Col. Fred Cherry

Page 16 | February 28, 2020

Col. Fred

Cherry

At top and background image, the exterior of Col. Fred Cherry Middle School; above, certificate of award of the Air Force Cross to Cherry; opposite page, a file portrait of Cherry.

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BY ALEX PERRY

Staff Writer

Col. Fred Cherry served his country and left a legacy in Suffolk that’s carried on by the students of Col. Fred Cherry Middle School.

Cherry spent his childhood with his poor farming family, attending racially segregated schools in the city. But the Suffolk native would go on to become a colonel in the U.S. Air Force.

He was a career fighter pilot who served in the Korean War, the Cold War and the Vietnam War. Cherry’s awards and decorations include two Purple Hearts, the Silver Star, the Air Force Cross, the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Bronze Stars with Combat V, and more.

The list also includes the Prisoner of War Medal Cherry received after he was held captive in Vietnam for more than seven years. He was the first and highest-ranking black officer to become a prisoner in Vietnam. His fighter-bomber aircraft was shot down on Oct 22, 1965. His parachute opened just 200 feet from the ground, and the impact broke his left shoulder, left ankle and left wrist.

Field workers took his weapons and imprisoned him, and eventually he arrived at “The Zoo,” a prisoner-ofwar camp. He was 37 years old.

Cherry discussed his captivity in a speech he gave during a U.S. Naval War College talk in 2012. The talk described how prisoners were beaten, made to kneel on rocks and other sharp objects, subjected to solitary confinement and more.

“We were severely punished as new arrivals,” Cherry said during the 2012 speech.

His injuries were not treated until he was confined with another prisoner of war, Lt. j.g. Porter Halyburton, who spoke alongside Cherry at the 2012 presentation.

Halyburton said during the 2012 presentation that he pushed the Viet

namese to get treatment for Cherry by telling them he would die if he wasn’t treated.

“I knew they didn’t want that, because we were valuable property,” Halyburton said in 2012.

The North Vietnamese wanted racial tensions between Halyburton, a Southern white man, and Cherry to break them both. Instead, their friendship kept each other alive.

That powerful friendship was chronicled in the book “Two Souls Indivisible: The Friendship That Saved Two POWs in Vietnam,” written by James Hirsch.

“Their time together, seven and a half months, would represent less than 10 percent of their time as prisoners, yet it was the turning point of each man’s captivity,” Hirsch wrote. He also described “the layers of meaning” in Cherry and Halyburton’s “symbiotic friendship.”

“Cherry would have died without his roommate — but in surviving he also rescued Halyburton from his despair,” Hirsch wrote. “Each man inspired the other and helped make that elemental decision, to live or die, easier.”

Cherry was released from captivity on Feb. 12, 1973. He would go on to retire on Sept. 1, 1981, after attending the National War College and being assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency, and having served more than 30 years in the Air Force. He later started his own engineering company.

Cherry died of cardiac disease at the age of 87 on Feb. 16, 2016. He is buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, and his legacy continues at the school that carries his name.

Col. Fred Cherry Middle School opened in Suffolk in fall 2018. The CYBER HAWKS STEM Club — Cherry Youth in Basic Engineering and Robotics — provides opportunities for middle-school students to be engaged in science and technology at

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an early age.

There are 15 students in the club as of the 2019-2020 school year, according to seventh-grade science teacher and club sponsor Leslie Bulger. The club’s robotics team competed in the FIRST LEGO League competition last year, as well as the and Sea, Air and Land Challenge.

“Using robotics, such as LEGO Mindstorms Systems, in a hands-on laboratory environment, helps to promote various skills that are useful preparation for future careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” Bulger wrote in an email.

These activities are assisted by the Friends of Col. Fred V. Cherry, an organization co-founded by philanthropists Leah Gottlieb and Robert Stephens to support the club’s activities, and to preserve Cherry’s legacy in Suffolk.

“The Friends of Col. Fred V. Cherry was formed in 2018 to encourage and advocate for the preservation of Col. Cherry’s legacy, love for learning and the sciences, and to provide a forum where diverse audiences can actively participate in cultural and academic experiences,” according to an email from Stephens.

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