THE WALL OF FACES

Although we never met personally, I want to thank you Captain Mary Therese Klinker, for your courageous and valiant service, faithful contribution, and most holy sacrifice, given to this great country of ours!

Your Spirit is alive--and strong, therefore, you shall never be forgotten, nor has your death been in vain!

Again, job well done, Captain!

REST IN ETERNAL PEACE MY FRIEND

Mary, I was impressed when I read about your service to our country. I would love to experience being a military nurse, and further more I would love to work with the orphans like you did. I thank you for carrying out your American duty and giving people like me someone to look up to. I thank you and remember you.

Mary Klinker,
I have been to the "Wall" twice to see my pilots names that are two lines down and to the right of your name. Each time I was there I met someone that was there for you. It seemed like they were both from Indiana. As you were lost in the end of the war that devistating April 1975 so were my pilots. They were Captain William Nystul & Lt. Michael Shea the last two people to die in the Vietnam War 29 april 1975.
I came back they didn't. We were assembled as a Task Force of helicopters to evacuate Phnom Phen Cambodia & Saigon South Vietnam. I remember the crash of your Babylift flight. It made us Marines very angry and more determined. 25 days later as my helo touched down on the USS Hancock, our last mission to the embassy completed, they announced over the ships intercom that the Vietnam War was over.
In 1986 I made it to the wall and saw your name and spoke with the person there that came to see you. After we talked I said that my pilots were in good company on the wall close to you.
You saved so many children. I had 23 in my chopper once. You are gone but you gave so others may live.
Rest in Peace
Earl Burks

IN MEMORY OF THESE EIGHT NURSES
WHO DIED WHILE SERVING THEIR
COUNTRY IN THE ARMED FORCES
OF THE UNITED STATES IN VIETNAM


ELEANOR GRACE ALEXANDER

PAMELA DOROTHY DONOVAN

CAROL ANN DRAZBA

ANNIE RUTH GRAHAM

ELIZABETH ANN JONES

MARIE THERESE KLINKER

SHARON ANN LANE

HEDWIG DIANE ORLOWSKI



YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN
NOR SHALL YOU EVER BE



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


IN MEMORY OF THESE CIVILIAN WOMEN
WHO DIED IN SUPPORT OF THE
ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES


BARBARA E. ADAMS

EVELYN ANDERSON

CLARA BAYOT

NOVA BELL

ARLETA BERTWELL

HELEN BLACKBURN

ANN BOTTORFF

CELESTE BROWN

SUZAN CANTON

ELIZABETH CARNEY

GEORGETTE CHAPELLE

VIVIENNE CLARK

WANITA CREEL

HANNAH E. CREWS

MARY ANN CROUCH

DOROTHY M. CURTISS

TWILA DONELSON

HELEN DRYE

MARY LYN EICHEN

ELIZABETH FUGINIO

RUTHANNE GASPER

CAROLYN GRISWOLD

BEVERLY HERBERT

PENELOPE HINDMAN

VERA S. HOLLIBAUGH

DOROTHY HOWARD

BARBARA KAVULIA

VIRGINIA E. KIRSCH

BEATRIE KOSIN

BARBARA MAIER

JANIE A. MAKEL

REBECCA MARTIN

SARA MARTINI

MARTHA MIDDLEBROOK

KATHERINE MOORE

MARTA MOSCHKIN

ROSALIN MUSKAT

BETTY ANN OLSEN

DOROTHY PHILLIPS

MARION P. POLGREAN

JUNE POULTON

JOAN K. PRAY

SAYONNA K. RANDALL

ANNE REYNOLDS

LUCINDA RICHTER

BARBARA ROBBINS

PHILIPPA SCHUYLER

MARJORIE SNOW

BARBARA STOUT

MRS. THOMPSON

DR. ELEANOR ARDEL VIETTI

DORIS JEAN WATKINS

RUTH WHILTING


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

DR. ELEANOR ARDEL VIETTI, A CIVILIAN MEDICAL
DOCTOR, WHO WAS TAKEN PRISONER ON
MEMORIAL DAY IN 1962 IS STILL LISTED AS
MISSING IN ACTION / PRISONER OF WAR
BUT IS NOW PRESUMED TO HAVE DIED

SHE WAS A 30-YEAR-OLD DOCTOR ATTACHED TO
THE ALLIANCE OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND MISSIONS
AND WAS WORKING IN THE LEPROSARIUM AT
BAN ME THUOT IN VIETNAM

The Spring of 1975 was a time of terror and uncertainty in South Vietnam. Its Army, denied further American support, was disintegrating before North Vietnamese attacks in the Central Highlands. By the start of April the Saigon government was on the brink of collapse. On April 3, President Ford directed the USAF to begin flying over 2000 orphans, many under the care of an American-operated hospital in Saigon, to refuge in the United States.

"OPERATION BABYLIFT" got underway the next day. At Clark Air Force Base in the Phillipines, a Saigon bound C5A 'GALAXY' picked up a medical team headed by Flight Nurse LIEUTENANT REGINA AUNE. The giant cargo aircraft was not equipped for medical evacuation, its cockpit crew had never flown such a mission, and none of the medical team had been in a C5A before. On the way to Saigon, Aune and her team were briefed on the plane's facilities and systems. The Lieutenant planned to put her small patients, some of whom were very ill and some only a few months old, on the upper deck, which had seats and emergency oxygen masks.

When the aircraft commander, CAPTAIN DENNIS TRAYNOR, landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Aune discovered that she would have about 250 orphans and several sick adults to care for on the flight back to Clark AFB. Many of them would have to ride in makeshift accomodations on the lower cargo deck. A five-person medical team from a C141 volunteered to assist in the care for the unexpectedly large number of children on the flight. When all were aboard, Aune stationed Flight Nurse CAPTAIN MARY THERESE KLINKER, and two medical technicians on the lower deck, where work would be more difficult.

A few minutes out of Saigon, Aune climbed the ladder to the upper deck to get medicine for a patient. As she started back an explosion blew off the giant aircraft's rear pressure door, and a large section of the loading ramp aft of the cargo compartment. Decompression was instantaneous filling the fuselage with fog, dust and swirling objects. The flight crew immediately turned back toward Saigon and began a rapid descent from above 23000 feet. Two hydraulic systems were out, and most of the control cables had been cut when the cargo door blew away, leaving them only engine power to regulate the plane's pitch.

They brought the aircraft back to within two miles of Tan Son Nhut, where they first touched down in a rice paddy at 270 knots. The huge plane finally came to rest a half mile beyond touchdown, broken into four sections.

Aune, who was in the main aisle at the time of impact, was hurled the length of the upper deck compartment. In the shock and confusion of the crash she realized that her right foot was badly broken and she lay bleeding heavily from cuts in her left arm and leg. Dragging herself off the deck she checked the condition of her passengers, opened an emergency exit and began helping the crew and medics to remove children from the shattered C5A ' GALAXY '. The wreckage lay in waist-deep water and mud, saturated with aviation fuel. Nearby were burning parts of the plane so one spark could turn everything into an inferno.

Within five minutes rescue helicopters from Saigon arrived and, unable to land on the sodden ground, hovered close above the debris. Aune, together with the crewmembers, waded again and again through the mud to the hovering choppers, their arms full with terrified children.

At a Saigon hospital it was discovered that Aune, in addition to deep lacerations and her injured foot, had a fractured foot and a broken bone in her back.

Back at the crash site it was discovered that the cargo compartment was completely destroyed, killing 141 of the 149 orphans and attendants. Only three of the 152 in the upper deck troop compartment perished. Five of the flight crew, three of the medical team and three others perished, including
MARY THERESE KLINKER, but 175 of the 328 onboard that fateful day made it.

In October 1976 CAPTAIN REGINA AUNE stood in the office of the Chief of Staff of the Unites States Air Force, GENERAL DAVID C. JONES, to receive the CHENEY AWARD for 1975, recognizing an act of valor "in humanitarian interest performed in connection with aircraft".

She became the first and only woman to ever earn this honor.

She felt in accepting the award she represented the entire crew aboard the
C5A ' GALAXY ', including the eleven who perished in the crash.

In a sense, that was true but none of the eighteen surviving crewmembers,
all of whom were decorated for heroism, deserved to be honored more than she.



WAR DREW US FROM OUR HOMELAND IN THE SUNLIT SPRINGTIME OF OUR YOUTH. THOSE WHO DID NOT COME BACK ALIVE REMAIN IN PERPETUAL SPRINGTIME - FOREVER YOUNG - AND A PART OF THEM IS WITH US ALWAYS.





YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN
NOR SHALL YOU EVER BE