You never know where a good story’s going to lead. Sunday morning, I found myself thinking about that Catholic schoolgirl who cussed out Jeff Goldstein in Denver. Where do these kids get their ideas? How can we get through to them? And why do these Occupy protesters get on my very last nerve?
What bugged me — and you could see this in my long Saturday post — was the evidence that these kids evidently are taught nothing about the heroes of America’s long fight against Communism. All they seem to know about that era is (a) “McCarthyism” was bad and (b) hippie peaceniks protesting the Vietnam War were good. With that kind of education, is it any wonder they think Occupy Wall Street is cool?
While I was brooding over that, a childhood memory flashed in my mind and I started Googling about a pilot whose name I knew, but whose history I’d never researched. At first there didn’t seem to be much information available, although I was able to learn his Air Force call-sign. Then I found a blog where one of his relatives had posted a 1988 news article about him, and went to work. It took several hours to produce my American Spectator column today:
Kids who visit the park in Douglasville, Georgia, just call it “Hunter Park,” although its proper name is Hunter Memorial Park, and most of the children running around the soccer fields and picnic areas never stop to study the monument that pays tribute to the park’s namesake. He was voted “Most Talented” his senior year at Douglas County High School, where he won acclaim for his artistic abilities, starred in the school play and was editor of the student yearbook, but his name is not well known today, when he would have been 70 years old.
Robert Gerald “Jerry” Hunter left his native Douglas County to attend the Citadel, where he graduated with honors. He joined the Air Force, became a fighter pilot, and was deployed to Vietnam. On May 25, 1966, Hunter was on his 34th combat mission when his F-105 jet was shot down near the Laotian border. He bailed out — his comrades saw the parachute — and it was initially believed that he had survived. The 25-year-old pilot was listed as missing in action, and the Air Force promoted him from first lieutenant to captain while rescuers searched for him. Hunter’s family, including his young bride Laura, prayerfully waited for word that he had been recovered safely. Seven weeks later, however, the sad news came that his remains had been found in Laos, where he had apparently died of injuries. First Baptist Church in Douglasville overflowed with mourners at his funeral and local businesses closed early that afternoon in honor of Captain Hunter, Douglas County’s first casualty in the Vietnam War. Hunter Memorial Park was dedicated a year later, when I was in second grade, and I remember as a boy reading his name on the monument at the park. . . .
Please read the whole thing, because you never know where a good story’s going to lead.
SOURCES:
- “Jerry Hunter: He Gave His Life,” by Vicki Harsbarger, via Eddie Hunter’s “Chicken Fat” blog
- “Hunter, Robert Gerald (F-105), Capt,” at TogetherWeServed.com.
- “Robert Gerald Hunter,” at Virtual Wall.org.



