52 years later his son brings him home

[a330pilotcanada]

Good Afternoon All:

The video speaks better than I can about USAF Colonel Ray Knight MIA for 52 years was positively identified and brought home by his son Captain Bryan Knight SWA

Thank you for your service Colonel Knight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54W22gT7-R8

[paully]

Thank you for posting....a lovely story

[autothrottle]

Great story. Thanks Colonel.

[MichaelKPIT]

Wow! Tremendous respect for all involved. Thank you.

[b1lanc]

Good Afternoon All:

The video speaks better than I can about USAF Colonel Ray Knight MIA for 52 years was positively identified and brought home by his son Captain Bryan Knight SWA

Thank you for your service Colonel Knight

What an emotional flight that must have been for Captain Knight.

[canyonlight]

Hand salute to your memory and RIP Col. Knight.

[Union Jack]

What an emotional flight that must have been for Captain Knight.

Emotional indeed - Huge respect to both father and son, and to all those concerned with the recovery. Thanks too to the OP for bringing this to our attention.

Jack

[cossack]

Thanks for sharing. Such an emotional story.

[UAV689]

Pesky onions...pass the tissues

[Tashengurt]

Very moving story.

[Lookleft]

What an honour and privilege it would have been for him to have bought his father back to his final resting place.

[rjtjrt]

Great story. Very emotional.
Wonderful to see how people in the US honour their war dead.

[IBMJunkman]

While I thank you for the thought I think if this had happened in any other state you would not have seen the same reaction.

I am not Texan but, through observations of a friend, Texas is a respectful state.

Great story. Very emotional.
Wonderful to see how people in the US honour their war dead.

[megan]

I think if this had happened in any other state you would not have seen the same reactionThe respect shown is typical of deceased armed force members being repatriated. Normal practice is the casket is unloaded prior to passengers being allowed to disembark, the occasion is marked with military ceremony.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWM_O3N-Crw

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czkr0Mx1Q1w

[SASless]

I do not have any way of understanding the loss a family feels when a loved one is killed in action or goes missing.

I do know what it feels like when it is one of your own comrades in arms.

Knowing that young Marine was from an immigrant family from Vietnam and who volunteered to serve the his family's adopted nation and died doing so....is especially important.

Seeing his Mom's tears reminds us of what such service demands of the individual and their family and what price freedom carries.

It is right we should honor those who serve and their families who far too often lose a loved one.

My generation was not treated with this kind of respect or regard....and as a generation of veterans we saw to it that did not happen again.

It was much the same for our Australian and New Zealnd allies during the Vietnam War that we fought together.

I am so glad we are treating our latest generation of war fighters in a decent and respectful manner.....that is as it should be.

[foxcharliep2]

My deepest respect.

[cavuman1]

SASless - you and I are contemporaries. Both of us are 70 and both of us experienced the Hell of Viet Nam. You did it in country and I stayed stateside, having drawn 345 in the first draft lottery in 1969. Had I enlisted, I am fairly certain that I would have flown to 'Nam as a 1st Lieutenant, then be head shot as I dismounted the MATS C-141 at the start of my tour. My luck (I'm of Irish descent) runs that way.

I remember only too well the humiliation that you and your comrades-in-arms endured as you returned to the relative safety of U.S. shores. Spat upon, berated, made, sometimes by physical violence, to feel unwelcome in your homeland because you had had the temerity to participate in an unpopular, and frankly unnecessary, politically-motivated conflict. It was not your fault!

I lived in Washington, DC, for eleven years. Many of my friends came to visit. I'd give them the "Cook's Tour": The U.S. Capitol, the White House, and the Smithsonian Museums (esp. Air and Space). After an all-day whirlwind itinerary, I'd take them to the Viet Nam Memorial at dusk. We would weep. Openly. For the folly of it all. For the 58,195 lost young souls who would never live to contribute to and enjoy the benefits of our great republic. We would speak of the inestimable courage of our friends, many of whom we would never see again except in our fleeting, precious memories of them.

My family has felt the indelible horror of war loss. My great uncle (who was a great gentleman and lived to 103!) had five children. Three girls and two boys. One of the boys was named after my great uncle, the other for his brother, my grandfather. Clarence Jr. ("Speedy") was left-seater in a B-24 Liberator. In an inexplicable twist of fate, he and his crew were shot down over New Guinea in an aircraft his sisters had helped to build outside of Dallas, Texas. All lost. A week later, his brother, Ed, went down with 300 of his crew members aboard the U.S.S. Indianapolis. They had delivered a war-ending weapon. The ship sank close to where the aircraft had gone in. Another terrible paradox! WWII was to end less than two months later....

My great uncle had two visits that June of 1945, both in the space of one week; one from an Army Air Force Captain and Chaplain, one from a Navy Captain and Chaplain. They bore bad news and offered what little comfort they could. When we Atlantans would go to visit the Dallas side of the family thirty years later, we were always impressed with their humor and intelligence and heart. We would listen, fascinated, to the stories they would tell. Yet we found out one subject was verboten. I asked Uncle Clarence if he ever thought of his boys. He looked out of the window at the blue Texas sky for a long moment, dissolved into tears, and left the room. Sobbing. All those years later. None of us needed to ask again.

I am a sorta kinda a right-wing guy and have my hawkish tendencies, but I must admit these truths to myself. I have unbounded respect and gratitude for those of you, like SASless, who have refreshed the Tree of Liberty with their courage, blood, and lives, in all of our conflicts, no matter how foolish. Of even greater import is my understanding that war is a repugnant expression of the illogical reptilian parts of our brain: our species should have more sense than to engage in it unless our very survival is threatened!

Back to our regularly-scheduled program and a cold beer....

- Ed :ok:

[Gipsy Queen]

It is scenes like this that remind me of how deeply the American psyche remains scarred by the Viet Nam conflict. It was deplorable that the disgust exhibited by the public was vented upon those who were obliged to fight in a very dirty conflict and not directed at the shabby politicians who instigated and perpetuated this wholly needless loss of life. Like others of my country, I was grateful that the New Zealand government (after earlier Malayan involvements) recognised the futility of the exercise and early on had the sense to withdraw from the ill-advised undertaking. Otherwise I might not be writing this.

So I have a particular empathy with the observations of cavuman 1 and SASless; I was profoundly affected when living in the States and visiting the Moving Wall on a couple of occasions. My respects to Col. Knight and his contemporaries.