A miracle in the Gulf of Tonkin

Happy Birthday today to the US Marine Corps and to all our local former Marines that have served this country in war and peace. Then tomorrow the 11th is our annual Veteran’s Day. The date is chosen to remember the close of World War I, 11-11-11, effective on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1911.

A big thank you to MNB for placing a nice array of local veteran’s pictures along the perimeter of Norris Park. Yes yours truly is there alongside a more handsome picture of my cousin Chuck in his US Navy uniform. People’s faces change with years and it is fun to read the names and ponder each familiar face of the ones that we know today.

As I strolled along recognizing faces and thinking of all those young men and women that I personal know and/or remember. Young persons that stepped forward to serve their country and then returned to this community to successfully build and help make it the dynamic place we know today. They were and are farmers, dentists, insurance salesmen, members of local governmental boards, bankers, ministers and many more positions of influence. I thank them all.

Our County Clerk, Tami Teel, her staff and all of her election workers are to be complimented for the great job they did last week in running the presidential election. Grannie and I voted at the Red Willow Community Building. Several precincts were combined and the process went smoothly. Then the night of counting after the polls closed so that we can have confidence in the results. Very well done!

Now turn to the “contested” states where the counting continues even to today. Accusations of fraud, calls for recounting, judges making judgments that are not in accordance with their own state laws, dead persons voting and the list goes on. It truly is a mess that has to be sorted out. Maybe Tami and her crew could give them lessons on how to do it right. Just another reason to be thankful for our life here in small town America --- flyover country.

A column on Veteran’s Day would not be complete without a “war story”. It happened in the early part of the War in Vietnam. Chuck Trail was a newly qualified helicopter (“helo” in Navy parlance) pilot in the Navy. Flying the HU-2K with their mission “Plane Guard” off the carrier Ticonderoga. What Plane Guard means is that they fly alongside the aircraft carrier whenever aircraft launch or recover so that if an accident occurs the helo can immediately be on scene to rescue any pilot or crewman that has to eject. The Ticonderoga was on duty in the Gulf of Tonkin and it was late at night. “Man overboard” came over the alarm system and the helo immediately launched into a dark and windy night. The carrier immediately began to circle the spot where a non-flying sailor had stumbled and fallen from the hangar deck some 60 feet above the surface. The hapless sailor had no survival gear, no light to signal any would be rescuers and so had to tread water in white capped waves. The helo crew set up a grid search within the mile or so circle made by the carrier. All hands available were staring into the darkness trying to spot the man swimming in the black water. It must have been 45 minutes after the call to action and the helo crew was about to give up the search knowing that the man they were searching for may have been injured in his fall and surely have been exhausted and probably would have drowned.

Chuck said that God must have been was sitting on his shoulder that night because he noticed that a whitecap out his left side somehow kept persisting when the normal action of the sea is to have a whitecap blossom and then disappear. The helo crew veered over to have a closer look and there below was their man making a large splashing of water over his head to attract their attention. Into a quick hover, drop the lifeline and hoist the exhausted seaman up into the safety of their cargo deck. A quick trip back to land on deck of the Tico and a life saved. Yes the military services take care of their own. Later the rescued man told that the helo had probably flown over him five times without seeing him. Chuck never was able to get the rescued man’s name and would now love to know the rest of his life’s story.

It would now be interesting to watch how this election drama plays out but the story won’t be complete until the 5th of December when the Electoral College meets and casts their legal votes. I’m still hoping that the man I voted for will win and our good life can continue.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail