2025 Update

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I'm still around enjoying life on Island Lake near Sanderson Airfield, Shelton WA. After turning 79 last March I can now accept that I've grown old. This came about as I searched the Internet to see if I could find any remnant of our old Chinook outfit, the Hookers at Gray Army Airfield. No luck. 

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I began to accept I really was old. 

The last time I flew a Chinook it was a brand new D Model on December 10, 1993. My copilot on that memorable flight was the one and only JC, Jack Combs. In a way it was the perfect bookend  to my long career in Army Aviation. You see, Jack and I were stick buddies in flight school. He was a brand new 2nd Lt paired up with me during our last two weeks in the field at Fort Rucker in July-August 1967. We aced our final tactics check ride with a very high score. We parted ways never expecting to see each other again. 

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Move forward to Vietnam (where else would a green helicopter pilot be found in late 1967) I didn't go to Vietnam right after flight school. It was off to Fort Knox to form up a new Air Cav unit, A. Troop 7/1st Air Cavalry. We departed onboard a Navy ship the USNS Upshur bound for Vietnam in January of 1968. 28 days later we landed in Vung Tau and set up ops at Dion just north of Saigon. I was infused to the 173 Ave Company, The Robinhoods for in-country orientation for a month. Arriving near Sherwood Forest at Lai Khe. I reported in to the head shed and who do I see, Capt. Jack Combs, the Crossbow gunship platoon leader! 

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Instead of being returned to Dion, the Army decided they needed to bring younger blood (poor choice of words) to another Air Cav unit up at Camp Enari near Pleiku. 

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I did my year, got assigned to Germany and finished off my Active Duty time with the Army. I returned back home to Seattle and finished off College and joined a small Army Reserve outfit flying out of Sand Point Naval Support Activity in 1972. They had a single OH-23C on floats, 8 pilots and 250 draft -dodging enlisted. It was a flying club! 

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A short while later who walks in???? Jack Combs, now a Warrant Officer. It was old home week and the continutation of a long friendship. So you see, Jack was there in 1967 as we started our Army flying careers. And we flew together for 26 more years and took our last flight together in 1993. We continued to get together along with the old Patriarchs of the 92nd, Doug Houser and others every month for dinner. 

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JC died and was buried on June 2, 2022 marking the end of a 55-year friendship.  The second photo is JC Hooker family taken at his funeral. 

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There's hardly a faint memory, a murmur of past glories around the Errol Van Eaton Army Reserve Center today. We are closing our flight plans but keeping memories very much alive. God bless you all.

                                                                            May 16, 2025

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