This past weekend, Capt. Nathanael J. Doring was killed in the crash of his AH-1W Supercobra approximately 45 miles west of Baghdad. Enemy fire has been ruled out, and the mission was a maintenance test flight in which Corporal Richard A. Bennett, flying front seat, was also killed. Both were members of Marine Light / Attack Helicopter squadron 169 based at Camp Pendleton, CA.
Even though I never knew the man, this story hits close to home for me because Nathanael Doring was not only a fellow Marine and member of a sister HMLA unit, but he was also a graduate of the Electrical Engineering program at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, the very school and program that I will be starting this fall.
With the Memorial Day weekend having just passed, please keep the most recent sacrifices of our brothers and sisters in your thoughts along with our vets of long ago. Prayers be with their families.
Amen. A lot of us here have lost friends in this long war and let’s never forget the courage and sacrifices they made. It really adds a lot of meaning to the phrase … Freedom isn’t free.
It is said that, “No man is an island, alone to himself, each is a pinnisula, a part of the whole. And there fore, the loss of any one man diminishes us all…”
It is our love of the air, and those peculliar machines called helicopters, that make us all brothers and sisters of a sort not readly understood by most. I had naievely thought after Viet Nam that I was some what calloused or hardened to such things. As it turns out it is the exact opposite which is true.
For their families and friends, the pain is acute, and no amount of condolences can asuage the hurt. So untill better days, may God hold them in the palm of his hand.
Once again I salute them all, the soldiers, and those who stand and wait.