1 Attachment(s)
Kentuckian killed in Vietnam 40 years ago is finally put to rest in Arlington
Kentuckian killed in Vietnam 40 years ago is finally put to rest in Arlington
Fri Dec 19, 2008 7:34 am
WASHINGTON — It has been 40 years since Maj. John Lee McElroy's C-130 transport plane was shot down from the Kham Duo airstrip in the Quang Tin Province of Vietnam.
In that time, the Kentuckian's son, Russell, who was barely in his teens when his father died, has seen far more years than his father ever did. The major's daughters Linda and Mary, young girls when their father went to war, are married and have careers.
*
External Link Arlington National Cemetery
He has nine grandchildren that he'll never meet. And his wife, Regina, died several years ago without ever getting the chance to lay to rest her husband, who was from Eminence in Henry County.
But sometimes the ones we've lost come back ... even if in the most unexpected ways.
On a cold, gray Thursday, the McElroy family gathered at Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, D.C., to honor the Vietnam veteran whose body had been missing for nearly half a century but whose remains were recently recovered. It was a solemn affair and family members braced themselves against the winter chill as soldiers in dress uniforms honored a fallen comrade.
Behind them rows and rows of headstones dotted the winter landscape, stretching back as far as the eye could see.
"The last time I saw him he was flying out from Fayette County Airport in Lexington. He hugged me and said, Russell you need to take care of your mother and sisters," said Russell McElroy, who lives in Bowling Green.
The Air Force officer's last days were spent a world away in a place where the trees had exotic names and the air was hot and smelled of creosote.
American soldiers had spent several days defending their position, on a narrow grassy plain surrounded by rugged jungle, from a near-constant deluge of gunfire and grenade attacks. Officers decided to extract troops after the North Vietnamese Army launched an attack on the main compound. Napalm, cluster bomb units and 750-pound bombs were hurled into the final wire barriers, according to military records.
During the evacuation, panic ensued.
"As more infantry tried to clamber into the outbound planes, the outraged Special Forces staff convinced the Air Force to start loading civilians onboard a C-130, then watched as the civilians pushed children and weaker adults aside," records show.
The crew of that U.S. Air Force C-130 aircraft included McElroy, the navigator; Maj. Bernard Bucher, pilot; Staff Sgt. Frank Hepler, flight engineer; 1st Lt. Steven Moreland, co-pilot; George Long, loadmaster; Capt. Warren Orr, passenger; and an undetermined number of Vietnamese civilians.
The North Vietnamese Army forces fired on the plane and it exploded in midair and crashed roughly a mile from camp. The plane burned quickly and was destroyed—save for a portion of the tail.
All crew and passengers were thought to be dead.
That was on a Sunday, Mother's Day. McElroy's wife and family members waited a day to tell his three young children that their father had died.
"For a long time, me and my sisters believed and hoped that this was just an accident and that my dad was alive. It took us a while to overcome that," Russell McElroy said.
Years later, a grief-stricken son pointed his new motorcycle eastward along the Blue Ridge Parkway and sped through icy evening rains toward Washington D.C. and a memorial wall where his father's name, along with thousands of others, is etched in the black granite.
"The next day was beautiful and it helped get my heart right to see my dad and all those other veterans," he said.
Gov. Steve Beshear ordered flags at all state office buildings lowered to half-staff on Thursday. As family members return to Kentucky, where their ancestors have lived for generations, where they last waved goodbye to their loved one, the McElroys take comfort in knowing that at last their father has come home.
Another account:
Servicemen MIA From Vietnam War are Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the group remains of six U.S. servicemen, missing from the Vietnam War, are soon to be buried with full military honors.
They are Maj. Bernard L. Bucher, of Eureka, Ill.; Maj. John L. McElroy, of Eminence, Ky.; 1st Lt. Stephen C. Moreland, of Los Angeles; and Staff Sgt. Frank M. Hepler, of Glenside, Pa., all U.S. Air Force. These men will be buried as a group on Dec. 18 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
Two other servicemen, who were individually identified in October 2007, are also represented in this group. They are Capt. Warren R. Orr Jr., U.S. Army, of Kewanee, Ill., and Airman 1st Class George W. Long, U.S. Air Force, of Medicine Lodge, Kan.
Representatives from the Air Force and the Army mortuary offices met with the next-of-kin of these men to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the secretary of the Air Force and the secretary of the Army.
On May 12, 1968, these men were on board a C-130 Hercules evacuating Vietnamese citizens from the Kham Duc Special Forces Camp near Da Nang, South Vietnam. While taking off, the crew reported taking heavy enemy ground fire. A forward air controller flying in the area reported seeing the plane explode in mid-air soon after leaving the runway.
In 1986 and 1991, U.S. officials received remains and identification tags from sources claiming they belonged to men from this incident. Scientific analysis revealed they were not American remains, but it was believed the Vietnamese sources knew where the crash site was located.
In 1993, a joint/U.S.-Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), traveled to Kham Duc and interviewed four local citizens concerning the incident. They led the team to the crash site and turned over remains and identification tags they had recovered in 1983 while looking for scrap metal. During this visit, the team recovered human remains and aircraft wreckage at the site. In 1994, another joint team excavated the crash site and recovered remains, pieces of life-support equipment, crew-related gear and personal effects.
JPAC scientists used forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence in the identification of the remains.
Although it's sad news, it's good to finally bring closure to these families. The guys from the Vietnam war do not always get the recognition they deserve. :clapping:
IRAQ: Slain Marines awarded Navy Cross
IRAQ: Slain Marines awarded Navy Cross
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/phot.../navycross.jpg Two young Marines will be posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for stopping a terrorist attack on a Marine and Iraqi police outpost in Ramadi and saving dozens of lives, the Marine Corps announced today.
Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, 19, of Sag Harbor, N.Y., and Cpl. Jonathan Yale, 21, of Burkeville, Va., were standing guard on April 22 when a truck filled with 2,000 pounds of explosives barreled toward the outpost's main gate.
Haerter and Yale, following Marine training, fired at the truck. As the truck rolled to a stop, it exploded, killing the pair, demolishing a nearby mosque and house, and leaving a crater 20 feet in diameter and 5 feet deep.
Security film showed that the two Marines never flinched as they continued to fire at the truck, according to an investigation by the Marine Corps. "Both Marines were killed still firing their weapons," said Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the top Marine in Iraq.
Three Marines, eight Iraqi officers and 24 civilians -- all more than 100 yards from the blast -- were injured. An additional 50 Marines and dozens of Iraqi police officers, in a barracks farther from the gate, were unhurt.
"I have a son back home, and I know if that truck would've made it to where it was going -- I wouldn't be here today," Lance Cpl. Lawrence Tillery said after the attack. "Because of Lance Cpl. Haerter and Cpl. Yale, I will be able to see my son again. They gave me that opportunity."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/phot...0/haerterx.jpg Haerter was with the 1st Battalion, 9th Regiment; Yale with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment. Both were attached to Regimental Combat Team One from Camp Pendleton. Yale’s family said he was within weeks of coming home.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/phot...11/20/yale.jpg The Navy Cross is the nation's second highest award for bravery by Marines or sailors in combat. While there have been other Navy Cross awards during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the bravery of Haerter and Yale was unusual because it was captured on film and seen by numerous witnesses.
"For their dedication, they lost their lives," Kelly said at the Marine base in Al Asad. "Only two families had their hearts broken on April 22 rather than as many as 50. These families will never know how truly close they came to a knock on the door that night."
-- Tony Perry in Al Asad, Iraq
You could have heard a pin drop!
Are you proud to be an American? A friend sent this to me, thanks B! :HappyWave:
YOU COULD HAVE HEARD A PIN DROP
>
>
>
>
> These thoughts tell us how the rest of the world thinks about us........
>
>
>
> When in England , at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell
> was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for
> Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush.
>
> He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United
> States has sent many of its fine young men and women
> into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders.
> The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return
> is enough to bury those that did not return."
>
> You could have heard a pin drop.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> There was a 20 conference in France where a number of
> international engineers were taking part, including French
> and American. During a break, one of the French engineers
> came back into the room saying "Have you heard the latestdumb stunt Bush
> has done?"
> "He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami
> victims."
> "What does he intend to do, bomb them?"
> A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: "Our
> carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat
> several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply
> emergency electrical power to shor e facilities; they
> have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000
> people three meals a day , they can produce several
> thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each
> day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in
> transporting victims and injured to and from their flight
> deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does
> France have?"
>
> You could have heard a pin drop.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference
> that included Admirals from the U.S. , English, Canadian,
> Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception,
> he found himself standing with a large group of Officers
> that included personnel from most of those countries.
> Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped
> t heir drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that,
> whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn
> only English.' He then asked, 'Why is it that we
> always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking
> French?'
> Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe
> it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and
> Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.'
>
> You could have heard a pin drop.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE...
>
> Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in
> Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to
> locate his passport in his carry on.
>
> 'You have been to France before, monsieur the
> customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he
> had been to France previously.
>
> Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.
> The American said, ''The last time I was here, I didn't
> have to show it.
>
> 'Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports
> on arrival in France !'
>
> The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard
> look. Then he quietly explained, ''Well, when I came ashore
> at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country,
> I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show a passport
> to.
>
> You could have heard a pin drop.
>
> If you are proud to be an American, pass this on!
>
> I am ,and I did.
>