Photo By Lt. Col. Ireka Sanders | Col. Peter N. Benchoff and Command Sgt. Maj. John Brady pay tribute, to the 248...... read more read more
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FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. – Many gathered Friday to remember the 248 Soldiers - noncommissioned officers and officers from units across this division, the majority from 3rd Battalion of the 502nd Infantry Regiment - who lost their lives Dec. 12, 1985, in a plane crash at Gander, Newfoundland. The troops were returning home from a six-month peacekeeping mission in Sinai, Egypt, as part of the Multinational Force and Observers.
This year marks the 29th anniversary of that heartbreaking winter day. There were several memorial ceremonies Friday, not only at Fort Campbell, but across the world.
“There is no more important task that we as Soldiers and citizens can perform, than to remember our fallen who gave their lives in defense of their country. We lost brothers of our Strike brigade family, but today’s ceremony is witness, they and their sacrifice are not forgotten,” said Col. Peter N. Benchoff, commander, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), at the Fort Campbell Gander Memorial Ceremony, where 248 Strike Soldiers stood in formation as tribute to each of the fallen Soldiers.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Mickael Cruz remembered his late father, Staff Sgt. Francisco Cruz Salgado. Cruz was 8 years old when his father died 29 years ago on Arrow Flight 1285 at Gander. Today he is honoring his father with his military service.
"I wanted to serve to finish off what he didn't finish,” Cruz said. "He didn't get to finish his career in 20 years. I want to finish my service through him."
"When I got here [Fort Campbell]," said Cruz, "the first thing I wanted to do was go to Air Assault School because he [Cruz’s father] was Air Assault.”
Cruz graduated Dec. 11, 2006. He took the wings they gave him at school and pinned them onto his father’s tree, where they still are today.
A somber memorial ceremony was also held in Sinai, Egypt.
“This tragic loss of 248 American warriors and its eight crew members reminds us all that no mission is truly accomplished until the last Soldier has successfully reintegrated back at home station,” said 2nd Lt. Jonathan Bobb, assigned to Task Force Sinai, and the Multinational Force and Observers. “Perhaps no other event in its peacetime history has so wrenched the soul and torn at the heart of the U.S. Army as the Gander tragedy, which ranked as the worst military air disaster in the nation’s history.”
Also at the ceremony in Egypt, Col. Clark Lindner, Task Force Sinai commander and chief of staff for the Multinational Force and Observers, alongside his senior enlisted adviser, Command Sgt. Maj. Alexis Shelton, laid a wreath at the base of a marble memorial bearing the names of all who perished in the crash.
After placing the wreath at the base of the memorial, Lindner addressed the audience which had gathered.
“While in the years since, the loss of life has become all too commonplace, with more than 6,843 Soldiers giving their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is important to remember that every life is precious, a gift,” said Lindner to a parade field full of service members from 14 different nations. “We cannot know why their lives were cut short, but we can honor their memory by the way in which we live our own lives.”
Wreaths were also laid in remembrance of the fallen at Fort Campbell, Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Gander, Newfoundland and Arlington National Cemetery.
Former Spc. David W. Mooty, of Headquarters Headquarter Company, 3rd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, was still in Sinai 29 years ago waiting to redeploy when he heard about the crash.
“There was a mandatory battalion formation called,” Mooty recalled. “Our battalion XO asked us to gather around him, quite unusual for a battalion formation but certainly appropriate for what he was about to say. We were all in shock.”
Twenty-nine years later, it appears that the tragedy has created a band of brothers who continue to gather together in remembrance of what many commonly refer to now as Gander.
“We pick up right where we left off,” said Mooty. “Great people and we are all proud of the time we have spent serving our country and at Fort Campbell.”
Every year since the tragedy, the men and women of Fort Campbell, Sinai, Egypt, and Gander, Newfoundland, ensure the lives of these fallen Soldiers are never forgotten during ceremonies held in honor of the lives lost. Dec. 12, 2015, will be the 30th anniversary of the Gander crash.
| Date Taken: | 12.12.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 12.17.2014 12:33 |
| Story ID: | 150540 |
| Location: | FORT CAMPBELL, KY, US |
| Web Views: | 126 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Fallen Soldiers remembered around the world, by SFC Eric Abendroth and LTC Ireka Sanders, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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