Remembering the heroic "Fallen Eagles"

Thirty-three years ago today, I helped (with my boss Dee Bryant/now Dee Boaz) organize and oversee The Leaf-Chronicle's coverage of the biggest single tragedy ever to slam right into my community. I was associate editor of the Clarksville, Tennessee, newspaper and generally worked the evening shift to get the paper out. As such, I'd barely gotten to sleep when Dee called me to say that a plane -- filled with Fort Campbell soldiers coming home from peacekeeping duties in the Sinai and expecting to enjoy Christmas with their families -- had crashed in Gander, Newfoundland. There were no survivors. Just Christmas toys bought while the soldiers were waiting for their plane to be refueled in Gander and remains of 248 soldiers and eight crewmembers, scattered across a frozen field. "Oh shit," I exclaimed to Dee, before I washed the previous night's after-work traditional whiskey and cigarettes away and got to the office about 6 or maybe it was earlier.

We put out a special afternoon edition of what I had titled "Fallen Eagles" stories (Fort Campbell's 101st Airborne (Air Assault) troops are called "The Screaming Eagles") before turning around to put together our regular morning paper.

Fort Campbell, if you don't know, butts up next to Clarksville, Tennessee, and Oak Grove and Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and our town was filled with troops and retirees. Even the Clarksville Mayor Ted Crozier was from the military, which is where I first met him during his days as a colonel. He's dead now, but I loved old Wild Turkey, as he was called.

About 1 a.m. the next day, I gathered the reporters (one of them my future wife) and photographers in the newsroom library/conference room and, teary-eyed from exhaustion and from genuine sadness, I congratulated them on our coverage. Thanked, them, really, for two straight shifts of fine journalism. I can't even remember the names of all the fine journalists from The Leaf-Chronicle who participated in what was amazing and melancholy coverage … on two different deadlines in a single day. Of course, there were Dee and this old newspaperman. Others included, if I remember correctly (a risky proposition at this point in life) designer Sara Foley, city editor Suzanne DeWitt (now Ghianni), Fort Campbell reporter Steve Zolvinski, ace cops reporter Carol Davis, photographers Robert Smith and, I think, Toby Tobler, fine human being and reporter Harold Lynch (since deceased, but I think about him every day), copy editor and religion writer/columnist Jim Monday (still a very close friend) and copy desk chief Paul Carlton (since deceased.) Perhaps sports editor Bob Davidson and his crew jumped in as well. Or at least they cleared their pages early for camera room wizard Ronnie Kendrick, who "shot" the pages that were turned into plates for the press. In addition to working in the newsroom and burning cigarettes all day, I had even gone out (at Dee's insistence, because she knew I wanted to write something) that evening to cover the first memorial service at Wilson Hall on the Army post. (I wish I still had that edition, but most of my old newspapers were victims of the 2010 Nashville Flood's cruel invasion of my house.)

Back home for another glass of whiskey and cigarettes by 2 or 2:30 a.m., I sat and thought about that huge disaster and the lives-- I knew some of the soldiers -- lost.

Then I went to sleep and prepared for the next day's round of coverage, which would focus on the mourning community. President Reagan -- from back when presidents were good people even if you disputed their politics -- came to help the families mourn. I never was in the military. Fortunately, in the first draft lottery to select troops for the Vietnam War (I was classified 1A), I drew No. 280, which was good, as I had no desire to die in the jungle nor did I relish the thought of Canadian winters. Still, I've always supported the military, especially the soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines who put their lives on the line for us. I am fortunate that I developed ties with so many soldiers during my 14-year career at the newspaper in Clarksville. On this day, annually, I stop to remember the soldiers and to recall my dealings with Commanding General Burton Patrick (a wise and friendly military soul) as he worked to help the families and to make sure the community remembered the "Fallen Eagles." Bless the souls of those long-departed heroes.