In her interview yesterday on Veterans Radio, Donald Matocha's sister Linda Masur said something really important. "There are a lot of heroes in this story," she said, from the Team Dallas Girl Marines who've helped the Matocha family find resolution, to the JPAC teams who recovered their brother, to Nguyen Van Loc, who buried him on Hill 166. But she also pointed out that Ron Gatewood and his helicopter crew were tremendous heroes, because without them, the entire platoon would surely have been lost. And without the survivors, the answers would have been much harder to find.
The helicopter rescue of Team Dallas Girl on 5 April 1968 is recounted in chilling detail in "An Ocean Away," by AC Ron Gatewood and the Marines whose lives he saved that day. But Ron is quick to tell anyone who will listen that he was only one of the men on that ship that took more enemy fire than it should have as they hovered over a very hot zone, hoisting one wounded Marine after another up into the hold. Which got me thinking...
There are three more guys out there who lived through that mission. Three guys who have a platoon of Marines and a grateful family ready to buy them a beer. Can we find them? Seems to me we sure should try. So let's put it out there and let the Shadow Magic do its thing. SEEKING: Crew of HMM-262 5 April 1968 AC Ron Gatewood Extracted Team Dallas Girl Recon patrol via hoist under heavy fire.
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