News-Info-Alerts

Re: A Bittersweet Memorial Day

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: May 26, 2003

"Memorial Day, 2003: A family finally comes to terms with the death of their Vietnam hero

Monday, May 26, 2003

By Milan Simonich, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Navy pilot Michael Estocin was one day shy of 36 when he vanished on a combat mission in Vietnam. Another 36 years have passed since then.

His legend has seemed to grow in each of them.

Eleven years after Estocin disappeared, he was awarded the Medal of Honor. Then the Navy named a ship after him. As each winter softens into spring, scholarships in his name are handed out to bright Western Pennsylvania kids heading off to college.

All the glory was bittersweet for Estocin's parents and siblings in Turtle Creek and his wife and three daughters in San Diego. Memorial Day -- when dead servicemen from all wars are remembered -- was only bitter. That's because Estocin's family spent years resisting the idea that he was dead.

The U.S. government had listed Estocin as a prisoner of war after he vanished on April 26, 1967. Then it said it had made a mistake and declared him dead, a ruling that became official Nov. 10, 1977.

This confusion -- coupled with one eyewitness account of Estocin's jet fading into a bank of clouds and then landing -- seemed to create a reason for optimism. Now it is gone.

"I have given up hope that he's alive," said Estocin's wife, Marie, 66. "In my heart, I feel very strongly that he is gone."

Estocin's brother, John, one of his four living siblings, has reached a similar state of mind.

Mike Estocin would be 72 now. Prisoners of war were liberated 30 years ago, yet there was no trace of Estocin then or after. The idea that he could still be alive somewhere in Vietnam feels too far-fetched to hold onto any longer.

"I don't kid myself," said John Estocin, 62. "Now, I kind of hope he died that day."

Mike Estocin took himself out of sick bay to fly his final mission, the one that most likely killed him. His hands had been badly burned six days earlier, on April 20, 1967, when he led an air strike on enemy power plants in Haiphong, North Vietnam.

Estocin single-handedly destroyed three missile sites before being hit by return fire. He saved himself with a fiery, painful landing on his unit's aircraft carrier, the USS Ticonderoga.

Scheduled to return home in a matter of days, he could have rested in sick bay and no one would have complained. Lt. Cmdr. Estocin, with three tours in Vietnam, had more than done his part. Plus, Marie and their three girls, ages 2 to 7, were waiting for him.

But Estocin loved to fly and he felt duty-bound to take another crack at the Haiphong power plants. He persuaded Navy commanders to let him out of bed so he could fly the mission on April 26.

Estocin was a hard man to turn down. He always seemed to be at his peak, physically and emotionally. Broad of shoulder, he stood 5 feet 8 inches tall and his waist still measured 28 inches, as it had when he was a teenager.

He joined the Navy in 1954, after graduating from what is now Slippery Rock University. Intelligent and intense, he competed successfully with Naval Academy graduates for coveted pilot slots.

So it was natural that Estocin would want to be with "the world famous Golden Dragons" of Attack Squadron 192 when they returned to Haiphong.

The second mission went no smoother than the first, as the Navy fliers met stiff resistance. A missile ripped into Estocin's A4 Skyhawk. But his wingman in an accompanying aircraft made the hit sound less than dire, saying Estocin was sitting erect when his plane disappeared under clouds.

This statement helped feed the notion that Estocin had survived and been taken as a prisoner of war. Years later, an eyewitness to the mission would write in the book "On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam" that Estocin's jet had crashed and blown up.

Marie Estocin did not know what to believe. But for years she forged ahead with the idea that Mike was a prisoner of the Viet Cong. Twice she traveled to the Paris peace talks to inquire about her husband's whereabouts in Vietnam. She got nowhere.

Dick Stratton, a family friend and fellow Navy man, was freed from a POW camp in 1973. The grapevine in the camps was strong, but Stratton told her that neither he nor any other American servicemen had seen Estocin or heard a word about him. Stratton's sober assessment dimmed her hopes.

The war in Vietnam ended in 1975, but the Estocin family in Turtle Creek was determined to keep pressure on the U.S. government, just in case Mike or other servicemen had somehow been left behind. They declared Mike a write-in candidate in the 1976 Pennsylvania presidential primary to call attention to U.S. personnel still missing in action.

The following November, 10 1/2 years after Estocin vanished, the Navy ruled that he was dead, listing him as killed in action. Even so, the U.S. Defense Department began focusing more attention on him and his final two missions.

Estocin's selflessness in leaving sick bay to volunteer for one last mission had gone largely unnoticed by military brass in the chaotic days of 1967. The Navy belatedly rectified that oversight.

He was awarded the Medal of Honor, America's highest award for bravery, by order of President Carter in 1978. Next year, the Navy named a guided-missile frigate after Estocin.

To the family's dismay, the USS Estocin was decommissioned last month and sold to the Turks. But the story of Mike Estocin lives on in other ways.

An alcove at Slippery Rock carries his name, and an A4 was dedicated to him. Other remembrances are more personal.

Marie kept cassette tapes of messages he sent home from war. As the years rolled by, she began sharing them with their daughters, Kathy, Jane and Suzie. One said: "Girls, listen to your mother and grow up to be good little citizens."

Marie says that is exactly what they have done.

Widowed at 29, she never remarried. Time has lessened the pain of Mike's absence.

"The worst part was never knowing what happened, but I'm not sensitive about it anymore. I'm proud of him," she said.

They met on a blind date and had nine years together. With serenity now on her side, Marie feels grateful that he was part of her life.

She also is secure in the knowledge that he died doing what he wanted to do, even if much of America had no use for the war in Vietnam.

"He loved to fly. I always said I had no competition, not another woman, just an airplane, and that I could handle."

Memorial Day has become less painful for the Estocins. Now they focus not so much on Mike's death, but on the way he lived.

Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1956.

©1997-2003 PG Publishing Co., Inc. "