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From a distance, there appeared to be a giant, gray, bug-eyed
swamp dragonfly attacking the flightline during the 2017 Thunder
Over Dover Open House. Brave and inquisitive people who ventured a
closer look discovered it wasn’t some herculean insect, but rather
an Army OV-1 Mohawk observation and surveillance aircraft used
during the Vietnam War through Operation Desert Storm. An even
closer inspection would reveal the gray fuselage was covered
end-to-end in hundreds of names – names that memorialize the 1,636
American service members that are still unaccounted for from the
Vietnam War.
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August 27, 2017 - Wayne Klotz, an Army veteran, stands next to an
Army OV-1 Mohawk observation and surveillance aircraft during the
Thunder Over Dover Open House at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. One
of the static displays at the open house, Mohawk Airshows’ plane, is
the first flying POW/MIA monument, and is covered in names of
service members who died during the Vietnam War and were never
recovered from Southeast Asia. (U.S. Air Force photo by Mauricio
Campino)
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Under the warbird’s pilot-side wing sat two people: Joe Masessa,
the aircraft’s lead pilot, and Wayne Klotz, a veteran technical
officer on the OV-1 during the Vietnam War. He flew 125 combat
missions operating radar and infrared equipment and taking
surveillance photographs.
The OV-1 has been touring air shows
since 2015, when Mohawk Airshows painted on all 1,636 names, making
it the first Vietnam POW/MIA memorial aircraft.
“I know six
of them,” Klotz said of the memorial names. “I flew with some of
them, I worked with some of them and I went to school with some of
them. Joe did a great thing by putting those names on there. Most
planes have one or two names of a previous pilot who died. Joe never
met any of these people, but he did a good thing. It makes me feel
good, but I fall apart. I can’t talk about it.”
“One of them
… it was his first flight,” Klotz went on fighting back tears. “He
went to Vietnam as an 18 year-old kid. He didn’t want to fly. He
went to the sergeant and said, ‘I don’t feel good, I don’t want to
fly,’ so the sergeant gave him a job maintaining and preparing the
chemicals we used in photography and infrared equipment. He lived in
that [storage container]. He slept there. He ate there. He was great
at his job. There were 50 of me’s flying in 25 planes, but there was
only one of him.”
“About October, he went to the sergeant and
said, I want to fly,” Klotz concluded. “He was very capable, and he
got shot down, two hours in the air. The worst part about it is
you’re on the ground, and you’re talking to him and it quits.”
Klotz said he was there that day not only because of what the
plane meant to him, but because of his connection to those names,
and what they represent.
“I ask people if they know what the
POW/MIA flag looks like,” Klotz said. “Do you have an image of it?
They’ll say, ‘yeah.’ I’ll say, ‘walk around the plane.’ These 1,600
names are what that flag represents. Your image of that flag will
not be the same after you’ve seen the names,” he added as tears
formed at the corners of his eyes and his throat began to crack.
“That’s what I tell everybody. That’s all I can do.”
The
monument’s impact was even more pronounced at Dover AFB, Masessa
added, thanks to the efforts of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner
System, located on the installation, to identify recovered remains
from past conflicts.
AFMES personnel provide DNA-based identification of remains
recovered by the Defense POW/MIA Accountability Agency,
headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.
AFMES personnel collect family reference samples from family members
of missing service members for a baseline to compare the DNA of
recovered remains to.
“This is incredibly important work,”
said Dr. Timothy McMahon, AFMES Department Of Defense DNA Operations
director. “When you sit down next to these families, you’ll find
that even though their brother was lost in Korea or their son was
lost in Southeast Asia, it is still fresh in their mind. These men
and women swore to uphold the constitution and defend our country.
It means a lot to know that your country will not forget you, that
it’ll do everything in its power to recover you, to identify you and
to return you to your loved ones.”
The hard work and
dedication of these agencies to repatriate and identify fallen
service members is represented on the memorial.
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August 27, 2017 - A side view of the Army OV-1 Mohawk Vietnam
POW/MIA flying monument during the Thunder Over Dover Open
House at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. The Army flew the OV-1
during the Vietnam War through Operation Desert Storm to gather
battlefield surveillance and provide light strike capabilities. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Jenne)
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“If you look closely at the names, you’ll see American
flags next to some of the names,” Masessa said. “Each of
those are individuals whose remains were returned home and
identified. It’s amazing that we live in a country that’s so
dedicated to bringing closure to families that suffered such
a loss more than 40 years ago. It makes me proud to be here
today knowing that this base helps bring them home.”
McMahon echoed the sentiment.
“I think memorials like
this are extremely important, because they honor not only
that service member, but their families as well,” McMahon
said. “When you get the opportunity to present the DNA
results to a family, you can almost feel the relief and the
thankfulness that now they have their loved one back. We
should never forget the honor and dignity of these service
members. That’s why we have memorials like this, and
remembrance ceremonies.”
The flying memorial participated as a static display during the
open house to give spectators a chance to see, touch and feel the
names written on it. Most of the time, Masessa performs with the
plan, but at this venue, the plane couldn’t do both.
“This
was a very acrobatic plane,” Klotz explained to an open house guest.
“It handled like a much smaller plane. We had a hard time following
enemy troop movements because they would dig-in in such a way that
you couldn’t see them from overhead, so we’d fly down into these
ravines and bank to one side to get the camera into position.”
Masessa chimed in, “That’s what makes it such a great acrobatics
plane. It had to be nimble and powerful to get the job done. It’s
such a fun plane to fly, and it’s such an awesome story that we get
to tell with this plane in particular.”
With the open house’s
theme of sharing the heritage of American air power, this aircraft
was an excellent addition, reminding all to never forget.
“We
are proud to be the world’s first POW/MIA flying monument,” Masessa
said in a brochure about the aircraft. “This is our thank you to
these men and women – our way to say that they are not forgotten –
and our promise to fight for them as they fought for us. We vow to
attend as many airshows as possible to bring awareness to, and gain
support for, our mission to help recover these brave soldiers. We
will not stop flying until every man and woman is accounted for.”
By U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Aaron Jenne
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2017
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