The year was probably around 1967 and I had just returned to Ohio after one of the shortest stays at the Military Academy at West Point ever recorded! Three of us sat discussing the events of the moment and what it was that we would do with our lives in the days to come. College was definitely an attractive option. However, the war in Viet Nam was heating up and deferments were growing ever more scarce.

Besides, this was the 60s and John Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" continued to ring loudly for all of us. The Peace Corps looked pretty good. Only problem was they seemed to be mainly interested in the agricultural types and none of us had experience growing anything! So the conversation turned to Viet Nam. We made a pact, Paul, Craig and I to become soldiers.

We all enlisted over the months that followed. Paul would serve with the infantry and, while on patrol, be wounded in an ambush He survived to fill a section of a certain Southern state with his infectious laughter.

Craig became a helicopter pilot with the 101st Airborne. On a mission in May of 1971, near Hue City, his chopper would be shot down. There were no survivors among the crew or it's ARVN passengers. The crash site was finally found and examined in 1994, however, none of the remains found. An empty grave now marks his resting place in a corner of a desolate cemetery in Indiana.

A record of their last flight is found here:Click here

Revised:
5/23/2002
1048 hrs