ALIVE DAY In honor of those ‘left behind’ Past National Commander Ron Hope marks his 50th Alive Day by paying tribute to those who never came home By Ashleigh Byrnes Ron Hope, who served as an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam, celebrates his 50th Alive Day on July 15. I legs, suffered compound fractures in six vertebrae and had third-degree burns covering 55% of his body. f there’s one thing Past National Commander Ron Hope recalls very little from the days that followed. Hope would go back in time and tell his 21-year-old He remembers seeing the faces of his hooch-mates self on July 15, 1969, it’s this: “Zig; don’t zag.” standing over him and being told his crew chief had Fifty years ago, that zag changed his life in ways he died just two beds from where he lay, but it wasn’t could never have imagined. The Army veteran was until he returned stateside that he truly began to piloting a helicopter in Vietnam, attempting to extract understand the extent of his injuries. a company of soldiers they had dropped off several “When I got to the burn center at Brooke Army days prior, when the bird was shot down. Medical Center in San Antonio, I realized that I “We started hearing probably wasn’t going a really loud noise “I lost a lot of friends over there, and I to be going back into in the aircraft and flying anytime soon,’ lost a lot of me over there. It changed started losing rotor said Hope. “And speed. Even putting it was about three my life, drastically . In some ways full power back in months later that they bad, but in a lot of ways good.” and overriding the informed me that I —Ron Hope, Vietnam veteran governor, we could would probably never not get it to stop,” use my left arm again. Hope recalled. “So the aircraft came down really, really That’s when it really started to dawn on me that I was hard.” going to have some major changes in my life.” Hope’s left brachial plexus—the network of nerves Hope would ultimately lose his left arm at the that sends signals from the spinal cord to the arm and shoulder, and it would be at least a year of rehab hand—had been totally crushed. He’d also broken both before he would be out of the hospital and able to start DAV MAGAZINE | JULY/AUGUST 2019 | DAV.ORG 20
Issue Articles
In honor of those ‘left behind’
Ashleigh Byrnes
Visit Article: https://digital.dav.org/article/In+honor+of+those+%E2%80%98left+behind%E2%80%99/3409320/595939/article.html.