RONALD JAMES FEGAN
February 11, 1941 – April 9, 1965
ENS - O1 - Navy - Reserve
Casualty was on Apr 9, 1965
In COMMUNIST CHINA
Hostile, died while missing, FIXED WING - CREW
AIR LOSS, CRASH AT SEA
Body was not recovered
Vietnam Memorial Wall - Panel 01E - Line 103
“The first air-to-air kill of the war did not actually
involve the North Vietnamese at all. It was in a battle
on April 9, 1965, when F-4Bs from VF-96 operating off the
USS Ranger (CVA-61) encountered some Chinese MiG-17s near
Hainan Island. F-4B BuNo 151403 crewed by Lt(jg) Terence
M. Murphy and Ensign Ronald J. Fegan shot down a MiG-17,
but was then lost in action almost immediately thereafter.
What actually happened is sort of mysterious. BuNo 151403
may have indeed been shot down by another Chinese MiG-17,
or it may have actually been an "own goal", hit by a
Sparrow fired from another U.S. Navy Phantom. The incident
was not reported in the news media at the time, lest the
People's Republic of China be antagonized.”
Another Memorial Day –
Remembering Ronny Fegan by having a conversation with him
about the times that have passed since those crazy, happy,
innocent days we spent during our Pre-Flight School at Naval
Air Station, Pensacola, Florida January to April 1964.
Well, Ronny, it’s another Memorial Day (it’s now 2008) and
it’s been awhile since that last letter I sent you in May
of 1965 from NAS Brunswick, Maine - wow, that’s forty-three
years ago this month!
I’m sorry that you didn’t get to read my letter but, how was
I to know that you had been shot down only the month before,
until my letter was returned, with the single word, “Deceased,”
scrawled, at a sharp angle, across the front of the envelope?
That’s all it said, “Deceased,” and I didn’t even know how to
find anyone to ask about you or where to send my sympathies
to someone who might have loved you or even knew you.
Yes, our little war is now forgotten; another’s in its place.
The years passed quickly and nearly everyone forgot about our
little war until that emotional haunting (hunting?) Wall was
built on The National Mall, the nation’s sacred trophy space.
You may be interested, though, because that Wall is not a trophy
– it is a knife, a sharp one, that cuts through the nation’s heart
and the country’s blood is sadly still freshly flowing.
The blood that flows now is from yet another kind of jungle from
yet another generation and, naturally, its genesis is from yet
more old grey men (like I am now!) who can never seem to understand
terror’s real source.*
Yes, our little war is now forgotten; another’s in its place.
Also you might be comforted to know that guilt finally caught up
with that brightest of the bright – McNamara ‘fessed up his sins
with great remorse but old Kissinger’s totally unrepentant.
All our buddies are now old or dead or worse – with some still
living in that tragic past hell that is in their hearts and heads,
day and night, and that will be their fate forever.
I know you don’t know this present lot – just more old grey men,
asking all those youngsters to give their all and those same old
grey men often confusing or forgetting the very reason for their
asking.
Yes, our little war is now forgotten; another’s in its place.
We did have some fun, didn’t we? We looked everywhere for girls
(they were called girls then, not women!) – we looked at the Officers’
Club, in the bars out on the beach; hell, we were even successful
looking at church on Sundays!
Yes, we had some success - but why wouldn’t we have had success? –
we were young (and not too bad looking) and we had all the Bud and
Jack that we could then metabolize - a lot!
We even had the best happy music - Beetles songs were everywhere and,
damn, they’re still good! Also we had that uniform, the girls had the
Pill and no one had even heard of HIV-AIDS – what more could we have
wanted?
Yes, our little war is now forgotten; another’s in its place.
Do you remember the time when we took my two-seater red Sunbeam out
for a double date? I guess it was a good thing that she wouldn’t go
when I fell off my girlfriend’s porch that night - my ex-girlfriend’s
porch!
I can still see you, driving that big black Rocket 88 convertible
across those white Pensacola sands - you were so short that any
passerby would think that car was driving itself!
Was it because of your height that the Navy wanted you (ordered you)
to go to an F-4 Squadron? I was so scared of jets after that one
orientation flight at Pensacola - I thought at the time, “I just
can’t think that fast!” (I guess I still can’t.)
Yes, our little war is now forgotten; another’s in its place.
Well, Ronny, I’ve had two wives and two daughters – not bad, even
if it was an average of data we might have shared between us, but,
of course, you got away free – you’re that forever bachelor!
I hope that you’ve known that I’ve visited you over these years
at every chance I had – not at the South China Sea, of course,
(or at Hainan Island – were you there?) but at that damning Wall
– misty eyed and rubbing my fingers over your name on Line One
Zero Three.
Well, as I said, Ronny, it’s now yet another Memorial Day and
the nation will stop, for a moment, to think of all the sacrifice
it has requested (or demanded as, yes, you and I volunteered just
ahead of the Draft!) and I, what will I do?……I will think of you.
Robert C. Demler, Jr.
Lieutenant, United States Naval Reserve
(Active Duty: July 1963 – January 1968)
Algiers, Algeria
May 23, 2008 for Memorial Day (May 26, 2008)
* “the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.”
from the Inauguration Address of President John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial - The Wall USA
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