A Hero Now Rests
This is my latest submission for my parallel writing endeavour. This article was a very special one for me, as you will find from reading it.
A Different Form of Wall
In modern times, few know the definition of a "city." Many see a city as being larger than a town, which is larger than a village, all of these being differentiated by their geographical size or the number of their residents. In reality, towns were distinct from cities until recent times based upon one single difference: walls. A town could boast no appreciable fortifications, while a city was ringed with a fortified wall that served as both a defense in case of attack, and a deterrent to prevent foreign aggression. From Asia in the East, to the Atlantic coasts in the West, all cities were defined by their protective walls.
There was one notable exception to this rule: Sparta. On the bulbous southern peninsula of the Greek mainland known as the Peloponnesus, a nation existed in which peace and security were based not on stones expertly stacked upon one another, but upon the men who stood perpetually ready to ruthlessly defend their families, their state, and their way of life. Every Spartan citizen did his duty. Although Sparta was an imperfect state, her citizen-soldiers were dedicated to its defense. They knew that their reputation as the finest military force in Greece was the difference between preserving their entire society, and being marginalized by foreign powers that neither understood nor cared about their unique national philosophy.
Like Sparta, modern America has no walls around its cities, nor is its external border truly guarded from invasion by a tight conglomeration of bricks and mortar. From before its very inception, these United States have been defended by citizen-soldiers who understood that America's imperfection was insufficient reason to leave its security to chance. Today, America's citizen-soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines fight controversial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 1967, American forces were fighting another controversial and unpopular war in Vietnam, a war that had far reaching implications for America's security in the world. Thousands of young Americans answered the call to defend America and her allies. One such American was a twenty-five year old Navy pilot named Ralph C. Bisz. This is his story.
From Drum Major to Navy Pilot
Ralph Campion Bisz, known to his family as "Skip," was born in March of 1942 to Ralph and Catherine Bisz of Miami, Florida. He was their only child, and his cousins remember Skip as their fifth sibling. Diane Smith, the eldest of Bisz's living relatives, fondly recalls that Skip never let her win at ping pong. Her younger brother, Don, remembers Skip as the cool older cousin who was always trying to escape – consequently, Don usually "saw Skip's back as he was trying to get away." Aside from his unyielding dedication to winning at ping pong, his family remembers him as the perfect cousin, easy-going, always wearing a smile. He was so popular in high school that he was elected drum major of the high school marching band.
Some of the best recollections of Bisz before the Navy come from his lifelong best friend, Richard "Chick" Smith. As teenagers, Bisz purchased a radio that allowed him to listen in on an airplane's transmission to the control tower. Skip and Chick would spend evenings sitting outside Miami International Airport, listening to the chatter as aircraft took off and landed. Chick also remembers that when Ralph went to college at the University of Florida, and most of the other guys in the dormitories had pin-ups up on their walls, Skip's walls were adorned with posters of aircraft. Flying was Skip's dream. After two lackluster years of college, Skip decided to save his parents the money of sending him to college, enrolled in the NAVCAD program, and received his commission as an ensign in the United States Navy.
The Navy trained Bisz to be a young officer, then to be a pilot. He learned to fly the military training aircraft of the day, before training to operate the Navy's attack jets. Once his training was complete, Ralph C. Bisz was a fully carrier-qualified Skyhawk pilot, flying the A4E Skyhawk. He was assigned to VA-163, known as the Saints, aboard USS Oriskany. His fellow Saints remember his unorthodox arrival aboard the "Mighty O" in 1966: via highwire. Having been assigned to the Saints following the deployment of the ship, the young pilot was one of several who had to catch up to the aircraft carrier aboard a fleet tender before being transferred across via underway replenishment lines. Aboard the Oriskany, the Saints remember Ralph Bisz as a good pilot who was always there for you when you needed him, both in and out of the cockpit. One of his cabin-mates, Ken "Mule" Adams, remembers that Ralph kept their room exceptionally clean and tidy.
Once Bisz completed his first tour of duty, he returned home for leave. His cousin, Don Smith, recalls a ski trip that they took during this time. He remembers Skip telling him that the missions that he was flying were extremely dangerous. Fighting to maintain his composure, Smith recounts an exchange in which Bisz soberly made it clear to his younger cousin that there was a very real possibility that he might not return. The Smith family treasures their memories of this time spent with their cousin. These precious days were the last they would spend with him.
August 4th, 1967
Bisz served his initial tour with the Saints as the air war in Vietnam was ramping up. Whereas bombing missions against North Vietnam had been scarcely contested before, the North Vietnamese were beginning to defend themselves using a relatively new technology supplied by the Soviet Union: surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs. The North Vietnamese requested assistance, and the USSR responded by reluctantly supplying S-75 Dvina missiles, better known by their NATO reporting name: the SA-2 "Guideline." The Saints remember these as "flying telephone poles" that maneuvered poorly and carried a warhead filled with ball bearings, similar to a flying shotgun. It was the introduction of the S-75 in 1965 that instantly made the air war over North Vietnam more dangerous.
The situation was compounded by the unwillingness of President Lyndon Johnson and his advisors to allow American pilots to target missile launch sites. In fact, Johnson's decisions made the situation far more difficult. Because Johnson and his political advisors placed political constraints on military objectives, military leaders were prevented from destroying strategically crucial targets. In addition, Johnson addressed the nation in 1965 and informed the American citizens that he would authorize the destruction of select SA-2 sites in the coming weeks. The North Vietnamese responded by fortifying these areas with anti-aircraft guns and replacing the missiles themselves with decoys. This increased American casualties during this period, and led to further political missteps with respect to the handling of the tactical and strategic situation.
Although surface-to-air missiles were a threat in and of themselves, the Saints recall that the missiles were only part of the problem. A missile alone could be defeated, if it could be spotted. Because the missiles had stubby wings, they lacked the necessary agility to outmaneuver a jet aircraft. If a pilot could detect the missile itself, all he had to do was maneuver the aircraft into it, and then pull away at the last minute. This allowed the missile to pass harmlessly by. The additional risk came from the frequent launch of multiple missiles, coupled with anti-aircraft artillery fire from the ground. This combined arms approach to air defense by the People's Army of North Vietnam made every bombing run a white knuckle ride for attack pilots like the Saints.
During its 1967 deployment, the Oriskany sustained heavy casualties to its two onboard attack squadrons, the Saints, and the Ghostriders of VA-164. VA-163 remains legendary, because it was the Navy squadron that sustained the heaviest losses during the entire war in Vietnam. These losses were so heavy that when a fire aboard USS Forrestal in late July of 1967 forced that carrier to return to the United States for repairs, pilots were offered the opportunity to jump ship to refill the ranks of VA-163 and VA-164. The most famous of these pilots, Lieutenant Commander John McCain, would be shot down and taken prisoner, later to become an Arizona Senator and 2008 Republican nominee for president. In his 1999 memoir, Faith of My Fathers, Sen. McCain writes:
In early August of 1967, a flight of several Skyhawks left the deck of the Oriskany on a bombing run. Their target was a petroleum storage depot near Haiphong, North Vietnam. Ralph Bisz, at this point a 25-year-old lieutenant (junior grade), was among them. As they neared the target, the North Vietnamese detected the Saints on early warning radar and launched their missiles. Bisz's aircraft was struck in the belly section, meaning that he likely never saw the missile coming. There was no parachute, and no signal from an emergency beacon. Although conflicting evidence led Bisz's status to change several times, the Saints, along with Navy analysts, now believe that Bisz died almost instantly upon the missile's impact with his aircraft.
In total, the Saints lost eight pilots during the 1967 tour: five killed, and three captured. These losses remain legendary, and were the worst casualties for any squadron during the Navy's operations in the Vietnam War.
Aftermath
Although evidence was difficult to collect following Bisz's crash, the Vietnamese government has subsequently provided details to investigators. Whereas most crashes of this sort leave almost no human remains, the particular physics of the missile impact and the aircraft crash apparently combined to implode the cockpit around Bisz's body, preserving his remains. The Vietnamese villagers who removed him from his aircraft buried Bisz in a local cemetery. Several years later, the North Vietnamese government arrived, questioned the locals as to the location of the remains of the American they had shot down, and exhumed him. His remains were then treated with an unknown preservative agent and put into storage.
In 1988, the Vietnamese government repatriated 17 boxes filled with the remains of Americans missing from that war. Based on information from the American government, combined with their own records, the Vietnamese believed one of these sets of remains to be those of Ralph Bisz. However, the preponderance of circumstantial evidence was insufficient for the Navy unit tasked with recovering personnel who are missing in action. In 1988, DNA testing was several years from being in its infancy, and the chemical preservative used by the North Vietnamese on Bisz's and other remains further complicated testing efforts.
No matter what the uniformed service, the Department of Defense experiences a kinship that few from the outside can understand. Because America's military personnel understand the risks of deploying into harm's way, they go to great lengths to ensure that their brothers and sisters in arms make it back home. The Navy, the DoD, and the United States never gave up on Ralph Bisz, even promoting him to the rank of Lieutenant Commander during the period of time in which his fate remained unknown. However, the limited capabilities of DNA testing proved to be a continual road block in the mission to identify Bisz from the volume of unidentified remains that have returned to the United States from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
This quest has resulted in a number of scientific breakthroughs with respect to DNA testing. In a continual effort to overcome specific testing challenges, new techniques have been, and continue to be, developed. Within the last year, this research led to a breakthrough in mitochondrial DNA testing that allowed the military scientists to conclusively identify Ralph C. Bisz's remains among those repatriated by the Vietnamese government in 1988. In June of 2008, representatives from the Navy met with the remaining members of the Smith family, Ralph's beloved cousins, to notify them of his identification and explain the process and history of the preceding 41 years. A funeral was scheduled at Arlington National Cemetery for early October, and the word started to spread among those who knew and loved this young man from Florida.
A Personal Connection
It was through an astonishing turn of events that I came to know about Ralph Bisz in the first place. As a 17-year-old high school senior, I took a trip to Washington, D.C. with the Close Up Foundation. During the waning hours of my time in the nation's capital, I found myself at the Lincoln Memorial, where a vendor was selling military memorabilia. Aspiring to be a Navy officer myself at that time, and having studied Vietnam extensively in and out of my history classes, I dug through the basket to find the dog tags of a Navy lieutenant who was missing in action from the Vietnam War. They had the following information on them:
When I returned home, I researched Bisz on the Internet. With the help of a friend, who provided additional material, I put together an online tribute to Bisz. I've received several e-mails in subsequent years from individuals who kept their own bracelets with Bisz's name on them, thanking me for providing additional information. The truth is that every last soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine who goes missing deserves the same level of recognition and tribute. This includes not only Vietnam-era personnel like Ralph Bisz, but people like Captain Michael S. Speicher, who remains missing from the Persian Gulf War.
For the last eight years, I had essentially resigned myself to the likelihood that Ralph Bisz might never be repatriated or identified. I wondered if I might ever learn about his family, but doubted that I would ever learn anything more of this hero who had answered his country's call, never to return. I attended college, moved to California, and then moved to Virginia in July of 2007. Then, in late June of this year, I was shocked to receive an e-mail from Ralph's cousin, Don Smith. Don thanked me for my tribute to his cousin Skip, and informed me of his family's meeting with the representatives from the Navy, and the upcoming funeral at Arlington. The fact that I'd moved to Virginia a year prior seemed too coincidental, and after corresponding with Don, I asked if the family would be comfortable with me attending the funeral. They graciously granted my request, and I made arrangements to be in Arlington for the 5th and 6th of October.
Coming Together to Remember a Hero
On the evening of October 5, 2008, a handful of individuals gathered on the top floor of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia. Perhaps appropriately, the location overlooked Ronald Reagan National Airport – not Miami International, but it would do. Many of those in attendance had never met one another before. There were several small groups, and a few individuals. Many were family and friends. Others were comrades in arms, members of a squadron that had fought from a piece of American real estate the size of a postage stamp, during a war that many in their country were quick to forget. Still others were active members of the military who had been involved in the process of safeguarding, identifying, and returning a young man's remains to their rightful resting place. All were gathered for a single purpose: to remember a young Navy pilot whom none had seen since four decades prior.
After about an hour of introductions, discussions, stories, laughter, and a few tears, chairs were circled around a table adorned with photographs and remembrances of a beloved cousin and friend. Several iconic bracelets reading "Lt. Ralph Bisz 8-4-67" were collected together; one had been worn so long that it had cracked and broken in the middle. Bisz's cousins spoke of their memories of the tall, skinny kid with whom they had grown up. The Saints, who had been his brothers during those last months of his short life aboard the Oriskany, helped the family to better understand their loved one's sacrifice by recounting stories of the young man they had served with so long ago. In moments that few among us could truly appreciate, those in attendance saw twinkles in the eyes of men in their sixties who became 20-something carrier pilots once more, for a few fleeting seconds, as they remembered a 25-year-old shipmate with short hair who kept his room spotlessly tidy. The room was almost silent as those who had been airborne that day recalled the moment in which that same man was knocked out of the sky over Haiphong.
Perhaps the most compelling words that evening were those of U.S. Army Master Sergeant Alejandro Villalva, the SEA/Vietnam Conflict Case Program case officer from the Navy's POW/MIA Casualty Branch. For a riveted audience, he explained the process by which Bisz had been shot down, his remains recovered and interred, then exhumed by the North Vietnamese, preserved, stored, returned, and eventually identified. One of several in attendance who was born after Bisz was lost, Villalva struggled at times to maintain his own composure. Beyond understanding Ralph's sacrifice from his own military experience, Villalva and his teammates demonstrated a profound emotional attachment to Ralph, additional missing personnel, and their sworn duty to tirelessly work to recover these lost heroes.
A Hero Now Rests
The next morning, in the hotel lobby, the entire family gathered together to prepare for a day that Diane, Don, Dale, and David Smith had waited more than forty years for. After a short ride to the Old Fort Myers Chapel, the family filed inside and took their seats on the right side of the small building. A few minutes later, nearly all of the Saints arrived, interspersed with a handful of additional attendees who had known Ralph Bisz in one way or another. In the back pews of the little chapel, another group sat together: the team of DNA technicians who had worked so heroically to make this entire day possible. One of these was the very scientist who developed the testing techniques that allowed Ralph Bisz's remains, through all of the aforementioned time and circumstances, to be identified through comparison of his mitochondrial DNA samples to samples from maternal cousin, Diane Smith, and her mother.
Finally, shortly after one o'clock in the afternoon, a United States Navy honor guard carefully escorted a flag-draped casket into the chapel and up the central aisle to rest near Bisz's cousins. This was the moment that they had constantly hoped and prayed for during the preceding decades. Although it had taken more than 40 years, and although neither of Ralph's parents had survived to see the day their son came home, the moment had finally arrived. To hymns and readings of scripture, the Navy chaplain led the assembled mourners in honoring their fallen cousin, shipmate, friend, charge, and hero. Simultaneously touching and heart-wrenching, the chaplain read a brief passage from a letter that the senior Ralph Bisz had written for his absent son's eventual homecoming.
Once the chapel service had concluded, the group gathered outside as the honor guard carefully placed the casket on a horse-drawn caisson. Led by a Navy band and funeral detail, the horses carried Bisz's casket to the gravesite, followed by the honor guard, then Bisz's family, comrades, and friends, most of whom walked within the parade to honor him. Once the casket was unloaded from the caisson and the funeral party was proceeding to the grave, a loud scream of jet engines heralded the arrival of a flight of four F/A-18E Super Hornets from NAS Oceana, the very aircraft that now fill the attack role that Bisz's own A4E Skyhawk once filled. Their missing man formation was particularly rare and special, as it required all of the air space from Washington to Baltimore to be cleared, and special permission to fly over the restricted air space of the White House. Such was the importance of this homecoming for both the Navy and the American government.
Once the casket and the family arrived at the grave, taps was played, and the Navy funeral detail fired the customary gun salute. The honor guard expertly and smartly folded the flag before the Navy chaplain presented it to the next of kin. Although several in attendance noted that Bisz himself might have been surprised at the level of pomp and circumstance being displayed in his honor, none in attendance thought anything of the sort. For all who had come from across the country to pay their respects, it was clear that this attention was appropriate to honor a young man and a family who sacrificed so much for this great nation.
The Wall that Surrounds Us
From the initial battles fought by American colonists prior to the American Revolution, to the wars that we now find our nation engaged in, young heroes have answered the call to sacrifice for the fragile dream that defines this country. The word "sacrifice" is often thrown around carelessly, but for men like Ralph Bisz and the family that loved him, this word meant something. Sometimes, sacrifice means months or years of boredom and discomfort, coupled with minutes of sheer terror. In today's wars, sacrifice often means months or years away from loved ones, spent sweating uncontrollably in cities like Fallujah and Baghdad, or shivering endlessly in the mountains of rural Afghanistan. In 1967, one young man's sacrifice meant that his family would wait for 41 years before they would see him laid to rest.
Like ancient Sparta, America has no physical wall surrounding it. America's wall is made of young men like Ralph Bisz, who are willing to do their duty by climbing into a cockpit to bomb a strategic target in hostile territory. America's wall is made of young men like Michael Murphy, who are willing to give their lives to hostile fire in foreign lands for the sake of their friends and their country. As we celebrate the 233rd birthday of the United States Navy, we are reminded that owe these young people everything, for without them, the course of our history was, and will be, unfathomably different. Like the Spartan warriors who fought to preserve their way of life for generations to come, men like these make up the wall that protects this greatest nation on the face of the Earth.
A Different Form of Wall
In modern times, few know the definition of a "city." Many see a city as being larger than a town, which is larger than a village, all of these being differentiated by their geographical size or the number of their residents. In reality, towns were distinct from cities until recent times based upon one single difference: walls. A town could boast no appreciable fortifications, while a city was ringed with a fortified wall that served as both a defense in case of attack, and a deterrent to prevent foreign aggression. From Asia in the East, to the Atlantic coasts in the West, all cities were defined by their protective walls.
There was one notable exception to this rule: Sparta. On the bulbous southern peninsula of the Greek mainland known as the Peloponnesus, a nation existed in which peace and security were based not on stones expertly stacked upon one another, but upon the men who stood perpetually ready to ruthlessly defend their families, their state, and their way of life. Every Spartan citizen did his duty. Although Sparta was an imperfect state, her citizen-soldiers were dedicated to its defense. They knew that their reputation as the finest military force in Greece was the difference between preserving their entire society, and being marginalized by foreign powers that neither understood nor cared about their unique national philosophy.
Like Sparta, modern America has no walls around its cities, nor is its external border truly guarded from invasion by a tight conglomeration of bricks and mortar. From before its very inception, these United States have been defended by citizen-soldiers who understood that America's imperfection was insufficient reason to leave its security to chance. Today, America's citizen-soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines fight controversial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 1967, American forces were fighting another controversial and unpopular war in Vietnam, a war that had far reaching implications for America's security in the world. Thousands of young Americans answered the call to defend America and her allies. One such American was a twenty-five year old Navy pilot named Ralph C. Bisz. This is his story.
From Drum Major to Navy Pilot
Ralph Campion Bisz, known to his family as "Skip," was born in March of 1942 to Ralph and Catherine Bisz of Miami, Florida. He was their only child, and his cousins remember Skip as their fifth sibling. Diane Smith, the eldest of Bisz's living relatives, fondly recalls that Skip never let her win at ping pong. Her younger brother, Don, remembers Skip as the cool older cousin who was always trying to escape – consequently, Don usually "saw Skip's back as he was trying to get away." Aside from his unyielding dedication to winning at ping pong, his family remembers him as the perfect cousin, easy-going, always wearing a smile. He was so popular in high school that he was elected drum major of the high school marching band.
Some of the best recollections of Bisz before the Navy come from his lifelong best friend, Richard "Chick" Smith. As teenagers, Bisz purchased a radio that allowed him to listen in on an airplane's transmission to the control tower. Skip and Chick would spend evenings sitting outside Miami International Airport, listening to the chatter as aircraft took off and landed. Chick also remembers that when Ralph went to college at the University of Florida, and most of the other guys in the dormitories had pin-ups up on their walls, Skip's walls were adorned with posters of aircraft. Flying was Skip's dream. After two lackluster years of college, Skip decided to save his parents the money of sending him to college, enrolled in the NAVCAD program, and received his commission as an ensign in the United States Navy.
The Navy trained Bisz to be a young officer, then to be a pilot. He learned to fly the military training aircraft of the day, before training to operate the Navy's attack jets. Once his training was complete, Ralph C. Bisz was a fully carrier-qualified Skyhawk pilot, flying the A4E Skyhawk. He was assigned to VA-163, known as the Saints, aboard USS Oriskany. His fellow Saints remember his unorthodox arrival aboard the "Mighty O" in 1966: via highwire. Having been assigned to the Saints following the deployment of the ship, the young pilot was one of several who had to catch up to the aircraft carrier aboard a fleet tender before being transferred across via underway replenishment lines. Aboard the Oriskany, the Saints remember Ralph Bisz as a good pilot who was always there for you when you needed him, both in and out of the cockpit. One of his cabin-mates, Ken "Mule" Adams, remembers that Ralph kept their room exceptionally clean and tidy.
Once Bisz completed his first tour of duty, he returned home for leave. His cousin, Don Smith, recalls a ski trip that they took during this time. He remembers Skip telling him that the missions that he was flying were extremely dangerous. Fighting to maintain his composure, Smith recounts an exchange in which Bisz soberly made it clear to his younger cousin that there was a very real possibility that he might not return. The Smith family treasures their memories of this time spent with their cousin. These precious days were the last they would spend with him.
August 4th, 1967
Bisz served his initial tour with the Saints as the air war in Vietnam was ramping up. Whereas bombing missions against North Vietnam had been scarcely contested before, the North Vietnamese were beginning to defend themselves using a relatively new technology supplied by the Soviet Union: surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs. The North Vietnamese requested assistance, and the USSR responded by reluctantly supplying S-75 Dvina missiles, better known by their NATO reporting name: the SA-2 "Guideline." The Saints remember these as "flying telephone poles" that maneuvered poorly and carried a warhead filled with ball bearings, similar to a flying shotgun. It was the introduction of the S-75 in 1965 that instantly made the air war over North Vietnam more dangerous.
The situation was compounded by the unwillingness of President Lyndon Johnson and his advisors to allow American pilots to target missile launch sites. In fact, Johnson's decisions made the situation far more difficult. Because Johnson and his political advisors placed political constraints on military objectives, military leaders were prevented from destroying strategically crucial targets. In addition, Johnson addressed the nation in 1965 and informed the American citizens that he would authorize the destruction of select SA-2 sites in the coming weeks. The North Vietnamese responded by fortifying these areas with anti-aircraft guns and replacing the missiles themselves with decoys. This increased American casualties during this period, and led to further political missteps with respect to the handling of the tactical and strategic situation.
Although surface-to-air missiles were a threat in and of themselves, the Saints recall that the missiles were only part of the problem. A missile alone could be defeated, if it could be spotted. Because the missiles had stubby wings, they lacked the necessary agility to outmaneuver a jet aircraft. If a pilot could detect the missile itself, all he had to do was maneuver the aircraft into it, and then pull away at the last minute. This allowed the missile to pass harmlessly by. The additional risk came from the frequent launch of multiple missiles, coupled with anti-aircraft artillery fire from the ground. This combined arms approach to air defense by the People's Army of North Vietnam made every bombing run a white knuckle ride for attack pilots like the Saints.
During its 1967 deployment, the Oriskany sustained heavy casualties to its two onboard attack squadrons, the Saints, and the Ghostriders of VA-164. VA-163 remains legendary, because it was the Navy squadron that sustained the heaviest losses during the entire war in Vietnam. These losses were so heavy that when a fire aboard USS Forrestal in late July of 1967 forced that carrier to return to the United States for repairs, pilots were offered the opportunity to jump ship to refill the ranks of VA-163 and VA-164. The most famous of these pilots, Lieutenant Commander John McCain, would be shot down and taken prisoner, later to become an Arizona Senator and 2008 Republican nominee for president. In his 1999 memoir, Faith of My Fathers, Sen. McCain writes:
On September 30, 1967, I reported for duty to the Oriskany and joined VA-163 - an A-4 attack squadron nicknamed the Saints. During the three years of Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing campaign of North Vietnam begun in 1965, no carrier's pilots saw more action or suffered more losses than those on the Oriskany. When the Johnson administration halted Rolling Thunder in 1968, thirty-eight pilots on the Oriskany had been either killed or captured. Sixty planes had been lost, including twenty-nine A-4s. The Saints suffered the highest casualty rate. In 1967, one-third of the squadron's pilots were killed or captured. Every single one of the Saints' original fifteen A-4s had been destroyed. [The Saints] had a reputation for aggressiveness, and for success. In the months before I joined the squadron, the Saints had destroyed all the bridges to the port city of Haiphong.
In early August of 1967, a flight of several Skyhawks left the deck of the Oriskany on a bombing run. Their target was a petroleum storage depot near Haiphong, North Vietnam. Ralph Bisz, at this point a 25-year-old lieutenant (junior grade), was among them. As they neared the target, the North Vietnamese detected the Saints on early warning radar and launched their missiles. Bisz's aircraft was struck in the belly section, meaning that he likely never saw the missile coming. There was no parachute, and no signal from an emergency beacon. Although conflicting evidence led Bisz's status to change several times, the Saints, along with Navy analysts, now believe that Bisz died almost instantly upon the missile's impact with his aircraft.
In total, the Saints lost eight pilots during the 1967 tour: five killed, and three captured. These losses remain legendary, and were the worst casualties for any squadron during the Navy's operations in the Vietnam War.
Aftermath
Although evidence was difficult to collect following Bisz's crash, the Vietnamese government has subsequently provided details to investigators. Whereas most crashes of this sort leave almost no human remains, the particular physics of the missile impact and the aircraft crash apparently combined to implode the cockpit around Bisz's body, preserving his remains. The Vietnamese villagers who removed him from his aircraft buried Bisz in a local cemetery. Several years later, the North Vietnamese government arrived, questioned the locals as to the location of the remains of the American they had shot down, and exhumed him. His remains were then treated with an unknown preservative agent and put into storage.
In 1988, the Vietnamese government repatriated 17 boxes filled with the remains of Americans missing from that war. Based on information from the American government, combined with their own records, the Vietnamese believed one of these sets of remains to be those of Ralph Bisz. However, the preponderance of circumstantial evidence was insufficient for the Navy unit tasked with recovering personnel who are missing in action. In 1988, DNA testing was several years from being in its infancy, and the chemical preservative used by the North Vietnamese on Bisz's and other remains further complicated testing efforts.
No matter what the uniformed service, the Department of Defense experiences a kinship that few from the outside can understand. Because America's military personnel understand the risks of deploying into harm's way, they go to great lengths to ensure that their brothers and sisters in arms make it back home. The Navy, the DoD, and the United States never gave up on Ralph Bisz, even promoting him to the rank of Lieutenant Commander during the period of time in which his fate remained unknown. However, the limited capabilities of DNA testing proved to be a continual road block in the mission to identify Bisz from the volume of unidentified remains that have returned to the United States from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
This quest has resulted in a number of scientific breakthroughs with respect to DNA testing. In a continual effort to overcome specific testing challenges, new techniques have been, and continue to be, developed. Within the last year, this research led to a breakthrough in mitochondrial DNA testing that allowed the military scientists to conclusively identify Ralph C. Bisz's remains among those repatriated by the Vietnamese government in 1988. In June of 2008, representatives from the Navy met with the remaining members of the Smith family, Ralph's beloved cousins, to notify them of his identification and explain the process and history of the preceding 41 years. A funeral was scheduled at Arlington National Cemetery for early October, and the word started to spread among those who knew and loved this young man from Florida.
A Personal Connection
It was through an astonishing turn of events that I came to know about Ralph Bisz in the first place. As a 17-year-old high school senior, I took a trip to Washington, D.C. with the Close Up Foundation. During the waning hours of my time in the nation's capital, I found myself at the Lincoln Memorial, where a vendor was selling military memorabilia. Aspiring to be a Navy officer myself at that time, and having studied Vietnam extensively in and out of my history classes, I dug through the basket to find the dog tags of a Navy lieutenant who was missing in action from the Vietnam War. They had the following information on them:
BISZ RALPH C
USN LCDR
08-04-67 NVN
FLORIDA
When I returned home, I researched Bisz on the Internet. With the help of a friend, who provided additional material, I put together an online tribute to Bisz. I've received several e-mails in subsequent years from individuals who kept their own bracelets with Bisz's name on them, thanking me for providing additional information. The truth is that every last soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine who goes missing deserves the same level of recognition and tribute. This includes not only Vietnam-era personnel like Ralph Bisz, but people like Captain Michael S. Speicher, who remains missing from the Persian Gulf War.
For the last eight years, I had essentially resigned myself to the likelihood that Ralph Bisz might never be repatriated or identified. I wondered if I might ever learn about his family, but doubted that I would ever learn anything more of this hero who had answered his country's call, never to return. I attended college, moved to California, and then moved to Virginia in July of 2007. Then, in late June of this year, I was shocked to receive an e-mail from Ralph's cousin, Don Smith. Don thanked me for my tribute to his cousin Skip, and informed me of his family's meeting with the representatives from the Navy, and the upcoming funeral at Arlington. The fact that I'd moved to Virginia a year prior seemed too coincidental, and after corresponding with Don, I asked if the family would be comfortable with me attending the funeral. They graciously granted my request, and I made arrangements to be in Arlington for the 5th and 6th of October.
Coming Together to Remember a Hero
On the evening of October 5, 2008, a handful of individuals gathered on the top floor of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia. Perhaps appropriately, the location overlooked Ronald Reagan National Airport – not Miami International, but it would do. Many of those in attendance had never met one another before. There were several small groups, and a few individuals. Many were family and friends. Others were comrades in arms, members of a squadron that had fought from a piece of American real estate the size of a postage stamp, during a war that many in their country were quick to forget. Still others were active members of the military who had been involved in the process of safeguarding, identifying, and returning a young man's remains to their rightful resting place. All were gathered for a single purpose: to remember a young Navy pilot whom none had seen since four decades prior.
After about an hour of introductions, discussions, stories, laughter, and a few tears, chairs were circled around a table adorned with photographs and remembrances of a beloved cousin and friend. Several iconic bracelets reading "Lt. Ralph Bisz 8-4-67" were collected together; one had been worn so long that it had cracked and broken in the middle. Bisz's cousins spoke of their memories of the tall, skinny kid with whom they had grown up. The Saints, who had been his brothers during those last months of his short life aboard the Oriskany, helped the family to better understand their loved one's sacrifice by recounting stories of the young man they had served with so long ago. In moments that few among us could truly appreciate, those in attendance saw twinkles in the eyes of men in their sixties who became 20-something carrier pilots once more, for a few fleeting seconds, as they remembered a 25-year-old shipmate with short hair who kept his room spotlessly tidy. The room was almost silent as those who had been airborne that day recalled the moment in which that same man was knocked out of the sky over Haiphong.
Perhaps the most compelling words that evening were those of U.S. Army Master Sergeant Alejandro Villalva, the SEA/Vietnam Conflict Case Program case officer from the Navy's POW/MIA Casualty Branch. For a riveted audience, he explained the process by which Bisz had been shot down, his remains recovered and interred, then exhumed by the North Vietnamese, preserved, stored, returned, and eventually identified. One of several in attendance who was born after Bisz was lost, Villalva struggled at times to maintain his own composure. Beyond understanding Ralph's sacrifice from his own military experience, Villalva and his teammates demonstrated a profound emotional attachment to Ralph, additional missing personnel, and their sworn duty to tirelessly work to recover these lost heroes.
A Hero Now Rests
The next morning, in the hotel lobby, the entire family gathered together to prepare for a day that Diane, Don, Dale, and David Smith had waited more than forty years for. After a short ride to the Old Fort Myers Chapel, the family filed inside and took their seats on the right side of the small building. A few minutes later, nearly all of the Saints arrived, interspersed with a handful of additional attendees who had known Ralph Bisz in one way or another. In the back pews of the little chapel, another group sat together: the team of DNA technicians who had worked so heroically to make this entire day possible. One of these was the very scientist who developed the testing techniques that allowed Ralph Bisz's remains, through all of the aforementioned time and circumstances, to be identified through comparison of his mitochondrial DNA samples to samples from maternal cousin, Diane Smith, and her mother.
Finally, shortly after one o'clock in the afternoon, a United States Navy honor guard carefully escorted a flag-draped casket into the chapel and up the central aisle to rest near Bisz's cousins. This was the moment that they had constantly hoped and prayed for during the preceding decades. Although it had taken more than 40 years, and although neither of Ralph's parents had survived to see the day their son came home, the moment had finally arrived. To hymns and readings of scripture, the Navy chaplain led the assembled mourners in honoring their fallen cousin, shipmate, friend, charge, and hero. Simultaneously touching and heart-wrenching, the chaplain read a brief passage from a letter that the senior Ralph Bisz had written for his absent son's eventual homecoming.
Once the chapel service had concluded, the group gathered outside as the honor guard carefully placed the casket on a horse-drawn caisson. Led by a Navy band and funeral detail, the horses carried Bisz's casket to the gravesite, followed by the honor guard, then Bisz's family, comrades, and friends, most of whom walked within the parade to honor him. Once the casket was unloaded from the caisson and the funeral party was proceeding to the grave, a loud scream of jet engines heralded the arrival of a flight of four F/A-18E Super Hornets from NAS Oceana, the very aircraft that now fill the attack role that Bisz's own A4E Skyhawk once filled. Their missing man formation was particularly rare and special, as it required all of the air space from Washington to Baltimore to be cleared, and special permission to fly over the restricted air space of the White House. Such was the importance of this homecoming for both the Navy and the American government.
Once the casket and the family arrived at the grave, taps was played, and the Navy funeral detail fired the customary gun salute. The honor guard expertly and smartly folded the flag before the Navy chaplain presented it to the next of kin. Although several in attendance noted that Bisz himself might have been surprised at the level of pomp and circumstance being displayed in his honor, none in attendance thought anything of the sort. For all who had come from across the country to pay their respects, it was clear that this attention was appropriate to honor a young man and a family who sacrificed so much for this great nation.
The Wall that Surrounds Us
From the initial battles fought by American colonists prior to the American Revolution, to the wars that we now find our nation engaged in, young heroes have answered the call to sacrifice for the fragile dream that defines this country. The word "sacrifice" is often thrown around carelessly, but for men like Ralph Bisz and the family that loved him, this word meant something. Sometimes, sacrifice means months or years of boredom and discomfort, coupled with minutes of sheer terror. In today's wars, sacrifice often means months or years away from loved ones, spent sweating uncontrollably in cities like Fallujah and Baghdad, or shivering endlessly in the mountains of rural Afghanistan. In 1967, one young man's sacrifice meant that his family would wait for 41 years before they would see him laid to rest.
Like ancient Sparta, America has no physical wall surrounding it. America's wall is made of young men like Ralph Bisz, who are willing to do their duty by climbing into a cockpit to bomb a strategic target in hostile territory. America's wall is made of young men like Michael Murphy, who are willing to give their lives to hostile fire in foreign lands for the sake of their friends and their country. As we celebrate the 233rd birthday of the United States Navy, we are reminded that owe these young people everything, for without them, the course of our history was, and will be, unfathomably different. Like the Spartan warriors who fought to preserve their way of life for generations to come, men like these make up the wall that protects this greatest nation on the face of the Earth.
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