Combat losses are heart breaking. While I was in the Coast Guard one of our black hulled work boats collided with a tanker in Tampa Bay. The USCGC Blackthorn WLB -391 sank due to many failures. I vaguely knew them but, two of the kids lost were in the boot camp company before me in 1979. Time has passed 41 years but, I still think of those young men who never grew old... It is part of life that these things happen or occur but, those two young men along with others who have died in accidents in service to this beloved Republic will be remembered by me and their families. To those who have served or are currently serving thank you and STAY SAFE from an old Puddle Pirate. VI

Shortly after I left guard duty, we had an armored vehicle flip and kill 2... no purple hearts for those boys, but I'll remember them.
Same as I'll remember those that list the battle with themselves after coming home from battle overseas.
The military has many victims, some less visible than others.

A HS classmate of mine died in 2002 from heat stroke while in basic training at Fort Jackson. After they found him and got him to a hospital he lingered for about a week. He was able to say goodbye to his family before his body started shutting down.

We were told that he had a fever, but didn't want to miss any training so didn't go to sick call. He got separated from his battle buddy in the field and by the time they found him it was too late.

quote:

Originally posted by Gibb:
...we had an armored vehicle flip... no purple hearts for those boys, but I'll remember them.
Same as I'll remember those that list the battle with themselves after coming home from battle overseas.
The military has many victims, some less visible than others.

I had a like experience. We were operating in Quang Nam Province and one of my Ontos came close to a bluff and the earth collapsed under it. The driver, lance corporal was killed in the rollover. It was determined to be death by accident or mischance and not KIA. As we were on an active op with contact that day and following I wrote a letter asking for reconsideration thinking of family, but it stayed an accident.

Accident or not, he stays on my list of basic school classmates and brothers-in-arms lost and always will.

One of my HS classmates died today due to ALS. He was Navy and served in the delta. I believe the VA ruled his illness was related to Agent Orange.

Village Idiot, my dad served aboard the Paw Paw, same kind of ship as the Blackthorn.. I grew up in Tampa and remember clearly my dad crying when it came across the news. My dad had only been out for ten years and still knew guys on active duty.

He explained to us ( I was 10) how they used to run with the qawtds pinned open for ventilation. Years later when I joined I realized how bad it really was...and the sacrifice that one shipmate made when he released the life jacket locker and helped save his shipmates.

Thank you SA Billy Flores https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Flores

None of the losses are easy but to me, the hardest are those who take their own lives. I've had too many friends do that.

Those who died while in military service are still included in Memorial Day.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
None of the losses are easy but to me, the hardest are those who take their own lives. I've had too many friends do that.

Rip:

Chris - Suicide/pills
Erin - Suicide/pills
Jamie - Car crash
Jen - Shot to death by her boyfriend

http://www.popasmoke.com/kia/c...e/incidents/19851016


If anyone has a little time, y'all can read the above link. It references the incident which caused the death of a cousin. I was in the USMC at the time, but I wasn't able to attend his funeral due too being on a deployment. Other than just losing his life, he was about to leave the Corps and marry his sweetheart. He's now guarding the streets of heaven with his fellow marines. Semper Fedelis!

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
None of the losses are easy but to me, the hardest are those who take their own lives. I've had too many friends do that.

Me, too.

One of them I had to identify after he took his service pistol to his head.

Three others were elsewhere when they did it.

My counsin's son, died while serving on the USS Hayler. Non-combat. I think of him often.

There are many suicides in service and when vets are alone with their thoughts.
Serving in the FlatTop fleet I saw many accidents on flight decks. One was a blow off from turning F-14. RIP AD2 Jerome Watkins.

Happened to a friend of my dad- he got killed in a car crash in Las Vegas two weeks after he came home from Vietnam.

When I was in we had six EOD teams that rotated all summer at the Utah Test and Training Range. The UTTR had over a million acres of range land with practice and live ranges and everything from Cobra's to B52's dropped and fired there. We did range clearances, escorts, test support etc. One of our youngest team members went out alone in a Humvee for a range escort, it was a common activity and we did them all the time. He never arrived and they could not reach him on the radio so they went looking for him. In an area that is 99% flat he ran off the road, hit a convert and flipped the Humvee. That would not have been too bad but he did not have his seatbelt on. When the Hummer flipped it landed upside down and on top of him. It crushed him and he died there in the ditch. Left a wife and young child behind. When I used to be on Facebook I ran across his father posting about him and the loss of his son.

I was still in law school here when the Blackthorn tragedy happened and remember it as if it was yesterday. It made a big impact on our St. Petersburg community, seemed like most everyone I came in contact with was saddened and shocked.

That was January 28, 1980 right at the Sunshine Skyway Bridge which spanned a portion of Tampa Bay.

Then on May 9, 1980, a freighter struck one span of the bridge in very thick fog and 1200 feet of the bridge collapsed into the Bay killing 35 people who simply drove off the last surviving part of the bridge and plunged downwards including the occupants of a Greyhound Bus.

I cross that bridge often (it was reconstructed later) and always think about all kids on the Blackthorn and the folks driving off the Skyway.

Bob

This message has been edited. Last edited by: straightshooter1,

My best friend was killed in a mid-air collision in flight training. It was my first experience with the peacetime cost and risks of Naval Aviation but not my last.

This reminded me of a friend, not his passing but an “almost”, proving what many know, that it’s not over when the fighting stops.
He served in Vietnam 69-70, earning multiple Purple Hearts. Around 2001-2002 he had an MRI for an unrelated injury. That night-morning his wife found him unresponsive, cold and “blue”. The MRI had moved a piece of shrapnel in his groin he didn’t know was there, it nicked an artery and he nearly bleed to death internally in his sleep. It’s something to think the he was almost killed by a mortar 30 years after it was fired.
He passed a year or two later from a fall while suffering the effects of another, possibly service related illness.

A fellow CPO in one of my Squadrons was hit in the head by a Rotor Blade. He was out on the Flight Deck trying to help troubleshoot an APU problem when he was killed. Ron was a super nice guy and a good Chief. I think of him often.