This past Saturday I attended a dedication ceremony in Halls,Tennessee at the Veteran's Museum.
Retired Lt. General John G. Castellaw(from this area) headed up a group trying to get a CH-46 Sea Knight for our museum. He along with so many others including Fed Ex and Boeing actually pulled this off.
Halls High School Band played several patriotic songs but the Marine corps League Bagpipes played the different songs of the 5 services. After the beginning of each song the former members of that branch of service stood to applause. There wasn't many of us Air Force guys but we outnumbered the coast guard.
General Castellaw was our master of ceremonies and after the Presentation of Colors and the National Anthem sang by Miss Tennessee finalist Sarah Taylor Argo we hadthe invocation by Chaplain John Compere.
In case you are not familiar with the Sea Knight it is also called the Chanook or the "Frog".
A couple of important civilians were introduced and spoke to the crowd who were also instrumental in getting this helicopter moved from the west coast to west Tennessee. They were Paul Cassel, senior vice president, air operations at Fed Express and William Cusato, director of west coast maintenance at Fed Express. A lot of money was raised but there was a whole lot more that was lacking but generiosly covered by Federal Express and the Boeing Company. Not one penny of tax payer dollars was used for this project.
Two other generals flew in on two different MV 22 Ospreys. They flew to our area in about two hours from New River Air Station which is close to Cherry Point North Carolina.
All of these generals were either retired or active duty Marine Corps.
Maj General Jon Davis, USMC 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing was introduced to us and he spent a few minutes helping us remember how important the men and women and their equipment is to our freedoms.
After General Davis were were introduced to Maj General Ray Fox, USMC, Commanding General, Training & Education. He spoke to us for a few minutes also.
Following him we were introduced to Lt General Fred McCorkle, USMC (retired). General McCorkle flew over 1500 missions in the CH-46 including several in this very helicopter. General McCorkle is known as the million dollar man as he had 4 of these helicopters shot out from under him in Vietnam.
The CH-46 has been the mainstay for Marine Corps aviation since the 60's but the MV-22 "Osprey" is beginning to overtake it as the preferred platform of the Marine Corps.
In case you haven't figured out I was in awe of the Generals and prior service members who were in attendance.
To me this is Military History at its finest and I will never forget what took place.
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