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Re: Vietnam Pilot Remembered 35 Years Later

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: May 24, 2003

"Vietnam Vet Honored 35 Years Later
Wes Sarginson reports on a service in Clayton County that honored a Vietnam Veteran.


This weekend, those Americans who fought, those who were wounded and those who lost their lives will be honored.

But every year at this time, there is a special ceremony for veterans of a war who felt they did not come home to a hero’s welcome.

As a consequence, they have taken it upon themselves to find their heroes and give them the send-off they deserved.

Navy Capt. Frank Fullerton took from the aircraft carrier Bonhomme Richard off of the coast of north Vietnam in July of 1968. He was the flight leader in a group of A-4 Skyhawks. The mission was to bomb north Vietnamese supply trucks.
He rolled in on the target, lit it up and almost instantly his plane disappeared in a fiery crash.

His widow Margie remembered the day she and their three children got the word.
"It was the base captain, the chaplain and the skipper’ss wife, so when you see those three come to your door, you know it’s a problem,” she said.

Fullerton’s roommate, who later became an admiral, got the lonely task of boxing up his friend’s belongings to send home.

His flight commander choked up just saying his name at Thursday’s ceremony at the Justice Center in Clayton County. He later talked about trying to find the crash site.

“We flew the next day as soon as daylight came at tree top level over the area looking for a crash site," USN Commander Tom Schaaf (Ret.) said.

They hoped that he maybe bailed out and was captured, but the s.o.s. radio all pilots carried never went off. For a while, he was listed as Missing in Action. It was later changed to Killed in Action.

There is now a memento on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. and 35 years later, there was a memorial service in his hometown of Jonesboro, Ga.
It took a long time but the Vietnam Veterans Businessman’s Association finally wrote the last chapter in the life of Navy Lt. Commander Frank Eugene Fullerton of Clayton County.

It is the 17th year in a row they have chosen to memorialize one of their own.

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