A Moment at Kandahar, 2010:
I’d hitched a ride with “Big Windy”–1-214 GSAB from FOB Shank to Kandahar in early November as they prepared to return to Germany with their four CH-47 Chinooks. My own plan was to throw myself on the mercy of the USAF and hopefully get a ride home to JBLM on C-17s. My then-wife, Jennifer, had been diagnosed with cancer while I’d been embedded in Helmand Province with an engineer unit conducting route clearance missions. When I got back to Shank at the end of October, my daughter called me with the news.
I stepped off the Chinook I’d hitched a ride on and said goodbye to my Big Windy friends. Walking along the flight line for the PAX Terminal, I was in aviation buff paradise. All sorts of NATO aircraft were coming and going. Eurofighters, Chinooks, Hueys, etc.
An F-18 began its take off roll and went blasting past me. I stopped to watch and realized the pilot & aircraft belonged to VMFA-232. The sight of this unit still in action hit my aviation historian heart center mass. Fifteen years before, Major Dick Mangrum’s gunner, Dennis Byrd, reached out to me while I was working as an aviation historian for Dynamix Inc., a computer game company. Dennis and I became friends, and I interviewed him repeatedly & corresponded with him for five years.
Major Dick Mangrum commanded VMSB-232 in the summer of 1942. He took the squadron into Guadalcanal as part of the first aviation component to reach Henderson Field. Dennis flew the entire 53 Days of combat VMSB-232 would endure there as Dick’s back-seater.
Earlier in the fall of 2010, I’d been aboard a Chinook forced to make a precautionary landing in the Hindu Kush. Every aircraft available came to our defense and orbited overhead, keeping us safe from Taliban attack. While we were down waiting for rescue, I made a mental bucket list of books I wanted to write if I survived and got home. Fourth on that list was getting the chance to write the story of John L Smith, Marion Carl and Dick Mangrum and their Guadalcanal Deployment with VMF-223 and VMSB-232.
Watching that F-18 take off at Kandahar on my last day in Afghanistan reinforced my intent to write about the guys who came before that pilot and set the bar for service so high during the pivotal weeks on Guadalcanal. VMSB-232 was virtually destroyed in the 53 days its men served on the island, and in October 1942, Dick Mangrum was the last pilot left from the squadron. Everyone else had been medically evacuated, killed or wounded.
The USMC Museum in Quantico has honored Dick Mangrum & Dennis Byrd by painting their SBD Dauntless in their markings. It hangs on display now, a reminder of the heritage and tradition that VMFA-232 carries forward to this day.
Later, as I headed home aboard a C-17 to help take care of Jenn through surgery and radiation, I wondered if VMFA-232’s F-18s had covered our downed Chinook that day in September. I’ll probably never know for sure, but it was a comforting thought for sure.
The American Warrior 