An Afghanistan Reminder from Vietnam — 41 Years Afterward, Remains of Colonel  James E. Dennany (Weapons System Officer) and Major Robert L. Tucci (Pilot) Identified from Crash Site in Laos and Returned Home

© 2011 Peter Free

 

13 January 2011

 

 

Pilot Robert Tucci had already flown at least 181 missions before the numbers caught up

 

The F-4D Phantom was hit by anti-aircraft fire, while escorting an AC-130 ground attack mission on 12 November 1969 along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Khammouan Province, Laos.

 

Major Tucci’s last communication, “There’s fire.”

 

 

Citation

 

David N. Goodman, Remains of 2 Mich. airmen shot down in ’69 ID’d, Associated Press (13 January 2011)

 

 

War never leaves the families it affects

 

Sorrow’s residue is long.

 

 

The connection to Afghanistan

 

Two days ago (11 January 2011), Vice President Biden promised President Karzai that the United States would stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, if invited to remain.

 

How’s that for the longevity of remorseless geopolitical strategic stupidity and death?

 

Vietnam might as well never have been.  Except for the people who were there and the diminished families left behind.

 

 

The moral

 

How easily time and amnesia drown History’s lessons about the need for clear thinking.