USN had a few air to air opportunites with the F-8 community doing well relatively speaking, whereas the F-4 interceptor community needed all the dogfight experience that it could get. Having said that the FAA did take part in the '56 where it scored a very high number of "ground kills"...Help for the USN F-4 pilots was in the form of:
--a few ex-F-8 pilots
--a number of secret converts within the F-4 force
--a number of (yes) experienced RN aircrew who were mostly AWIs and who actually officially practised the art form of the dogfight (except for the F-8ers in the USN noone did much of that in their F-4 force except a small cadre of F-4 pilots from which sprung the early Topun instructors who mostly practised combat "in secret" as they were not supposed to hassle)