Real Texas Memorial Day

My Memorial Day has a name attached to it.

I still remember him well.  His name is Robert Worth and he died in a helicopter crash in Vietnam on December 19, 1970.

Robert was an All American boy. He liked to work on cars, he was a talented athlete, and he was fun to be around. He worked in the back shop of the letterpress newspaper office with me and my dad. Robert was a grade ahead of me in school, but in my small school, that made little difference.

I taught Robert how to ‘throw back’ the grocery ad and other type that was handset by my dad. Robert worked at the newspaper office nearly every day after school. I had football practice, basketball practice, track and baseball to occupy me immediately after school. So, most of my time at the newspaper office was after practice and on weekends.  I would join him there after practice.

Wednesday nights were the longest. That was the night we produced the newspaper. It was my job to pick up a big load of broadsheet newsprint, haul it up to the top of the old flatbed press, and feed it just right into the grippers so it could go around the drum and impact with the inked type to produce a printed page. Robert sat at the back of the press on a little stool and caught the pages as they were lifted off the press and deposited in a pile. After that, he or I would gather them and take the broadsheets and feed them into the folder. My dad oversaw it all, but he had a lot of confidence we were doing it right.

Then the chases full of type had to be dissembled and thrown carefully back into their respective bins to be used again next week. Robert worked at the newspaper office after school for around two years. It was during this time I got to know him.  I have to admit, he was a lot nicer guy than me.  

He could do two and a half flips off the low board….something I could never do. He could also take an old car apart and put it back together…which he did often. He was talented in so many ways I was not, that I had much admiration for him. I kept a small wooden jet boat he built by hand for a long time before it just disintegrated. Think of the movie American Graffitti and you would find Robert among those who worked on their cars and lived the typical teenager life.

Then he graduated.   He joined the Navy right out of high school in 1966, but he was more than just a sailor on a ship. He was officially listed as an Aviation Machinist. He participated in the recovery of at least two Apollo Astronaut mission recovery projects. He was a member of the Seawolf detachment, a unit that was highly decorated for combat missions. He was a crew member on a helicopter and was often a door gunner in combat.

His helicopter apparently hit the ground inverted and killed all aboard.  It was at a place called Kien Long, about 135 miles south of Saigon.

His young wife called me and asked me to be a pall burier at his funeral. That has stuck with me all these years. We were so young we didn’t even know the proper terms for those who were bearers of the caskets.

If he were alive today, he would be one of the old guys driving a Corvette or some other fast car.  But he is forever young…..

There are many reasons to remember Memorial Day, I just have a name and a face and some very real memories associated with my Memorial Day.

You may want to go look at a the ‘Virtual Wall’ of those killed in that Asian War so many years ago, the war of my youth which is so different than the wars of today’s youth.  You can find the name of Robert Worth there.  You can also find the name of one you might remember….one who is still forever young……

I’m David out in Real Texas

I still remember…..

Tagged as: david werst, memorial day, Real Texas Blog, Robert Worth, Vietnam War