Friday, July 28, 2017
THE OFFICIAL DAILY NEWSPAPER OF EAA AIRVENTURE OSHKOSH
www.EAA.org/airventure
Apollo Program Workers Were ‘In it For the Long Run’ BY BARBARA A. SCHMITZ
PHOTO BY TYSON RININGER
Give Vietnam Vets the Welcome Home They Deserve BY BARBARA A. SCHMITZ
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. Mike Brautigam and Randy Wellens didn’t have much of a welcome when they returned from Vietnam. But nearly 50 years later, Mike, Randy, and 103 other Vietnam veterans will get the homecoming they deserve. The Yellow Ribbon Honor Flight, partnered with EAA and American Airlines, took off early this morning for Washington, D.C., with 105 Vietnam veterans and 55 guardians, medical volunteers, organizers, and others, according to Diane MacDonald, a founding board member and organizer. Diane said the veterans will visit
memorials, Arlington National Cemetery, and the Smithsonian’s Price of Freedom exhibit, all while under police escorts so they can cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. The veterans will also have time to interact with each other, eat lunch and dinner, and be back in Oshkosh around 6 p.m. for a welcome home ceremony on the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh grounds. “We train our guardians to lend a listening ear, and to give the veterans some space so they can reflect,” Diane said. Half of the group from Northeastern Wisconsin was stationed stateside, and the other half were in Vietnam.
VETERANS PARADE AT 2 P.M. TODAY The annual Parade of Veterans will be held at 2 p.m. today, and all veterans in attendance are invited to assemble and walk with their respective branches of service to the flightline. The parade starts in Warbird Alley, continues down the flightline, and ends on Boeing Plaza for a special welcome and opening of the afternoon air show.
While they had different experiences, most know someone close to them who died while on duty, she said. Mike served in Vietnam for a year until May 1968. Although he was trained for the infantry in the U.S. Army, his job changed as soon as he arrived in Southeast Asia. “The regiment I was assigned to had lost 15 people the day before,” he said. Instead, he was assigned to an armored personnel carrier, working primarily as a driver. When he arrived back in in California, there was no family or friends to meet him. He was issued new underwear, fatigues and a dress uniform, and advised not to go home wearing his uniform, if he didn’t want to be spit on or cussed at. “In fact, they had to advance me my pay so I could go to the Post Exchange and buy civilian clothes,” he recalled.
VETERANS / PAGE 3
THOSE WHO WORKED behind the scenes to design and build the Apollo spacecraft cherished and celebrated their successes, and vowed to learn from their failures. John Boynton, of Houston, worked as a mission engineer, planning lunar missions. He started in 1960, when less than 200 people were working on the project, and said there was only one time he cried: the day Neil Armstrong first stepped off the lunar landing module and onto the moon. John said he watched on the screen as Neil jumped onto the lunar surface. “I had a rush of emotion,” he recalled. “We worked our tail off continuously for nine years and we finally did it.” Both John and Fred Peters, of Las Vegas, worked with North American Aviation, which later merged with Rockwell. Fred said they worked many long days. “The aerospace industry had the highest divorce rate of any industry in the country then,” he said. “We worked all the time and women were doing everything, including bringing up the kids.”
PHOTO BY JACK FLEETWOOD
John Boynton worked as a mission engineer for the Apollo program. Those involved in the program met Thursday to reminisce.
APOLLO / PAGE 4