Memorial Day Tribute to TSgt Clyde B. Alloway

A Memorial Tribute to Technical Sgt. Clyde B. Alloway, a long-ago friend, fellow aircrew member and comrade in arms, who didn't make it back from Vietnam:

After almost 43 years, my general recollection of Vietnam is 3 months of "learning the job," 6 months of "cowboys and Indians," and 3 months of a “guy could get killed doing this." What I do remember quite vividly, however, is the night of June 6th, 1970; the night we lost TSgt Clyde B. Alloway during an AC-119K Gunship emergency bailout after takeoff from DaNang Air Base.

The following poem was written as a tribute to Clyde in 1982 for a 4th of July POW/MIA speech [which can pretty much be summed up: "There are no good wars, only good men!" (a line mentioned during the talk a reporter asked to use)] I was honored make:

To One Left Behind

To one left Behind,
Who lives on in my mind;
To one I left there,
Beyond worry and care;
Who lives on in my heart,
And from whom I can’t part.
Though not with me here,
He has nothing to fear,
His duty is done,
And mine only begun;
For though gone from my sight,
I’ll still carry his light;
Nor forget what he’s done,
As a true, faithful son.

1982 Rich Hay

[Rich Note: Have to admit feeling a lot like the aged Private Ryan did at the end of "Saving Private Ryan," at least with regard to the 40 plus years of life I have been blessed to live since that “long ago night when our plane and crew went down and one of us didn’t make it home."]