The Search for Audie Murphey May 28, 1971 Awardrd the Medal Of Honor 1945

[wingnut55]

This Memorial Day I will be thinking of our Friends and Family gone but some you remember the day Audie Murphey went missing during Memorial day weekend 1971. I Deeply respect and Honor Major Murphey.  Yet my most vivid memory is my Dad leaving at 4:30am to fly across Ohio to and West Virginia to look for Murphey's plane.

I remember  the frustration I had as a Cadet having to stay behind. I remember the anguish that was reverberating throughout the country when they found him dead in the wreckage in Virginia. Our country remember Audie Murphey of the millions of young men gone to war as children and come back changed forever.

I will never forge the look on my fathers face when he came back, sullen, withdrawn. You see, My father was a veteran of both the Army and the Navy in WWII, later he volunteered for Korea. Watching him in CAP, he certainly disliked Buffoon officers and Military bureaucracy but he loved his CAP friends and his last wish was to be buried in His Uniform as a CAP Captain. I honor him and all of my friends who have served and continue to serve our great Country.

[wingnut55]

Just after noon on May 28, 1971, during Memorial Day weekend, Murphy was killed when his private plane crashed into Brush Mountain, (Virginia), near Catawba, Virginia, 20 miles west of Roanoke. The pilot and four other passengers were also killed.In 1974, a large granite memorial marker was erected near the crash site. A close friend, Captain Carl Swickerath (who is now buried directly in front of Murphy), represented the Murphy family at the dedication.

On June 7, 1971, Murphy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with a full-honors ceremony. The official U.S. representative at the ceremony was the decorated World War II veteran and future President George H. W. Bush. Murphy's gravesite is in Section 46, located across Memorial Drive from the Amphitheater. A special flagstone walkway was later constructed to accommodate the large number of people who visit to pay their respects.It is the second most-visited gravesite, after that of President John F. Kennedy.

The headstones of Arlington's Medal of Honor recipients are normally decorated in gold leaf, but Murphy had requested that his stone remain plain and inconspicuous, as would be the case with an ordinary soldier

[Spike]

I honor him and all of my friends who have served and continue to serve our great Country.

That is what the memorial holiday is supposed to be about.  It is great to get together with family and friends and remember those that we have lost and those that are in harms way today, tomorrow and in the future.

I rent the Officers Club at my local Air Force Base and open the club up (and the ballfields and pool) to families of deployed service men and women for free food and drinks every Memorial Day.  Last year we had just around 200 people attend, this year it should be double that.  I will post pictures of the event next week.  In connecting my event to the subject of the thread, one of the Ballfields is the Audie Murphey memorial field.

I have the local VFW, MOAA Chapter, and American Legion donate their time and money to pay for the event, and my company pays the remainder.   This year we have a Chaplain who served in Vietnam, the First Gulf War, OIF, OEF and Afghanistan giving a presentation on the memorial day holiday.  It will be great!   

wingnut......thanks for the information on Major Murphey!  It is very interesting to learn that CAP went out to locate him. 

[Ranger75]

Almost 40 years ago  --  I recall working the mission as a cadet member of a ground team in Maryland Wing.  If my memory serves me correctly, the Wing had been called out following a period of severe weather that had led to localized flooding in western Maryland, and that, while conducting DR tasks, we also pursued the missing aircraft.  I do remember scouring on foot a number of ridgelines that characterize the western reaches of Maryland.  Of all the missions in which I have participated, I can not recall another in which I was so anxious that we make the find and account for a save.  I regret that that was not to be. 

[LtCol057]

Ranger75, I worked that mission as a cadet also. Since I was a relatively new cadet, I worked as a runner for the comm section.  I remember my CC calling me and telling me we had a REDCAP. He picked me up and we went to a mission base that had been set up at Easton, MD.  The comm section was set up in a GP medium tent. I never did get a chance to go into the field for that mission.  Spent 2 days at the Easton mission base. 

[Ranger75]

If I'm not recalling the events of two different REDCAPs, this was the occassion that our ground team was also employed kicking bales of hay out of a MDARNG UH1H to stranded cattle that had found their way to small areas of high ground to escape the flood waters.  I believe we worked the mission base out of an old farm house just off the end of the runway at Frederick Airport.  What I do remember is that this was my first mission that extended beyond a single weekend.  I had almost forgotten the thrill of a young cadet receiving a call in the middle of the night stating REDCAP and to muster at o'dark-thirty at our GTL's apartment complex where our team vehicle was kept.  Those times were, for me, the first awaking of a sense of duty and responsibility. 

[Spike]

I had almost forgotten the thrill of a young cadet receiving a call in the middle of the night stating REDCAP and to muster at o'dark-thirty at our GTL's apartment complex where our team vehicle was kept.  Those times were, for me, the first awaking of a sense of duty and responsibility.

Ah.....memories.  Being young and doing things our friends couldn't even begin to understand.

I feel so old now.