Fellow Boxcar Veterans,

This volume of our Boxcar Newsletter contains a copy of Larry Busbee's REUNION 1998 information (Dothan and Fort Rucker, Alabama 30-31 July, 1 August, 1998), and the most recent updated BOXCAR ASSOCIATION current address roster.  We currently have 202 current Veteran addresses and seventeen Associate member addresses.

Also listed are the names of seventeen of our Veterans who have passed away since their return from Vietnam, and the names of seventeen who have moved without leaving a forwarding address.

New additions to our roster include two Veterans - both pilots - John Pirkle and Joe Sturdevant; and Associate William Francis Jr., who is the son of William Francis, Boxcar pilot in 1966-67.  CW3 Francis made it home from Vietnam only to die in the crash of a U-6 (DeHavilland Beaver) in October, 1967.  Welcome to the Boxcar Association; hope to see you in Alabama this summer.

Many Vietnam Vets have tough thirty-year anniversary memories going on this year.  In January, 1968 the Tet Offensive began; in February the worst slaughter of civilians during the war took place in Hue (more than 3,000 civilians systematically rounded up, shot and dumped in ditches -  by NVA), an event that still goes unmentioned in American news media.  In March the infamous My Lai incident took place.  In April, Martin Luther King was murdered: the battle and evacuation of Kham Duc was in May; in June Robert F. Kennedy was murdered.... Boxcars lost four Chinooks in just over six weeks.  In January, three Veterans of our flight line neighbors, the 71st AHC, became POW's.

Two pilots from the 71st AHC gunship platoon - Firebirds  - have published books about their experiences.  Firebirds, by Chuck Carlock, was published in 1995 by Summit Publishing Group of Arlington, Texas; I reviewed it in the Newsletter about a year ago.  Why Didn't You Get Me Out?, by former 71st gunship pilot Frank Anton, with Tommy Denton, is now available, also from Summit.

On the night of 5 January 1968, Huey gunship UH-1C, Firebird Nine-Zero  was shot down while trying to rescue pinned-down troops of Charlie Co. 3/21 Americal Division in the Que Son Valley, northwest of Chu Lai.  On the ground, the crew split up.  Co-pilot Frank Carson evaded capture, but Pilot Frank Anton, Crew Chief Robert Lewis, and door-gunner Jim Pfister were all captured by NVA.  All three survived several years in Viet Cong jungle POW camps near the Laotian border, a forced march up the Ho Chi Minh Trail, followed by months in both the Plantation and  Hanoi Hilton before being released in 1973.

All three testified against former Marine POW Robert Garwood during his 1979 court martial for collaboration.

The book is an excellent read, but very depressing; and if you've ever been angry about the POW/MIA issue, that anger will be riled up again.  Anton confirms that he saw POWs alive in Norh Vietnamese hands, who were not among those men who were returned.

The book also relates a number of missions from before his shoot-down with very familiar names to Boxcar Vets.  Like many pilots and crewmen, my worst fears flying in Vietnam were being blinded, being burned, and being shot down and captured alive.  As I read this book, I kept thinking, "There but for the grace of God, and Boeing (it's great to have two engines) go I."
 
Definitely a book that will stir your memories.

Next Newsletter in June.

Keep the Faith,
Dean Nelson, Secretary