Fifty-six years after being designated a naval aviator, a former prisoner of war once again landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier — at one of Naval Air Station Lemoore’s F/A-18 Super Hornet flight simulators. “I got it, I got it,” exclaimed Capt. (Ret.) Theodore Kopfman as he sat
Navy Lt. Giles Norrington was making his 22nd reconnaissance flight into North Vietnamese territory when communist rebels shot off the right wing of his RA-5C Vigilante. The plane erupted into a fireball. As Norrington and his navigator, Richard Tangeman, tried to escape, Norrington thought, “It’s taking a long time to
One hundred and eight former American prisoners of war landed here Wednesday, and the first man to debark told a cheering crowd, “Thank God, the United States of America, and all you wonderful, good-looking people.” The first of three C141 Starlifters that brought the returnees from Gia Lam Airport outside
AMONG thousands of names etched on the cold black-marble wall of the Vietnam War Memorial is that of Air Force Maj. Robert Harry Irwin. To find him, go to Panel 2-West, Line 107, near the center and close to the bottom of the wall. Next to his name, where there
Like a lot of men who turned 18 during World War II, Richard Paul Keirn signed up to do his duty with the U.S. military. His choice was the U.S. Army Reserve in his native Ohio. He joined in November 1942, but within three months, he was accepted to the