REID, JON ERIC
Remains Returned 12/09/99
Name: Jon Eric Reid
Rank/Branch: W1/US Army
Unit: 48th Aviation Company, 223rd Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Brigade
Date of Birth: 10 December 1948 (Washington DC)
Home City of Record: Phoenix AZ
Date of Loss: 20 February 1971
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 162721N 1062748E
Status (In 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: UH1C
Refno: 1708
Other Personnel In Incident: Robert J. Acalotto; Randolph L. Johnson; David M.
May (all missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 September 1990 from one or more
of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources,
correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated
by the P.O.W. NETWORK 2000 with an article from the Vietnam Helicopter
Pilots Assocication Newsletter.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: Lam Son 719 was a large-scale offensive against enemy
communications lines which was conducted in that part of Laos adjacent to
the two northern provinces of South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese would
provide and command ground forces, while U.S. forces would furnish airlift
and supporting fire.
Phase I, renamed Operation Dewey Canyon II, involved an armored attack by
the U.S. from Vandegrift base camp toward Khe Sanh, while the ARVN moved
into position for the attack across the Laotian border. Phase II began with
an ARVN helicopter assault and armored brigade thrust along Route 9 into
Laos. ARVN ground troops were transported by American helicopters, while
U.S. Air Force provided cover strikes around the landing zones.
During one of these maneuvers, W1 Jon E. Reid was was flying a UH1C
helicopter (serial #66-700) with a crew of three - 1Lt. David M. May,
co-pilot, SP5 Randall L. Johnson, crew chief, and SP4 Robert J. Acalotto,
door gunner - on a mission providing gun cover for an emergency resupply
mission about 20 miles southeast of Sepone, Laos. The aircraft was hit by
hostile fire and crashed.
When the helicopter landed, it was upright on its skids, with the tail boom
broken off and the right aft burning. Witnesses stated that it was certainly
a "survivable crash." Two people were seen exiting the aircraft on the right
side, running towards nearby trees. Witnesses noted that the left pilot door
was jettisoned and that both forward seats were empty. Several attempts were
made to rescue the downed crew, but were unsuccessful because of heavy enemy
fire. The 1st ARVN Division was to assist in a ground rescue attempt, but
the tactical situation changed before the infantry could reach the area, and
the unit had to be pulled out. No contact with the crew was ever established
after the crash.
According to information received by his family, John Reid was known to have
been captured and was seen alive by other U.S. POWs in March of that same
year, again in May and once in June. Whether the rest of the crew was
captured is unknown. When the POWs were released in 1973, Reid was not among
them, nor was the rest of the crew. The communist governments of Southeast
Asia claim no knowledge of the fate of the crew of the UH1C that went down
February 20, 1971.
Proof of the deaths of May, Reid, Acalotto and Johnson was never found. No
remains came home; none was released from prison camp. They were not blown
up, nor did they sink to the bottom of the ocean. Someone knows what
happened to them.
Were it not for thousands of reports relating to Americans still held
captive in Southeast Asia today, the families of the UH1C helicopter crew
might be able to believe their men died with their aircraft. But until proof
exists that they died, or they are brought home alive, they will wonder and
wait.
How long must they wait before we bring our men home?
David M. May was promoted to the rank of Captain, Jon E. Reid to the rank of
Chief Warrant Officer, Randolph L. Johnson to the rank of Sergeant First
Class, and Robert J. Acalotto to the rank of Staff Sergeant during the
period they were maintained missing.
---------------------
No. 188-M
MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS December 9, 1999
The remains of four American servicemen previously unaccounted-for from the
Vietnam war have been identified and are being returned to their families
for burial in the United States.
They are identified as Navy Capt. Norman E. Eidsmoe, Rapid City, S.D.; Navy
Lt. Cmdr. Michael E. Dunn, Naperville, Ill.; Army Capt. David May,
Hyattsville, Md.; and Army Chief Warrant Officer Jon E. Reid, Phoenix, Ariz.
On Jan. 26, 1968, Eidsmoe and Dunn were flying a night low-level bombing
mission over North Vietnam off the carrier USS Ranger. Approximately 30
minutes after takeoff, their A-6A Intruder disappeared from the carrier's
radar, as expected. Accordingly, they radioed that they were six minutes
from the target, but no further radio contact was heard. The plane did not
return to the carrier, and a search and rescue mission was initiated, but
without results.
In 1992 and 1993, four separate investigations led a U.S.-Vietnamese team to
a Vietnamese farmer who described the crash, gave investigators a pilot's
flight bag with Dunn's name inscribed, and described his burial of some
remains in an unmarked grave. Then in 1997, a joint team conducted an
excavation in a flooded rice paddy, where they recovered remains and
pilot-related items. Another team continued the excavation in 1998 where
they recovered additional materials.
On Feb. 20, 1971, May and Reid were flying their UH-1C Huey helicopter on an
emergency resupply mission over Laos when they were hit by enemy ground fire
and crashed. A search and rescue mission was repulsed by hostile fire.
In 1994, 1996 and 1998, U.S. and Lao investigators interviewed villagers in
the area of the crash, then initiated an excavation which recovered human
remains as well as portions of an identification tag with the name "May,
David M." Analysis of the remains and other evidence by the U.S. Army
Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii confirmed the identification of
each of these four servicemen.
The U.S. government welcomes and appreciates the cooperation of the
governments of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Lao People's
Democratic Republic that resulted in the accounting of these servicemen. We
hope that such cooperation will bring increased results in the future.
Achieving the fullest possible accounting for these Americans is of the
highest national priority.
---------------------------
From - Mon Jan 10 10:43:52 2000
Tim Koors/The Arizona Republic
Roxena Wotring and Mike Reid hold a photo of their brother, Jon
Reid, who was shot down over Laos in 1971 during the Vietnam War. His
remains and those of his co-pilot, David May, have only recently been
discovered and will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery during a
ceremony Friday.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
By Dave Walker
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 9, 2000
The helicopter gunship, hit by furious fire, went down hard in the Laotian
jungle with four soldiers aboard.
Eyewitness accounts varied, but someone, somewhere, saw two men run from the
wreck toward the tree line.
From that day in the height of the Vietnam War, and for nearly three decades
after, a Phoenix family clung to the slim hope that one of those men might
be Jon Eric Reid, 22. That's what Army reports had led them to believe, and
if anyone could survive, surely it would be Jon.
But in October 1999, Army investigators concluded that Reid and his
co-pilot, David May, died in the crash. The fate of the other two men aboard
the UH-1C "Huey" gunship, crew chief Randolph Johnson and door gunner Robert
Acalotto, isn't known.
The remains of Reid and May will be buried Friday at Arlington National
Cemetery in Virginia. Some of Reid's Army buddies will be there, as will his
brother and sisters.
Missing will be that glimmer of hope they held through all these years.
"I was totally not prepared for that," said Reid's sister, Roxena, recalling
the day Jon's death was verified.
"My belief was that he had survived the crash and he had escaped. It took me
a day or two to really quit crying and come to grips with the facts as they
were, and to be grateful."
On the day he died, Feb. 20, 1971, Reid's crew and others with the Army's
48th Assault Helicopter Company were flying an emergency resupply mission
over Savannakhet Province, Laos. The Air Cavalry's larger mission was
providing air support for Lam Son 719, a massive invasion of Laos by the
South Vietnamese army.
"It was such a mixed-up mess in Laos," said Terrell Peterman, who also flew
with the 48th. "We were doing things that shouldn't have been done in a
helicopter. I still ponder on what it was all about. It was too dangerous
for the kind of aircraft we had.
"You do what you're told to do."
Once Reid's helicopter went down, enemy fire prevented a rescue mission.
"It was a hard day," Peterman said. "We couldn't get 'em out. We couldn't
get into 'em. It was too hot."
Peterman and Reid had graduated from helicopter flight school together and
were roommates on bases in Texas and Alabama. To Peterman, Reid was Jake; to
Reid, Peterman was Ernie.
"Jake was a unique character, an original," Peterman said. "Unless you've
been there, you can't imagine how close you get to these people. I've never
been as close to anybody. He was pretty much like a brother to me."
"I was in bed when the doorbell rang," said Jon Reid's little brother, Mike.
"Then, my mother started screaming. I was 13 and sort of didn't know what to
do. I knew what it was without hearing what it was. I think I hid under a
pillow."
Audrey, Jon's mother, was distraught beyond words, so his dad, Bill, called
Jon's two sisters. Roxena was in Colorado and Karen was in Hawaii.
For Roxena, Bill couched the news in hopeful language.
"He really kind of minimized it," she said.
From the beginning, and for most of the next 30 years, the Reids clung to
the reports of two men running from the Huey.
Still, the crash "had a profound effect on our family," Roxena said, calling
it "an open wound that never could heal."
The Reids had moved from Virginia to the Arcadia section of Phoenix in 1959.
Bill built custom homes back East, where their life had mirrored "the
television '50s family," Mike said. In Phoenix, things didn't go so well.
Bill, a former World War II fighter pilot, tried his hand at local real
estate but eventually returned to airplanes, dousing forest fires and bugs.
Bill even flew a plane for the movie Catch-22, shot in Mexico.
The kids remember friction over finances between Bill and Audrey, who
eventually started her own interior decorating business to help make ends
meet. The family endured with wry, nothing-sacred humor.
Jon was an active Boy Scout who loved hunting and camping. When tubing the
Salt River, he would climb the highest rocks to launch the most dramatic
dives.
He was careful with money, though, and washed dishes at the Tee Pee Tap
Room, a neighborhood spot the family patronized often. He bought an old Ford
Ranchero, which he called the Blue Goose.
Jon's nickname for Mike was Little Beaver. Karen was KK. Roxena was Fancy.
Their mother, for reasons now unclear, was Newt.
Growing up, Jon often butted heads with his dad.
"There had been some major brouhahas over how you should act as a teenager,"
Mike recalled. Looking back, it wasn't anything serious: late hours,
partying, a lax attitude about school.
Jon knocked around for a while after his years at Arcadia High School,
moving to Los Angeles to work in a bakery, then Colorado to work on a ranch.
Mike visited Jon at the ranch, where conditions were rugged. He remembers
Jon blasting rodents with a .22 pistol.
"He had a bit of a temper at times," Mike said. "He was kind of a solitary
soul, too. He wasn't one for big crowds.
"He was a strong character. He did not take anything from anybody."
In 1969, Jon got a low draft number and enlisted instead.
"He wanted to fly," Roxena said.
Jon did well in helicopter school, and he did well by his dad, too.
"The reconciliation came when Jon began flying," Roxena said. "Suddenly,
there was a language the two could talk."
And Bill got a nickname - Whiskey Papa Romeo, pilot radio code for his
initials.
In early summer 1970, just before shipping out to Vietnam, Jon accompanied
Mike on a church-sponsored float trip down the Grand Canyon. Jon took along
a bottle of Southern Comfort. At the end of the float, Jon and Mike hiked
out of the Canyon, their gear stuffed into Jon's Army duffel. Mike got his
first sip of Southern Comfort that day.
Jon wasn't especially reflective or contemplative during the trip, Mike
said.
"I don't think anybody that age, even if you're going to war, believes that
anything can happen to them," he said.
A few days later, Roxena drove Jon from her home in Fort Collins to Denver,
from where he flew to San Francisco, then to Southeast Asia.
"He talked non-stop the whole way about what he wanted to do when he got
out," she said. His dream was to be a hunting guide, maybe run an outfitting
business.
In his first letters home from Vietnam, Jon wrote about card games, joked
about the water ("it makes cloudy ice cubes"), dropped hints about "the Far
East cookie shortage" and detailed some of the small aggravations of Army
life.
"Jake liked to have fun," Peterman said. "But he was serious about what he
was doing. As unpopular as that war was, he believed in what we were there
for."
And, Peterman said, "he was one of the finest helicopter pilots I've ever
been around."
Although his letters home regularly reported the number of hours he was
flying, Reid seldom mentioned combat. When he did, it often was in the form
of a joke.
"We're surrounded by Indians, but Gen. Custer gave us officers a briefing
and assured us that everything was okey-dokey," he wrote.
Living conditions for Peterman, Reid and the other pilots of the 48th were
typically lousy.
But, he said, "Vietnam wasn't all bad. We'd go to the officer's club,
proceed to get drunk. That was the recreation there."
Sometimes recreation could be as informal as sharing a bottle of Chivas
Regal in your hootch.
"You'd break the cap and pass it around until it was gone," Peterman said.
"That was a night at Dong Ha."
Reid often talked about his family at such times, about taking his little
brother out shooting in the desert in the Blue Goose, Peterman said.
In one letter to Mike, Jon warned about drugs. In another, he wrote, "Don't
flip out on a bummer and lose your cool. Hang loose and don't sweat your
brother's longevity, 'cause these clowns don't even have Kryptonite
bullets."
The gunships of the 48th were decorated with a leering cartoon of the Joker
from Batman comic books. The tight-knit unit's motto: "Skill, not luck."
"We went out and made it happen," said Rick Lester, who also flew with Reid.
"War has a way of stripping you down. You can talk trash all day long, but
when you're in an area of operation, you've got to be a man. There are no
facades."
Reid "was like a cowboy," Lester said. "Just hard."
"He was at the 100 percent edge of the envelope all the time," he said.
Peterman's last conversation with Jake came on the morning of Feb. ,
standing on the flight line before dawn.
"Somewhere, we had gotten some bowls of chicken noodle soup," he said. "We
were standing, drinking that soup.
"I remember him saying, "Ernie, be careful out there. I'm worried about
you.' " sub "The Army lost my son'
Like many POW-MIA families in the '70s, the Reids held onto hope;
specifically, the eyewitness accounts of two men escaping the wrecked Huey.
Audrey Reid joined a support and advocacy group of POW-MIA relatives and
traveled to Washington, D.C., each year for conventions.
"She always said, "The Army lost my son, they can find him,' " Roxena
recalled.
For years, the family contributed to Red Cross shipments of sweets and soap,
presumably bound for POWs.
"Somewhere, I think there's a warehouse with enough soap to keep Laos clean
for years," Karen said.
She and Audrey even traveled to Vientiane, the Laotian capital, in the fall
of 1971. Many POW-MIA family members had made this sad journey, and the
sisters' expectations were low.
"I didn't expect someone to say, "Oh, here's your brother,' " Karen said,
describing the fruitless trip as "one more grain of sand" in efforts to stir
action.
Back at home, Bill Reid, the former fighter pilot, posted an Army map of the
crash area on the refrigerator.
"Dad knew that Jon was an outdoorsman, that he was out there living in the
jungle," Karen said.
"He walked my brother out of that jungle 500 different ways," Roxena said.
"It was heartbreaking."
Mike knew different.
"Something told me he wasn't coming home," Mike said. "I saw him coming out
of the helicopter like John Wayne or Butch Cassidy. He wouldn't let himself
be a prisoner. I saw him go out with guns a-blazing."
In May 1973, while spraying fire ants in Alabama, Bill Reid was killed in an
airplane crash.
"Within 18 months, my mother lost her son, her own mother and her husband,"
Roxena said. "And she carried on."
As soon as he legally could, Mike joined the Army.
"I was ticked off," he said. "I was going to go seek revenge."
But the war was winding down, and Mike never saw action.
In 1988, Americans were allowed to enter Laos for the first time to look for
missing soldiers.
The next year, Audrey Reid died.
"You didn't talk about Jon unless she brought it up," Mike said. "She'd try
and stay "in the now' around me."
Roxena inherited the official next-of-kin designation when her mother died.
She followed the Army's plodding reclamation efforts. Other crash sites had
priority. The status of Reid and his crew had long ago been changed from MIA
to presumed dead.
Laos allows remains-recovery crews to enter the country five times each
year. The crews are based at the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in
Hawaii.
In January 1994, a team visited the coordinates of Reid's Huey, but results
were inconclusive. In a nearby village, a man told of another crash site.
Although the copter that crashed there had been almost completely scavenged,
the team found a few provocative items. Still, there was no evidence to link
this crash to Reid.
In October 1996, another team dug a test pit at the site and recommended
more excavation.
Bradley Sturm, a civilian anthropologist, led a team back to the site in
late March 1998. Trees, roots and termite nests were cleared away, and a
grid was established over the area.
"The helicopter was gone," Sturm said. "Unfortunately, the metal on wrecks
is high quality and in high demand by locals."
Carefully plotting each shovelful, Sturm supervised the removal of dirt to a
line of sifting boxes. Dozens of locals were employed as laborers.
On the dig's third day, he said, a fragment of David May's dog tag was
discovered.
"Then we knew we had something," said Sturm, who has led more than a dozen
such missions. "Prior to that event, we had no aircraft data."
Over the next several days, the remaining pieces of May's tag were
recovered, as well as watch pieces, a key, a pen cap, about 90 bone
fragments and three teeth.
In July 1998, the Army informed Roxena that the site had been excavated and
that some remains had been found.
"I didn't think that they would find anything," Roxena said. "I wasn't too
concerned about their excavation."
Army dental records showed, however, that two of the teeth were Reid's, and
that a mitochondrial DNA analysis, matched against DNA from blood samples
earlier contributed by Roxena and her son, Bryan, confirmed it. The third
tooth belonged to May.
Bits of wreckage recovered from the site matched the UH-1C Huey, and Reid's
was the only known UH-1C to fall within a 15-kilometer radius of the site.
An exhaustive series of reviews and confirmations are built into the Central
Identification Laboratory's process. Last October, Roxena was contacted by
the Army's Memorial Affairs Operations Center.
The one constant since 1971, the one hopeful presumption based on
information provided by the Army - that the Huey's door hatches had been
jettisoned, that the pilot-side seat appeared to be empty and that two men
made tracks for the trees - had been wrong all along.
That point is echoed in a detailed eyewitness account of Reid's wreck
recently provided to The Arizona Republic by Stephen Knowles, a fellow pilot
in the 48th who saw Reid's helicopter catch fire in the air, watched it
crash and attempted to land his own Huey to make a rescue.
Knowles, who lives in the Atlanta area, left the crash under fire -
something he still regrets.
"But I had not seen any movement of any kind (in Reid's copter)," Knowles
wrote. "No waving arms to signal possible hiding positions. We had not heard
any radio calls while they were in the air or from the ground. No one had
run away from the aircraft, or to the aircraft."
Word of the Army's finding about Jake Reid circulated quickly among old
copter pilots.
In Marietta, Ga., Rick Lester had just stepped out of a shower when he
flipped on his computer. Waiting for him were eight e-mails.
"Looks like they found Jake Reid," one said.
Sitting on Lester's mouse pad were his watch and a Jon Eric Reid POW
bracelet.
A small cross, signifying missing-in-action status, currently marks Reid's
name on the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington. The symbol will be
changed to a solid diamond, signifying a confirmed death.
Although families can reject the Army's findings in MIA-recovery cases,
Roxena Wotring, now a nursing professor at Arizona State University,
believes her brother died in or near the Huey not long after it hit the
ground.
"I think that's exactly what happened," she said. "Jon was able to land the
helicopter, but it was damaged, and then it burst into flames from all the
ammo and the fuel.
"If the other two escaped, I don't know. I'm sorry for the families whose
sons were last seen running into the jungle."
In the spring, Jon Reid's teeth, which made the identification possible,
will be buried in a family plot in Idaho.
"Mother always was trying to find him," Roxena said. "We sort of felt like
we owed it to her."
May's surviving family will join Wotring and her sister, Karen Nunan, now a
teacher in Brisbane, Australia, at Friday's ceremony at Arlington. So will
Mike Reid, now district wildlife manager in Pagosa Springs, Colo. ("I'm
living the life he was supposed to," Mike said of Jon.)
Also planning to attend is Ernie Peterman, who farms in Mountain Home,
Idaho.
"In a way, I'm looking forward to it. In a way I'm not," he said. "I'm not
certain how I'll feel, but that's the least I can do to pay my respects to
Jake."
Lester said he and a few others from the 48th are planning something special
for the ceremony, too. Jake Reid and David May meant a lot to them. Still
do.
"I still hear the radio calls, still hear their laughs," Lester said. "Those
are good memories.
"If you want to see how much everybody respected Jon Reid, come to
Arlington."
Reach the reporter at Dave.Walker@ArizonaRepublic.com or at (602) 444-8625.
====================
VHPA NEWSLETTER
January/February 2000
Features
Helicopter pilots return with honor
Rick LESTER
Joker 94
In mid-January 1971, the 48th Assault Helicopter Company was moved from Ninh
Hoa in the central highlands area of 11 Corps to Dong Ha in the northern
part of I Corps and attached to the 223rd Combat Aviation Battalion.
This move was part of the buildup of aviation forces to support Lamson 719,
a largescale offensive against the North Vietnamese lines of communication
along the Ho chi Minh Trail.
The operation would be conducted in that part of Laos adjacent to the two
northern provinces of South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese were to provide
and conunand the ground forces, while U.S. forces would furnish airlift and
supporting fire.
The 48th Assault lielicoptc Company played a key role in Lamson 719 and not
only earned formal honors for their accomplishments, but won the respect of
other aviation units for their tenacity and valor during some of the
operations most intense and dangerous missions.
The performance of the gun platoon, call sign "Joker," from the 48th Assault
Helicopter Company, was specifically noteworthy and won tremendous praise
from everyone involved.
They were admired for their total dedication to protecting all troop lift
assets they supported, especially giving consideration to the fact they were
flying outdated UH-IC gunships against some of the most formidable North
Vietnamese air defense assets encountered to that point in the
On Feb. 20, 1971, the unit was directed to fly an emergency resupply mission
in support of South Vietnamese forces in an area some 25 kilometers
southeast of Tchcpone,Laos.
As the mission was being completed and the aircraft were clearing the area,
the "Joker" gunships encountered a crcw-served ZSU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun.
They inunediately established themselves in a tactical pattern and initiated
their attack on the gunemplacement.
Although they began receiving heavy fire from other anti-aircraft weapons
and small arms positioned to protect the ZSU-232, they continued their
attack, making numerous passes in an attempt to destroy the gun.
As they were executing their last pass at the gun and expending their
remaining ordnance, the trail aircraft was hit and immediately burst into
flames.
The pilot, CWO Jon Reid, continued his attack inbound toward the gun
emplacement, but as the flames grew, he attempted to land the aircraft in a
nearby clearing.
With the flames now almost engulfing the aircraft, it crashed into the trees
and rolled into a clearing, coming to rest inverted.
The team leader made several attempts to land next to the downed aircraft to
determine the status of the crew and extract any survivors, but finally was
forced to depart the area due to low fuel, extensive damage to his aircraft
and a severely wounded crewmember
Even though he had two of his three onboard radios destroyed by enemy fire,
he continued to coordinate with other aviation assets in the area to support
the rescue effort, but due to the intense enemy fire and the withdrawal of
friendly ground forces from the area, all attempts proved unsuccessful.
The crew of that aircraft - CWO Jon E. Reid, the pilot; Capt. David M. May,
copilot; Sgt. 1st Class Randolph L. Johnson, the crew chief; and Staff Sgt.
Robert J. Acalotto, doorgunner - were all listed as missing in action.
In 1994, 1996 and 1998, U.S. and Lao investigators interviewed villagers who
had been in the area at the time of the crash.
The recovery team initiated an excavation that recovered human remains, as
well as portions of an identification tag with the name "May, David M."
Analysis of the remains and other evidence, enabled the Army Central
Identification Laboratory in Hawaii to confirm the identification of Capt.
May and CWO Reid.
The remains of Jon Reid and David May were mterred at Arlington National
Cemetery on Jan. 14 after being classified as missing in action for almost
29 years. The funeral service honored the memory of both men.
Separate services were scheduled later to honor them individually, David
May's service was conducted at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 14 and Jon Reid's will be
held in Arizona several months from now.
The services on the 14th were emotional and inspirational. The chapel was
filled with family members, friends, the deputy assistant secretary of
defense for security affairs, several active duty and retired general
officers, Army Aviation Association representatives, local and national
Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association representatives and the former
commander of the 48th Assault Helicopter Company, along with more than 40
former members of the 48th who came from Alaska, California and across the
nation to honor two of their own.
The service in the chapel was conducted with dignity, respect and honor by
Army chaplain Lt. Col. Gil Richardson, Father John Michael Beers and
members of the Army's Old Guard. The young soldiers participating
throughout the ceremony, both in the chapel and at graveside, executed their
duties in a crisp and very respectful manner.
As the ceremony allowed and, in an emotional way, several members of the
honor guard commented they were very honored to participate in such a
meaningful ceremony.
The graveside service in the moming began with a fly-by of four UH-1s from
the 12th Aviation Battalion at Davison Army Airfield.
As we all stood quietly by the caisson bearing the flag draped casket of our
friends, the distinctly familiar, reverberating slap of Huey rotor blades
could be heard in the cold morning air.
As we looked to see the aircraft flying toward us from the Potomac River, up
the rolling slopes of Arlington National Cemetery, the sight and sound
briefly carried us, in thought, back to earlier times and places where we
last stood together as younger men, who were proud, strong, confident,
daring. . . and "invincible."
The aircraft glistened in the bright morning sun as they flew just above the
trees in a diamond formation and, in a salute of respect to their fellow
aviators ... who were only now returning from their last mission ... broke
one of their flight away and formed the missing man fomation.
The afternoon ceremony for David May was conducted with the same respect and
was attended by most who were at the morning service, as well as many
additional family members and friends from his hometown of Hyattsville, NM.
I believe the show of support by former members of Jon and Dave's unit, as
well as that from other members of the Army aviation conununity, allowed the
families to see the special bond we all share and gave them a look at an
"extended family" who shared their grief.
The 48th Assault Helicopter company has progressively "reinstituted" through
the years at the VHPA reunions and, since the reunion in Nashville, has
established a "Bluestar," e-mail reflector list to help everyone keep in
contact and assist us as we try to locate former members of the unit.
It was this list which was key to helping us communicate the details
surrounding the recovery of Jon and Dave's remains, as well as coordinate
the support for the families.
The enthusiastic efforts on everyone's part to coordinate facilities for the
reception at Fort Meyer, initiate the request for the fly-by, gather a
collection of photographs to make an album for each of the families, design
and order special flower arrangements and fabricate two engraved flag cases,
showed a great level of pride, love and respect as we attempted to ease the
pain for the families of two of our friends. As we worked together over the
weeks leading up to the events of Jan. 13 and 14, one of our members
forwarded a quote from Michael Norman's book "These Good Men," which seemed
very appropriate.
He said, "I know now why men who have been to war yearn to reunite. Not to
tell stories or to look at old pictures. Not to laugh or weep on one
another's knee. Comrades gather because they long to be with men who once
acted their best."
It is truly great to be back among these good men ... from the 48th Assault
Helicopter Company and the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association. We all
knew we could count on the chaplains from Fort Meyer, as well as the members
of the Old Guard, to do a professional job of honoring our friends, but we
thought Jon and Dave's families needed to know how all of us felt about
them.
I tried to express all our feelings in the following eulogy which I read at
both services on the 14th:
I served with Jon and Dave in the 48th Assault Helicopter Company. The 48th
was a very close organization and we seem to have grown even closer through
the years.
Our commander and many members of the unit are here today . . .
others were unable to be here, but share our sorrow ... and asked me to read
this verse from a poem titled "The Fallen" by Laurence Binyon.
They went with songs to battle, they were young, straight of limb,
true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with theirfaces to thefoe.
They shall not grow old, as we grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
I maintained a personal journal while in Vietnam and I have spent the past
few weeks reviewing that journal in an effort to draw from it ... words
which might express our feelings ... then and now. On behalf of the 48th
Assault Helicopter Company and all those who flew "with us," I would like to
present those words which I hope all will understand ...
Through the fog of controversy which surrounded our country's involvement in
Vietnam, some may ask "Why? - but let no one question the intentions of
these honorable men. There are so many good things we can say about them.
In the finest traditions of our great country, they answered their call and
went forth with only the best intentions. They did all they were asked and,
with their lives, showed their commitment. What more could our country or
anyone ask?
There has never been a "good" war and there never will be. The cost of war
is great, it robs nations of their most precious resource, their youth. It
also has a way of bringing out the best in men. War strips men to their
most basic moral standards, facades are quickly tom away and you are judged
as your true self, good or bad. Those of us who knew these men saw them in
that light and can tell you they were truly dedicated, strong and
courageous.
Those of us who served with them also came to know their heart. In the
quiet times, we heard of their love for their families, shared their laughs
and listened to the stories of life before Vietnam.
We found pleasure in simple things such as music, mail from home, hot food,
cold beer, a periodic hot shower and time shared in the "club." We grew
close.
In the violence of that war, we also shared our fear and frustration,
endured physical pain and the bitter pain of losing friends. We came to
know indefinable fatigue from seemingly endless hours of flying in the most
demanding conditions, yet if we weren't flying, we were not happy.
Though, for the most part, we dealt with the confusion, complexity, and
violence of battle in our own way, it was understood there was no shame in
showing your emotion, we were only human. We endured and became stronger
for it.
We were sometimes hard on each other, but it was with purpose, and we knew
we could turn to each other for anything. We grew closer.
We may have been sent in harm's way with a broken sword, but we stood as
one. Our shield was our pride and the respect we had for each other and our
duty was to carry out the mission. We were in this thing together and our
strength would become our commitment to each other and to our unit.
We learned a special trust common only to those who have learned to hide
their fear and willingly place their lives at risk, not just for "the
cause," but for those with whom they served.
The common theme was a bond of mutual respect and unspoken love and
friendship forged and tempered through the trials of battle. You realized,
once you had fought for them that freedom and life are indeed very special.
You no longer took things for granted, you noticed for the first time how
really intense and beautiful a sunrise can be and how nice it is to once
again feel the warmth of the sun on your face after the monsoons had passed.
You no longer "said prayers," you spoke with God. You now knew the
fragility of life and, therefore, it became more intense. Through all this,
we quickly realized what an honor it was to know and serve with men like
these and how truly blessed we are to have had them in our lives.
We will remember them always and to our absent companions now say, "catch
the wind good friends, take the lead and soar to the warm light of God, and
on your wing ... keep watch for us."
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