Welcome Home Blackhawks!!  You may be extremely proud of your service to our Country, as us old 'Hawks are with you and the success of your mission. And the costs that occur whenever we are (or were) called upon to strike the enemy are more prescious with every day that passes. God Bless you all. Scouts out!

Bill,

Sorry to hear that.  Will takes lots of pics.

Fred

    I'm sorry to say I will not be able make it to D.C. for the Reunion because of health reasons. My kidneys are failing and I may have to start dialysis at the end of August and my doctor said no travel. Maybe if the next one is closer to home and I can drive there.                   1/2 Dollarbill   William Reynolds HHT 2-70 to 10-70 Song Mao

 The 4th STRYKER Brigade left IRAQ 8/18/2010. Units arriving at FT.LEWIS as soon as Thursday 8/18/2010          WELCOME HOME 

Soldiers Missing in Action from Vietnam War Identified


                The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of two U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors. 

                U.S. Army 1st Lt. Paul G. Magers of Sidney, Neb., will be buried on Aug. 27 in Laurel, Mont., and Army Chief Warrant Officer Donald L. Wann of Shawnee, Okla., will be buried on Aug. 21 in Fort Gibson, Okla. 
                 
                On June 1, 1971, both men were flying aboard an AH-1 Cobra gunship in support of an emergency extraction of an Army ranger team in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam.  After the rangers were extracted, helicopters were ordered to destroy claymore mines which had been left behind in the landing zone.  During this mission their helicopter was hit by ground fire, crashed and exploded.  Pilots who witnessed the explosions concluded that no one could have survived the crash and explosions.  Enemy activity in the area precluded a ground search.

                In 1990, analysts from DPMO, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and their predecessor organizations interviewed both American and Vietnamese witnesses and produced leads for field investigations. In 1993 and 1998, two U.S.-Socialist Republic of Vietnam teams, led by JPAC, surveyed the suspected crash site and found artifacts and debris consistent with a Cobra gunship.  In mid-1999, another joint team excavated the site, but it stopped for safety reasons when the weather deteriorated.  No remains were recovered, but the team did find wreckage associated with the specific crash they were investigating.

                The Vietnamese government subsequently declared the region within Quang Tri Province where the aircraft crashed as off-limits to U.S. personnel, citing national security concerns. As part of an agreement with JPAC, a Vietnamese team unilaterally excavated the site and recovered human remains and other artifacts in 2008.  The Vietnamese returned to the site in 2009, expanded the excavation area and discovered more remains and additional evidence.

                Forensic analysis, circumstantial evidence and the mitochondrial DNA match to the Magers and Wann families by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory confirmed the identification of the remains.

I flew Sergeant Dolby on several 75th Ranger LRRP missions at Phan Thiet in 1969.

Rest in Peace

Spirit Lake Medal of Honor recipient passes away
 Credit: HomeOfHeroes.com

Spirit Lake Medal of Honor recipient passes away

by KREM.com

krem.com

Posted on August 9, 2010 at 5:51 AM

Updated today at 5:58 AM


SPIRIT LAKE, Idaho – Sergeant David C. Dolby, a Medal of Honor recipient, passed away Friday in Spirit Lake, Idaho.

Dolby received his Medal of Honor on Sept. 28, 1967 for service on May 21, 1966 in Vietnam. The citation was issued for Dolby’s gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty.

Sergeant Dolby was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division, Company B, 1st battalion (Airborne) 8th Cavalry.

Dolby and his platoon came under intense enemy fire as they were advancing tactically. With many members of his platoon wounded, including the platoon leader, Dolby moved the wounded men to safety and directed the rest of the platoon to engage the enemy.

The citation says that Dolby’s unsurpassed valor during four hours of intense combat were a source of inspiration to his entire company, contributed significantly to the success of the overall assault on the enemy position, and were directly responsible for saving the lives of a number of his fellow soldiers.

Dolby was 64. Funeral services are pending.

There are 87 living recipients of the Medal of Honor today.

Does anyone know the names of any operation names A-Trp and D-trp experienced between July of 1968 and September of 1970? I was there, but my brain doesn't remember.

Any fellow troopers from the 1st platoon, 1968 to 1969, out there?

Missing Soldier Returns for Burial
July 03, 2010
Richmond Times - Dispatch

HAYNESVILLE -- When Fannie Withers Dawson died at 102 years old, buried with her was an unfulfilled dream she carried to her grave.

"It was that she would see her son come home alive. She always felt there was a chance," said Dawson's only surviving child. "She would never accept that Richard was dead."

Yesterday, as the nation prepared to celebrate its 234th year of independence, word was formally announced that World War II airman Richard M. Dawson, one of Fannie Dawson's five children, is indeed finally coming home.

 
He will be buried July 15 at Arlington National Cemetery, putting to rest his mother's dream but also a remarkable story of the military's dedicated mission to locate and identify soldiers missing in action.

"To me what it says, is that they never gave up," Richard Dawson's only surviving sibling said yesterday from her home in Richmond County on Virginia's Northern Neck. "I'm just thankful that the Department of Defense kept its word and did what it set out to do."

Christine Dawson King, now 77, barely remembers her brother, who would be 91 now. He never went to high school, King recalls, apparently intent to carry on the family farming operation: corn, tomatoes, and wheat. Her father, William Morgan Dawson, raised five children with Fannie and plowed the farm with horses.

Richard Dawson joined the Army three years before World War II began, his sister said. On May 23, 1944, seven Army airmen, including Pfc. Dawson, 25, were aboard a C-47A Skytrain tasked with resupplying Allied forces in Burma.

The plane never returned. But in late 2002, a missionary came up with a data plate from a C-47 crash site 31 miles from the plane's destination. The next year, a Burmese citizen turned over human remains and certain identifying material.

An identification tag for Dawson was found during excavations in 2003 and 2004 carried out by the Department of Defense's Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office.

King's DNA helped confirm that her brother was among the seven victims.

Six other soldiers also are returning home and are scheduled to be buried July 15 at Arlington, as well. They are from Chicago; Floral Park, N.Y.; Millen, Ga.; Tyrone, Pa.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Piedmont, Ala.

King will go to the service with a niece, thinking of her mother, Fannie, who died in 1999, and of how a long, sad, hopeful story has at last ended.

King lives in the same home she and her brothers and sisters grew up in; the land is still full of crops and within shouting distance is Totuskey Baptist Church, where Fannie and husband William are buried and where a granite marker lists nearly 100 war dead from the area.

Richard Dawson's name is there, the only man designated as missing in action.

And in a safe place, Christine keeps the remnants of a life she barely knew -- letters between son and mother and the newfound dog tag that bears Fannie's name as well as Richard's.

"My mother lost her husband at an early age and a son when he was 35," she said, referring to another son. "But she always said that the pain of those deaths, even of her own children, never equaled the pain of not knowing if Richard had died."

I served as the supply sergeant of HHT '84-'85. I remember some good times there, worked hard but partied just as hard. We had a great 1st Sergeant and between him or the Bn Operations Sergent, I don't know who made me laugh the most. I had a chance the run into our 1st Sergerant in Europe may years later, we hosted the than CSM at our BN mess. Still one hell of a soldier.