Veteran’s Corner

Tom Krabbenhoft

This past Saturday during horrendous blowing and dangerous cold over fifty people gathered at the Fargo National Cemetery to clear wreaths off graves. Commander Hicks thank you below.
On behalf of the Fargo memorial honor guard. Huge thank you to all of the volunteers who helped clean up from wreaths across America. It shows in spades the type of hearty people we have in the Midwest. Special thanks to the FM legion riders who brought the dump trailer and lots of muscle. We had about 50 volunteers. God bless you all!
Jason Hicks
Commander
FMHG

This really shows what a veteran supporting community we live in.
Militarily cold weather is the most brutal of any condition to operate in. Chosin, Stalingrad, Napoleons march on Russia are examples of battles where cold weather was the victor. The soldier never has the option of selecting the weather they fight in.
Sounds and smells sometimes never escape one’s memory. The Huey helicopter thumping blades or the iconic M151 Jeep engine. These were both phased out by the 90s.
The C-130 Hercules and its droning sound is another that will never leave me. The C-130 is still in use today. It frequently can be seen flying into Fargo for touch and go landings.
1989- I was participating in Operation Brimfrost in Alaska. It was one of the coldest periods ever recorded. Temperatures could dip down to below -120 with wind chill.
29 January 1989, in the evening many of us were gathering before the field portion of the exercise began. We were in a aircraft hangar on Ladd Field, which is located on Ft. Wainwright.
Brimfrost had 26,000 participants. It was designed to be one of the largest exercises ever seen in Alaska. The jewel in the crown was joint US/Canadian operations designed to warn the USSR we were ready for a fight.
As we were on an airfield we could hear C-130s and helicopters come and go.
We rolled into introductions and unit force make up, operation goals and objectives. There were several vehicles gathered outside the hangar that were all running.
Someone rapidly came into the hangar and interrupted our drill. I recall the urgency in his voice. We were all immediately to follow him, which we did. We followed until we saw dozens of flashing lights. The midnight sun of AK, combined with normal fog and ice fog visibility was almost zero.
He led us to a plane crash. Three Canadian C-130s were supposed to land. The first did, the 3rd was directed to nearby Fairbanks.
The second hit about a quarter mile short of the runway. It hit so hard the plane broke in two.
We were placed into a supplemental recovery situation. They needed to find out how many were on board the C-130 and recover them. The wreckage covered a large area combined with the temperature of -67, so it was urgent. What was supposed to be a fairly boring mundane night was suddenly not. Canada pulled out of the exercise the next day. My exercise time was just starting.
Eighteen were on board, eight lost their lives there, one died later in Fairbanks. Forty years ago and it still seems like yesterday.

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