The 30th Annual Reunion of Vietnam Helicopter Pilots was held in downtown San Francisco, Calif. over the Fourth of July.
Attendees included 700 pilots, 700 adult family members and 50 children. These pilots and their families came from all over the United States and the world for this annual pilgrimage.
I have gone to a couple of these and they are always fun. We took our two boys, one’s wife and two grandchildren, ages 1 and 5,the other’s fiancee.
We spent some time with the Outlaws and the Mavericks from Vinh Long and some Tigers and Vikings from Soc Trang.
One of my crew chiefs and a former maintenance officer with our unit joined us for meals and the final banquet. I reconnected with pilots from my flight school class 67-19, the 19th class of helicopter pilots in 1967.
I also met members of the Washington State Chapter of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association. These pilots meet monthly in Western Washington and now Eastern Washington to keep the flame alive of shared experience, patriotism and remembering our fallen crew members.
We enjoyed the reunion, the characters, the vendors, our friends, seeing pictures, movies, hearing the music, attending the workshops on writing your memoirs, helicopter history, unit mini-reunions and a very moving final banquet with NYFD bagpipers and a “missing man” table. This year I sang with a group of pilots at the beginning and end of the banquet, we ate, we danced and we took lots of pictures.
One highlight was a cruise on San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge and seeing the spectacular Fourth of July fireworks display. Another was a cable at tour of San Francisco.
The reunion for me was very special in that my family was here with me.
The Lee Greenwood song we sang at the end of the banquet sort of said it all: “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died and gave that right to me. And I’ll gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today. Cause I love this land there ain’t no doubt. God bless the USA.”
Fred McCarthy serves on the council of advisors for the Veterans Resource Center. For more information go to www.vetsresourcecenter.org
