Replies

Medal of Honor

YOUNG, GERALD O.

Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Air Force, 37th ARS Da Nang AFB, Republic of Vietnam. Place and date: Khesanh, 9 November 1967.

Entered service at: Colorado Springs, Colorado. Born: 9 May 1930, Chicago, Illinois.

Citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Capt. Young distinguished himself while serving as a helicopter rescue crew commander. Capt. Young was flying escort for another helicopter attempting the night rescue of an Army ground reconnaissance team in imminent danger of death or capture. Previous attempts had resulted in the loss of 2 helicopters to hostile ground fire. The endangered team was positioned on the side of a steep slope which required unusual airmanship on the part of Capt. Young to effect pickup. Heavy automatic weapons fire from the surrounding enemy severely damaged 1 rescue helicopter, but it was able to extract 3 of the team. The commander of this aircraft recommended to Capt. Young that further rescue attempts be abandoned because it was not possible to suppress the concentrated fire from enemy automatic weapons. With full knowledge of the danger involved, and the fact that supporting helicopter gunships were low on fuel and ordnance, Capt. Young hovered under intense fire until the remaining survivors were aboard. As he maneuvered the aircraft for takeoff, the enemy appeared at point-blank range and raked the aircraft with automatic weapons fire. The aircraft crashed, inverted, and burst into flames. Capt. Young escaped through a window of the burning aircraft. Disregarding serious burns, Capt. Young aided one of the wounded men and attempted to lead the hostile forces away from his position. Later, despite intense pain from his burns, he declined to accept rescue because he had observed hostile forces setting up automatic weapons positions to entrap any rescue aircraft. For more than 17 hours he evaded the enemy until rescue aircraft could be brought into the area. Through his extraordinary heroism, aggressiveness, and concern for his fellow man, Capt. Young reflected the highest credit upon himself, the U.S. Air Force, and the Armed Forces of his country.

***********

He died on June 6, 1990 and was buried in Section 7-A of Arlington National Cemetery near the Tomb of the Unknowns.

Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:

Air Force Association Magazine-July 1985, Vol. 68, No. 7

On This Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on June 26:
1702 Dr Philip Doddridge England, nonconformist clergyman
1730 Charles Messier cataloguer of "M objects"
1742 Arthur Middleton signer Declaration of Independence
1763 George Morland England, artist of rural landscapes
1819 Abner Doubleday credited with inventing American baseball
1824 Kelvin, [William Thomson], British physicist (Kelvin Scale)
1837 Martin Davis Hardin II, Brig General (Union volunteers), died in 1923
1837 Victor Jean Baptiste Girardey, Brig General (Confederate Army)
1887 Anthony G de Rothschild Britain, philanthropist
1892 Hubert Julian (Jay) Stowitts the first American star in the Russian ballet, and Anna Pavlova's only American partner
1892 Pearl S Buck China, author (Good Earth-Nobel 1938)
1893 Big Bill Broonzy Miss, blues singer/guitarist (Blues by Broonzy)
1898 Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft designer
1901 Stuart Symington (Sen-D-Mo)
1903 Floyd "Babe" Herman Brooklyn Dodgers' slugger (.324 lifetime average)
1904 Peter Lorre actor (M, Casablanca, Beast with 5 Fingers)
1909 Col Tom Parker Elvis Presley's manager
1911 Edward Levi professor (Intro to Legal Reasoning)
1913 Maurice Wilkes inventor (stored program concept for computers)
1925 Pavel Belyayev USSR, cosmonaut (Voskhod 2)
1933 Noriyuki "Pat" Morita Calif, actor (Happy Days, Karate Kid) (Wax on..wax off)
1934 John V Tunney (Rep/Sen-D-Calif)
1939 Charles Robb (Sen-D-Va)/husband of Lynda Bird Johnson
1940 Billy Davis Jr St Louis Mo, singer (5th Dimension-One Less Bell)
1942 Larry Taylor rocker (Canned Heat-On the Road Again)
1960 Barbara Edwards Albuqueque NM, playmate of the year (Sept, 1983)
1961 Greg LeMond, US bicyclist (Tour de France winner-1986, 1989, 1990)
1964 Zeng Jinlian Hunan China, became tallest woman known (2.46 m, 8'1")

Deaths which occurred on June 26:
0363 Flavius C Julianus, [Apostata], emperor of Rome (361-63), dies
1541 Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conqueror of Peru, assassinated in Lima
1631 Justinus van Nassau, ltalian admiral (Armada), dies
1827 Samuel Crompton, English inventor (mule-jenny), dies at 73
1906 Alexander Muir poet (The Maple Leaf Forever), dies at 76
1937 Georg A Erman, German egyptologist (Grammar of Ancient Egypt), dies at 82
1943 Fritz Schmidt, Nazi commissioner in Holland, commits suicide at 39
1956 Clifford Brown, US jazz trumpeter (Joyspring, Jordu), dies at 25
1983 Walter O'Keefe songwriter/TV host (Mayor of Hollywood), dies at 82
1984 George H Gallup, pollster (Gallup Poll), dies at 82
1993 Roy Campanella, 3xMVP catcher (Dodgers), dies of a heart attack at 71

Reported: MISSING in ACTION
1968 CORNELIUS JOHNNIE C.---WILLIAMS AFB AZ.
1968 WOODS ROBERT FRANCIS---SALT LAKE CITY UT.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
0684 St Benedict II begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1284 Pied Piper lures 130 children of Hamelin away
1483 Richard III usurps English throne
1498 Toothbrush invented
1797 Charles Newbold patents 1st cast-iron plow. He can't sell it to farmers, though, they fear effects of iron on soil!
1843 Hong Kong proclaimed a British Crown Colony
1848 1st pure food law enacted in US
1862 US Army of Virginia established under Gen John Pope
1862 Battle of Beaver Dam Creek-Union repulse Confederacy in Virginia
1862 Day 2 of the 7 Days-Battle of Mechanicsville
1870 1st section of Atlantic City (NJ) Boardwalk opens
1870 Wagner's opera "Valkyrie" premieres in Munich
1879 Ismael Pasha resigns as khedive of Egypt
1894 Karl Benz of Germany receives US patent for gasoline-driven auto
1896 1st movie theater in US opens, charging 10› for admission
1900 Dr Walter Reed begins research that beats Yellow Fever
1902 England establishes Order of Merit
1902 M Wolf & L Carnera discovers asteroid #488 Kreusa
1902 Start of Sherlock Holmes "The Adventure of the 3 Garidebs" (BG)
1911 Nieuport sets an aircraft speed record of 83 mph (133 kph)
1912 Gustav Mahlers 9th Symphony premieres in Vienna
1916 Cleveland Indians experiment with #s on their jerseys (one game)
1917 1st American Expeditionary Force arrive in France during WW I
1919 1st issue of NY Daily News published
1924 After 8 years of occupation, US troops leave the Domincan Republic
1934 Germany and Poland sign nonaggression treaty
1934 FDR signs Federal Credit Union Act establishing credit unions
1940 End of USSR experimental calendar; Gregorian readopted 6/27
1941 Lithuanian fascist massacre 2,300 Jews in Kovno
1941 Finland enters WW II against Russia
1945 UN Charter signed by 50 nations in SF
1948 US denounces Soviet blockade of Berlin
1949 Walter Baade discovers asteroid Icarus inside orbit of Mercury
1953 Russian vice-premier/interior minister Beria arrested
1957 Hurricane Audrey strikes Louisiana claiming 500 lives
1958 Mackinac Straits Bridge, Michigan dedicated
1959 Ingemar Johansson of Sweden defeats Floyd Patterson as boxing champ
1959 Queen Elizabeth & Pres Eisenhower open the St Lawrence Seaway
1960 British Somaliland (now Somalia) gains independence from Britain
1960 Madagascar gains independence from France (National Day)
1963 Kennedy visits W Berlin "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner)
1964 Beatles release "A Hard Day's Night" album
1964 Blacks and Whites riot over racial segregation in St Augustine
1968 Iwo Jima & Bonin Islands returned to Japan by US
1970 Frank Robinson hits 2 grand slams as Orioles beat Senators 12-2
1974 Liz Taylor's 5th divorce (Richard Burton)
1975 Cher divorces Sonny Bono
1977 42 die in fire inmate causes at Maury County Jail in Columbia Tenn
1978 Brittany separatists bomb Palace of Versailles in France
1978 First dedicated oceanographic satellite, SEASAT 1, launched
1982 US vetos UN Security Council resolution for a limited withdrawal from Beirut of Israeli & Palestine Liberation Organization forces
1984 1st flight of Shuttle Discovery (41-D) scrubbed at T -4s
1984 Barbra Striesand records "Here We Are at Last"
1987 Supreme Court Justice Lewis F Powell Jr announces his retirement
1987 Losing 9-0 to Red Sox, Yanks score 11 in 3rd & win 12-11 in 10 inn
1989 Supreme Court rules 16 year olds can receive death penalty
1990 122ø F in Phoenix Arizona
1991 Ky medical examiner announces Zachary Taylor died of natural causes
1992 Supreme Court rules fund soliciting can be banned at airports
1993 "Late Night with David Letterman" airs for last time on NBC-TV
1993 US Tomahawk-rockets hit Iraqi secret service, Baghdad
1994 Kirby Puckett pass Rod Carew with 2,088 hit as Twin's top hit leader
1994 PLO-leader Yasser Arafat returns to Gaza after 27 years
1995 Gunmen ambush Egyptian pres Hosni Mubarak, escapes unharmed
1997 Supreme Court strikes down Internet indecency law
1997 Supreme Court upholds doctor-assisted suicide ban

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Malagasy Republic & British Somaliland : Independence Day (1960)
National Sheriff's Week (Day 6)
National Forest System Month

Religious Observances
RC : Feast of SS John & Paul, martyrs in Rome

Religious History
1097 The armies of the First Crusade (1096-99) occupied the ancient Byzantine city of Nicea.
1702 Birth of Philip Doddridge, an English Nonconformist clergyman. Doddridge authored 370 hymn- texts, of which 'O Happy Day That Fixed My Choice' is still sung today.
1839 Scottish clergyman and missionary Robert Murray McCheyne wrote in a letter: 'Joy is increased by spreading it to others.'
1892 Birth of Pearl S. Buck, American Presbyterian missionary to China and author of the 1931 best-seller, 'The Good Earth.'
1955 The first Southern Baptist congregation was formally organized in Las Vegas, with 33 charter members. It was the second Southern Baptist church established in Nevada.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?"

Things To Do If You Ever Became An Evil Overlord...
Do not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.

The World's Shortest Books...
The Engineer's Guide to Fashion

Dumb Laws...
Vermont:
Whistling underwater is illegal

Top ten things you never hear in church...
8. Personally I find witnessing much more enjoyable than golf.

For every insertion like this one that was detected and stopped, dozens of others safely slipped past NVA lines to strike a wide range of targets and collect vital information. The number of MACV-SOG missions conducted with Special Forces reconnaissance teams into Laos and Cambodia was 452 in 1969. It was the most sustained American campaign of raiding, sabotage and intelligence-gathering waged on foreign soil in US military history. MACV-SOG's teams earned a global reputation as one of the most combat effective deep-penetration forces ever raised.

From MAYSEY, LARRY WAYNE

~~~

LAOS : PANHANDLE U.S., Royal Laotian, and VNAF aircraft continued their attacks on traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. During 1967, B-52s flew 1,718 sorties in this area, almost triple their 1966 record. The major targets were trucks which had to be hunted down and destroyed one-by-one. This seemed to be irrational thinking to many Americans flying these combat missions for these trucks could have been destroyed en masse before, during, or after their unloading from the ocean freighters that had hauled them to North Vietnam if bombing of Haiphong had been permitted.

Note: I will be happy to fax the four-page story The Day It Became the Longest War by the Marine aide present at the White House meeting in November of 1965 at which Lyndon Baines Johnson told the Joint Chiefs no they would not be allowed to bomb Hanoi and mine Haiphong harbor.

How many American deaths did Johnson thereby insure would occur? Did he thereby assure our eventual defeat--albeit by the fifth column of Cronkite, Fonda and Kerry.

~~~

From Young's Park

From CH/HH-3 Jolly Green Giant

UH-1B with side mounting M134 minigun and seven-tube 2.75 inch rocket launcher on M21 armament subsystem.

U.S. ARMY HELICOPTER WEAPON SYSTEMS

From NICHOLS, HUBERT CAMPBELL, JR.

~~~

From the Why Did We Bother Department:

1917 1st American Expeditionary Force arrive in France during WW I