CORRECTION: NEXT TRADITIONAL VM's IN SOUTH CENTRAL REGION; ADD ANOTHER:
August 20th - Oxley Nature Center/Mohawk Park in Tulsa, OK
See www.AVA.org or contact the event coordin-
ator, Bob Pugh - (918) 446-7924.
GUESS WHO? The rest of the story. - May 1970. Phouc Vinh, South Viet Nam. The picture was taken by an O-1E Light Observation Aircraft pilot named John Barth. He had a wife and three children back home. Johnny felt it important to teach the aerial observers who flew with him the essentials of flying that "Bird Dog," as the O-1E was affectionately called. He trained the observer you see pictured, so that on two later occasions, Johnny and the observer survived wartime events like being shot down and being riddled by a huge secondary explosion. Johnny did a good job, he did a great job, for the observer even learned how to and actualy landed the Bird Dog one day after the pilot with whom he was then flying was rendered unconscious by schrapnel wounds. For that he was awarded a Bronze Star for Valor. John Barth was less fortunate; on Thanksgiving Day that year he was flying with a new observer, one who had not become thoroughly trained. Johnny and the observer were shot down and each was found dead, executed by the enemy on the field of battle.
That Viet Nam tour of duty, and all of the many awards I won during that period, I humbly dedicate to Johnny Barth and to The Lord to Whom each of us look(ed) and pray(ed).
In celebration of my birthday earlier this summer, my son, Justin, posted the picture, in my last Blog, of me standing beneath (almost beneath) the wing of an O-1E Bird Dog on his website. Ironic how the lives of four of the most important people in my life intersected there.
I hope that this non-AVA tale has actually provided you a little different look at me. Know, however, that the feelings that it conveys are part of what I stand for and are there today as part of my motivation to assist each of you and to further the values that I hope you see in the AVA.
Ken
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