If you’ll pardon the interruption of whether or not guys buy furniture to get laid or just because they may actually like it for them selves, I would like to stop for one moment and give someone his due...
I would like to pause on this, the 11th day of the 11th month to speak aloud the name of a fallen brother, Henry Gerald Gish. SSgt Gish was a Lancaster County native and had a proud and distinguished career in the US Air Force. This is his story:
When Henry Gish volunteered for a sensitive assignment called Project Heavy Green, his wife had to sign a secrecy agreement too. Gish, an Air Force man, was to be temporarily relieved of duty to take a civilian job with Lockheed Aircraft. He would be running Lima Site 85, a radar base in Laos, whose neutrality prohibited U.S. military presence. No one was to know.
Lima Site 85 was on a peak in the Annam Highlands near the village of Sam Neua on a 5860-foot mountain called Phou Pha Thi. The mountain was protected by sheer cliffs on three sides, and guarded by 300 tribesmen working for CIA. Unarmed US "civilians" operated the radar which swept across the Tonkin Delta to Hanoi.
For three months in early 1968, a steady stream of intelligence was received which indicated that communist troops were about to launch a major attack on Lima 85. Intelligence watched as enemy troops even built a road to the area to facilitate moving heavy weapons, but the site was so important that William H. Sullivan, U.S. Ambassador to Laos, made the decision to leave the men in place. When the attack came March 11, some were rescued by helicopter, but eleven men were missing.
In mid-March, Doris Jean Gish was notified that Lima Site 85 had been overrun by enemy forces, and that her husband and the others who had not escaped had been killed. While controversy still exists over the ultimate fate of the crew at Lima Site 85, today I pray God’s blessing and grace on SSgt Gish’s family and loved ones.
SSgt Gish, you are not forgotten.
