Col. John F. Carey passed away

[Jim Kizer]

I read with great sadness that my old boss, Col. John Carey passed away at his home in Whispering Pines, N.C. on 12 December, 2004. He took us into Soc Trang, SVN on 7 April, 1962 as the first CO of Shufly. What a class act. He won the Navy Cross in the Battle of Midway, commanded HMR-161 in Korea and with Keith McKutchinson fathered the development of the helicopter. We flew an R4D8 into Soc Trang and set the field up for the arrival of the Helos. I was his Admin Officer and was a Capt. at the time. I was the junior officer on his staff thus he called me,"Jr."
One day he said Jr. write me an order on Medals. This was in May of '62 and Gen. Paul Harkins, MACV had just told us we would all be out of there by Christmas. I asked him what kind of Medals. He looked at me in disbelief and said AWARDS! whereupon I wondered aloud whether or not any one would get any kind of award from this expedition. He said that you could never tell. Three years later I flew an R5D into Danang from Kaneohe with 900 lbs of medals, mostly purple hearts aboard. Others on the staff were Hank Dewey,
Blackie Vatcher, Pat Sivert and Andy Anderson. With Col. Carey's passing we have lost a Titan.

[LLassise]

Dear Jim....I can't agree with you more on your comments about my pal John. I had a great visit with John and Deryle along with Doug Rollow (VMSB-241 Battle of Midway) in Chicago back in September. He was doing great and it was an honor for me to be an integral part of his 89th birthday bash. Though John was nearly 50 years my senior, he always insisted I refer to him as John. He treated me as a member of his family, his friendship was the greatest honor ever bestowed upon me. Always the consumate compassionate leader, he telephoned me 5 days before his passing to make sure I was coping with the news of my employer (airline) going bankrupt. As always, he made my day a hell of a lot brighter and put into perspective the situation I was facing. There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about him. As you said, he was a Titan!!

P.S.: I was able to attend John's memorial service in Whispering Pines. Though he wanted a low key deal, I made sure that I consumed his portion of bourbon after the services. I know he would have been proud.

[stibbens]

I'm a little late getting the word on the passing of a hero and boss, Col. John F. Carey. Way back in the stone age 1950s at MARTD, NAS, Dallas, TX, he was my CO and I his admin chief and driver. Hard as nails if you screwed up. Like a father if you did a good job and tried hard. (I received a meritorious promotion from him: to Sgt. E-4 and later, to SGT. E-5.) Dallas NAS, being a midway refueling station for cross country aviator friends of his, required entertainment supplies, which means we'd fly the twin-engine SNB to Juarez for rot-gut resupply.

Oh, by the way, old friends called him Bricktop... which he would never explain. Yep, he was a Titan.

Steve Stibbens
Former GySgt