19 Feb 2007 Thank you, Veney, for your courage, from all the parents, brothers, and sisters and all your friends and fellow veterans from Wewoka, Oklahoma. You are not and never will be forgotten. See you on the other side with our Lord and saviour Jesus, who will love us eternally. Sincerely from a friend, Phillip Ray Whitlock lwhitloc@mbo.net

 

A Note from The Virtual Wall At 1300 on 12 March 1970 four UH-1H aircraft of the 128th Assault Helicopter Company departed Phu Loi Airfield on an extraction mission, tasked with transporting 67 soldiers from a pick-up zone at YS3880 to Fire Support Base Rhode Island. The trip to the PZ and the pick-up were uneventful. About 3 minutes after lift-off from the PZ, CHALK 4 radioed that he had an engine failure and was going into the trees. CHALK 4's pilot decelerated rapidly and had near-zero forward velocity when the aircraft's tailboom impacted a tree top, spinning the UH-1H and sending it into the trees in a nose-low attitude. The initial impact of the fuselage with a tree resulted in an explosion and the UH-1 fell flaming to the ground. On ground impact further explosions occurred, and 2 to 3 minutes after impact a tremendous explosion threw debris some hundreds of feet into the air. The crash was not survivable, and 13 men died: 128th Assault Helicopter Company: WO1 Leonard Dwight Cunningham, pilot, Pulaski TN WO1 Jay Thomas Dandurand, copilot, Riverdale NJ SP4 Charles H. Cummings, gunner, Hadley MA SP4 Gary Douglas McNicol, crew chief, Newell WV B Company, 4th Bn, 9th Infantry: SSG Jose O. Garcia, St Louis MO SSG Edward W. Holmes, Memphis TN SGT Ronny D. Shattuck, Renton WA CPL Lester V. Cafiero, West Hempstead NY CPL Aaron L. Darr, Elsah IL CPL Terry E. Guenther, Galesburg IL CPL Olin J. Leonard, Randleman NC SP4 Veney E. Thompson, Wewoka OK PFC Walter J. Hampton, Memphis TN

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