Loss of Eight Coasties and Two Marines in Mid Air Collision

Yesterday was a fairly somber day at work, punctuated by the occasional visit of the kids from the day care center on the ground floor of our building trick or treating. Everyone was holding their breath and waiting to find out if they knew any of the aircrew involved in the crash off San Clemente Thursday night.

This morning I could tell from one of my friends' comments on Facebook that the names had finally been released to the press. After a few google searches, I found the following press release:

Coast Guard identifies 9 missing in midair crash
By The Associated Press (AP) – 24 minutes ago
The U.S. Coast Guard has identified nine people feared dead at sea following an air collision between a Coast Guard aircraft and a Marine Corps helicopter.
The missing crew members from the Coast Guard C-130 are all stationed in Sacramento, Calif., where their aircraft was based. They are:
_ Lt. Cmdr. Che J. Barnes, 35, Capay, Calif., aircraft commander.
_ Lt. Adam W. Bryant, 28, Crewe, Va., co-pilot.
_ Chief Petty Officer John F. Seidman, 43, Stockton, Calif., flight engineer.
_ Petty Officer 2nd Class Carl P. Grigonis, 35, Mayfield Heights, Ohio, navigator.
_ Petty Officer 2nd Class Monica L. Beacham, 29, Decaturville, Tenn., radio operator.
_ Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason S. Moletzsky, 26, Norristown, Pa., air crew.
_ Petty Officer 3rd Class Danny R. Kreder II, 22, Elm Mott, Texas, drop master.
The missing crew members from the Marine Corps helicopter are:
_ Maj. Samuel Leigh, 35, Kennebec, Maine.
_ 1st Lt. Thomas Claiborne, 26, Douglas, Colo.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

I didn't know any of the people involved, which somehow gave me a temporary sense of relief. Then reality set in, and I started to think about what their families must be going through right now. They are proud that their loved ones perished in the service of their country, but they are anguished trying to imagine a future without them. My heart goes out to all the families involved.

When I was stationed in Massachusetts, I did two next of kin notifications. The first one I did was to tell the wife a fisherman that our C-130 flight had located the raft which held her husband and his crew. Their ship had gone up in flames, but they were able to get into the life raft in time, and after many hours of searching throughout the night, the C-130 crew located them, and a 110 foot patrol boat would be on scene within the hour. I called her at around 5am in the morning. I am sure that she hadn't slept the whole night. She was crying, I was choked up just trying to get the words out, but at least the outcome was good.

The second time I interacted directly with the family of someone who was missing at sea. I showed up at the house of the family affected, and showed them the charts of where we were looking, and explained all the efforts we were expending to find their loved one. That case did not have a happy ending, as later that day I had to explain that we were suspending the search because we had searched many hours past the predicted survivability of the missing man, given what he was wearing, his height and weight, and the temperature of the water. I kept my composure this time, but I was overwhelmed with sadness at having to break the bad news.

The search continues off California, but I fear that someone will be making those notifications sometime soon.

There's always next year....

Sadly, my Red Sox didn't have the stuff this October to pull out another come from behind win during the playoffs. They played OK, but there were some costly errors and not enough hitting at the right time. So I find myself using the old Cubs phrase, "There's always next year," when referring to the post season of 2009.

Currently, I am watching the Rockies try to come from behind to pull out another win to force the series back to Philly for game 5, but it isn't looking that good for the men from Colorado. One of my Boston friends said that she was going to shift her allegiance to Philly now, which I think is because she got her PhD there. I supposed that is all right, but unless it is one of my favorite teams, I prefer not to see people repeat. I like to spread the wealth around by rooting for the underdog (when my teams have been eliminated).

I guess that's why I like the revenue sharing that the NFL does, rather than the Rich Team, Poor Team method that MLB employs. It just doesn't seem fair that there are more than 2 dozen World Series trophies in that new Yankee Stadium, and other teams haven't even gotten one. All those trophies were earned after 1922, and since the Steinbrenner era, they are financed mostly by television revenues.

Not that I have anything against television, but in baseball the large market teams have such a great advantage over the Milwaukee and Pittsburgh teams, for example, that it doesn't seem right. Not to mention the fact that I cannot see any Red Sox games without paying thru the nose, unless they are broadcast on a national channel. It is just wrong.

How to become a Nobel laureate........

Just so you don't read all the way to the end of this blog and get disappointed, I really don't know how to become a Nobel laureate. Being a graduate of the University of Chicago (UofC), I do know that being associated with that institution at some point of your career, gives you a better chance than your average Jill or Joe to get that cool medal and some cash from those nice folks in Sweden. When you attend a wanna-be Ivy league type school, they tend to grasp at all sorts of obscure facts to make themselves feel better. The one I remember most was the "we have more Nobel laureates than you" expression of superiority. They actually sold t-shirts in the bookstore with all the Nobel laureates associated with the University and the categories for which they won and the years listed.

There was a tall apartment complex (maybe 15 stories, which is tall for Hyde Park) which was called Nobel towers by the locals, because there maybe half a dozen Nobel winners living there. I used to camp outside Saul Bellow's office and sit on the stairway reading one of his books, hoping that I would catch him coming in or out of his office, so I could sheepishly ask him to sign it for me. [He only taught graduate students, and didn't have any office hours posted, strangely enough. Maybe he realized that would make it easier for goofy undergrads like me to stalk him......]

Enrico Fermi won his Nobel in 1938, several years before he began teaching at the UofC, but there is a huge skull/mushroom cloud bronze by my favorite sculptor, Henry Moore, positioned where the squash courts used to be. This was the site of the first nuclear chain reaction, which would not have been possible without Dr. Fermi's work. Whatever your feelings about nuclear energy, you still need to give Dr. Fermi credit for the amazing scientific discovery.

And now the book store can get some new shirts printed with President Obama added to the long list, and those Hyde Parkers can have another statistic to lord over their pals at Harvard and Yale. But seriously, I am happy that the Swedes have seen fit to honor our President with this award. I think he has done a great deal to create a better working relationship with all the rational actors on the world stage. I hope that he continues on in this vein, and is able to make good on most of his significant campaign promises.