Peace

The importance of POW / MIA resolution

By Patrick J. Walsh

Peekskill, New York, July 31, 2014 -- Today, in the quiet warmth of summer in this picaresque city alongside the Hudson River, there is in the stir of memories and the milestones of history a moment to remember the journey of a native son.

Peekskill Bay - historic photo by William Henry Jackson, Detroit Publishing Co. (Library of Congress)

...in the quiet warmth of summer, some measure of peace...

On this date a quarter century ago, two nations that were once bitter enemies during a long and violent conflict oversaw the culmination of that journey, when the remains of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Harry Irwin, United States Air Force, were formally returned to the United States by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

A 1956 graduate of Peekskill High School, Robert Irwin enlisted in the U.S. Air Force after college. He served his country throughout the entire course of the Vietnam War, until his death.

He was 33 years old when his plane was shot down on February 17, 1972, about 15 miles west of the city of Vinh, in North Vietnam. By that point in his long and distinguished career, he had risen to the rank of Major.

Flying with him that day was Captain Edwin A. Hawley Jr. Hawley was badly injured in the crash, but survived the shoot down and a subsequent year in captivity as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. He returned to the United States in 1973.

Two days after Major Irwin's plane was shot down, a North Vietnamese radio broadcast described the incident and claimed that both occupants of the plane had been captured. Captain Hawley was referred to by name during the broadcast.

Major Irwin was initially listed as Missing in Action. In the period following his loss, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

In 1978, five years after the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict, Lieutenant Colonel Irwin was declared deceased. His status in official records was listed as Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered.

The last official American wartime presence in Vietnam came to a close with the fall of Saigon in April, 1975. In the decade that followed, it was a difficult task for U.S. officials to get information about American service personnel who had disappeared during the war.

For many Americans, uncertainty about the fate of those who had been considered Missing in Action was an intolerable consequence of the end of the Vietnam conflict. During the administration of President Ronald Reagan, support grew for negotiations that might lead to more information about those who had been lost.

In February, 1986 -- 14 years after his plane was shot down -- U.S. officials were able to make a formal request for information about the fate of Lieutenant Colonel Irwin, during meetings with Vietnamese officials in Hanoi. Nearly two years later, in December, 1987, after a period of further negotiations, a report detailing the facts of the case was forwarded to the Vietnamese for their response.

On July 31, 1989, 17 years after he was last seen alive, the earthly remains of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Irwin were returned to U.S. soil. Befitting his long service to his country and his heroic sacrifice, his remains were interred at Arlington National Cemetery later that year.

And in the grateful memories of those who knew him, and with gratitude for the blessings of Providence on the part of those who know only the stark details of his service, there is some measure of peace, in the quiet warmth of summer in this city by the Hudson, where his journey began.

© Patrick J. Walsh

Source: Library of Congress Vietnam-Era Prisoner-of-War / Missing-in-Action Database (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/pow/)

Yuri Gagarin: A Single Breathtaking Moment

by Patrick J. Walsh

For all the complexity of theory and science and engineering that it required, humanity’s first flight into space remains the story of a man, and a machine.

On April 12, 1961, at 9:07 a m local time, Yuri Gagarin lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Vostok 1, and became the first person in history to fly in space.

The flight was the culmination of years of planning by the Soviet Union, whose political leadership had sought a human spaceflight as proof of the nation’s perceived advantages over its superpower rival, the United States.

The chief figure of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolev, guided the drive toward the first human flight in a climate of intense political pressure, and in the context of the Soviets’ dangerous Cold War confrontation with the U.S.

Vostok 1 was launched by the multi-stage R-7 rocket, which had originally been designed as a weapon of war. Gagarin was a military man, trained with other exceptional recruits of the Soviet military apparatus to carry out a mission whose importance was viewed at the highest levels of the Soviet regime as being primarily military in nature.

But even in the foreboding context of global hostility, the courage Gagarin displayed as a pioneering space explorer was recognized by well-wishers around the world as the telling mark of a hero, at the dawn of a new era in humanity’s exploration of its place in the cosmos.

Gagarin was 27 when he made his historic flight; seven years later, at the age of 34, he would die in a plane crash during a training exercise. He would leave behind a legend far beyond anything he could have imagined as he made his way to the launch pad on that morning of April 12, 1961.

His place now fixed in the memory of history as the bright young man of courage and hope who represented humanity on its first vault into the heavens, Yuri Gagarin has become a part of many individual journeys into space.

The facility where cosmonauts and their fellow spacefarers train for future flights has been named in his honor; members of the Apollo lunar landing missions left mementos bearing his name on the surface of the Moon; and astronauts visiting his homeland have visited his quarters and signed his log before traveling into space with their Russian counterparts.

Perhaps most fitting, there is a famous photo of Yuri Gagarin -- smiling broadly, handsome and vibrant in his military uniform, and holding a dove -- the ultimate expression of his having attained a place far above the conflicts of his time -- that has found its way to a display on the inside of the International Space Station.

Just before his historic flight, Gagarin recorded a brief statement, in which he said, “My whole life is now before me as a single breathtaking moment. I feel I can muster up my strength for successfully carrying out what is expected of me.”

Decades later, the story of humanity’s first flight into space remains the story of a man...

© 2011 Patrick J. Walsh