Posted on 11/06/2004 9:10:50 PM PST by NormsRevenge
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - Harding E. Smith's son had to wait almost 40 years to give the former Air Force lieutenant colonel a proper burial.
The former Los Gatos resident had been missing and presumed killed in action after his AC-47 gunship was shot down over Laos in 1966. The crew's remains were discovered a decade ago, but his were positively identified only recently.
He was buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery.
"I'm older than my father was when he was shot down," said Smith's son, Gene, a physics professor at the University of California, San Diego.
He said he had disagreements with his father over the Vietnam war, a family conflict that was never resolved when his father was called to serve.
"I had hoped at one point that being declared killed in action, or at the memorial service, there would be some closure there, but I've just never found it," Smith told the San Francisco Chronicle. "So ... it is painful."
Individual bone fragments and personal objects belonging to the six crewmen, including Harding Smith's dog tag and Geneva Convention card, were recovered by a joint U.S.-Lao excavation team in 1995. Forensic anthropologists concluded after extensive study that the bones were from all six men.
Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Luther L. Rose, of Howe, Texas, who was the aerial gunner aboard the AC-47 "Spooky," was buried last summer.
The other four were Air Force Col. Theodore E. Kryszak, of Buffalo, N.Y.; Air Force Lt. Col. Russell D. Martin, of Bloomfield, Iowa; Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Ervin Warren, of Philadelphia; and Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Harold E. Mullins, of Denver.
The AC-47, a World War II-era cargo plane that had been converted to a gunship, was shot down on June 3, 1966, during a nighttime armed reconnaissance mission over southern Laos. At the time, U.S. forces were secretly engaged in combat there to disrupt communist Lao and North Vietnamese forces.
Gene Smith, now 57, was a freshman at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena when he was informed that his father, who was 48, was missing in action.
Over the next nine years, the status of Smith's father went from MIA to killed in action. The family held a memorial service in 1975 without his remains.
On Friday, in a 30-minute ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, he was buried with full military honors that included a 21-gun salute and Air Force band.
Harding Smith was a B-29 navigator in the last part of World War II. He also served in Korea before receiving his orders for Vietnam in 1965.
After his father was shot down, Gene Smith, an only child, continued his studies. He was pursuing a graduate degree in astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley, during the turbulent 1970s.
"There was this schizophrenic thing of being at school in Berkeley, with all the ferment, and having my father shot down and missing," he told the Chronicle. "At that time, I'd realized that the Vietnam War was a pretty senseless exercise, and I shared the view of most of my colleagues at Berkeley.
"But it was very difficult. I didn't feel I could be too vocal because of my father, and it was a difficult subject to discuss with my mother."
If his father had not been missing in action, he said, his mother might have reached a similar conclusions, "which is that what he was doing had no purpose."
Prayers for this family.
And honor to all.
Sad that he thinks what his father was doing had no purpose. What the soldiers did had purpose, and they did it well. What the leadership did was what had no purpose.
I saw that, sad indeed.
One more hero's remains have come home to be buried in the soil of the nation he gave his life for. His comrades in arms honor his sacrifice. He is now in the arms of his brothers whom also paid the ultimate price. If not for men like him, our nation would have perished long ago.
Sounds to me like the son got dropped on his head when he was young.
Welcome home, brave soul.
Thank you for doing what your country asked of you.
Seems like an awful lot of rank for a AC47 crew. An O6, O5 and three E9's....?
.... Wonder if they were promoted posthumously ?
God Bless em all....
Stay safe !
A lifetime of academia does not allow a brain to heal after a liberal youth.
An attitude fed, though most were not aware of it at the time, by the MSM, with Walter Cronkite being the chief manipulator of public opinion. The media brought the horrifying images of war into our living rooms every night, without, as now, ever talking about the war's successes, the least of which was to stop dead the tide of communism in Southeast Asia.
Uncle Walter intoned the body bag count and gave the impression that we were losing the war. Odd how you can lose a war without ever losing ONE battle in it! It was public opinion, fed by the disinformation campaigns of the Soviet Union and it's allies that created the idea of a loss for our soldiers, and relegated them to years of disapproval and hatred for having participated in it.
On a day long ago
In a far-away land,
You rose to the skies
To obey a command.
While we who were here
In our safe, secure place,
Never knew of the danger,
Never knew what you'd face.
We live in a land
That today is still free,
Who can measure the gift
To mankind and to me?
Our "Eyes in the Sky",
Looking down from above,
We hope you can see
What you gave us in love.
On a day long ago,
In a far-away land,
When you rose to the skies
To obey a command.
Chrystal Krueger Sinn, June, 1997
I was wondering that myself. But I noticed that during my career in the AF, the rank level for many jobs were gradually reduced. When I retired I was doing the job that a Captain was doing when I first came in.
Regardless of the rank, it still took guts.
I wore Chief Rose's POW bracelet for many years. After his remains were identified and given due honors, I left his bracelet at the Wall.
Three rifle volleys, not a 21-gun salute.
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