Should have posted this on the 10th, sorry.
Saturday, when I participate in a wreath laying ceremony at a local veterans cemetery, I will say a prayer for those brave young soldiers. Rest in Peace.
I was in my plebe year at USNA when this happened and for the life of me - despite reading the front page religiously as part of my haz...ahem, training regimen I can’t remember this incident. I can only assume I was overwhelmed with everything else that was going on.
Thank you for sharing this bit of history. It’s a lot more real when someone like yourself was there. God bless all of you.
You guys were real men, in the best sense of the word.
Thank you.
I had friends on that aircraft :(
Days earlier I had PCS’d to Monterey, CA from Ft Campbell. When I heard the news I was sure it was a mistake. A call to my old unit confirmed my fears.
“”””248 members of the 101st Airborne, who we were replacing crashed on takeoff after re-fueling at Gander, Newfoundland, killing all aboard.””””
That was a startling loss, it was also a busy year for me and everyone in Reagan’s military.
I have a friend who was an Army QM Mortuary Affairs specialist stationed at Campbell then. She was sent to the crash site to help with recovery of remains. I think that event had a very deep impact on her. She said she was never the same after that.
I was out of the 82nd Airborne and back in PA when that happened. Lost a high school friend on that plane.
May God bless their souls.
The Arrow Air crash on takeoff at Gander Intl. is covered (particularly the greed and graft of the charter contractors the DOD hired, and still hires others today)— in an excellent book by a conservative author.
Saul M Montes-Bradley II (2016). Gander: Terrorism, Incompetence, and the Rise of Islamic National Socialism. Thomas Osgood Bradley Foundation. ISBN 978-0-9859632-5-5.
The book was praised by Lt. General Flynn extensively.
Site is quodverum.com— and is often censored on different platforms as 404 Forbidden- by the spook state.
https://social.quodverum.com/@Debradelai/with_replies
I am so sorry.
In light of the uselessness of the last 60 years of our best young people dying for political reasons in reasonless “wars”, I cannot say “Thank you for your service”.
Instead it comes out something like “I respect and am sorry for your effort and your sacrifices”.
That’s not exactly how I mean it to sound but it’s the closest I can come to expressing the anger and heartache I have that our young men and women who have signed up in the name of protecting country have been nothing bu ill-used, ill-treated, and forgotten when they come home with grave injuries.
I hope you take my meaning and don’t find too much fault with it. I don’t actually say it out loud very often.
“Thank you for your service” just isn’t enough.
Thanks for sharing your story...Bless you and all who answer the call...Curse those who abuse the military.
Thank you for you service.
Thanks for posting that. We need to remember.
I remember it now. Makes my heart heavy but thanks for posting.
Its punch in the gut when you lose friends. What a tragedy.
ALL of them need to rest in peace.