Laxmom723
Member
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2007
- Messages
- 123
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/02/navy-honors-seal-killed-secret-mission-vietnam
Way past due but great it is being done now. Their story is being told...
Excerpted:
They easily could have been forgotten, a handful of stealthy warriors on a secret mission gone bad.
And for more than three decades, the men of Operation Thunderhead, a daring plan to rescue American prisoners of war in North Vietnam, essentially were lost to history. Their bravery and devotion to duty were recorded as a mere "training operation," the truth hidden from all but a handful of shipmates and relatives.
In a solemn ceremony Monday, the Navy and nation tried to make amends, posthumously presenting the Bronze Star with valor to the operation's leader, Lt. Spence Dry, a SEAL commando who leaped out of a helicopter to his death in the Gulf of Tonkin on June 5, 1972.
Chief Warrant Officer Philip "Moki" Martin, who followed Dry into the water but survived, will get the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation medal at a ceremony in California next month.
Snip...
Spence Dry was the last Navy SEAL to die in Vietnam. His death was the worst in a series of mishaps that marked Operation Thunderhead.
Rest of story, bring kleenex... at the link.
Way past due but great it is being done now. Their story is being told...
Excerpted:
They easily could have been forgotten, a handful of stealthy warriors on a secret mission gone bad.
And for more than three decades, the men of Operation Thunderhead, a daring plan to rescue American prisoners of war in North Vietnam, essentially were lost to history. Their bravery and devotion to duty were recorded as a mere "training operation," the truth hidden from all but a handful of shipmates and relatives.
In a solemn ceremony Monday, the Navy and nation tried to make amends, posthumously presenting the Bronze Star with valor to the operation's leader, Lt. Spence Dry, a SEAL commando who leaped out of a helicopter to his death in the Gulf of Tonkin on June 5, 1972.
Chief Warrant Officer Philip "Moki" Martin, who followed Dry into the water but survived, will get the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation medal at a ceremony in California next month.
Snip...
Spence Dry was the last Navy SEAL to die in Vietnam. His death was the worst in a series of mishaps that marked Operation Thunderhead.
Rest of story, bring kleenex... at the link.
