By Marcia Barnes
Staff Writer
Dwight Moss, a Marine who served in the Vietnam War as a foot-soldier boarded a flight from Asheville to Washington, D.C. in the early hours of Saturday, April 27. The momentous departure that morning lifted from the runway with every seat occupied by a Vietnam veteran. They had been invited to the nation’s capitol to be honored. Moss was joined on the Honor Flight by Mel Halfon, Larry Owens, Ernie Mayo and Butch Underwood from VFW Post 7807.
“There was a plane full of people. We’re looking for veterans, they don’t have to belong to a post, they can belong to any post, we will help them get on the Honor Flight if they want to go,” Moss said.
“We will do what we can and that can happen. It doesn’t mean we can get everybody at one time, but over the years we can get a lot more people to experience what we did.”
Recognition for their military service and selflessness was what Moss and the four men from a local post in Hiawassee began to experience when the Honor Flight landed at Baltimore/Washington International Airport. Moss said that they all deplaned and got on a bus. Some of the passengers were helpers to assist veter-
ans during the day long tour.
“What food we ate, we ate on the bus. We kept moving all day. The story was in the Asheville News. It should have made national news,” Moss said.
“Butch Underwood was touched deeply. Underwood got wounded and was in the Da Nang hospital,” Moss said. “They set out mortars and attacked the hospital and he got wounded again. I don’t know his whole story. I’m going to be performing a wedding ceremony for him and his fiance on Saturday, June 8. It’s a pretty good story because it’s the first girl he ever kissed. He got separated from her when he went to Vietnam.”
Moss said that the bus transported them to all the memorials and monuments, they saw more than anyone could ever see in a car. There was a policeman guiding the bus, people running interference and they could keep moving.
The Lincoln Memorial and the Korean Memorial were visited, the Hiroshima Memorial and they observed the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The Vietnam Wall Memorial holds the names of two soldiers from Towns County, Ga. Clyde Owensby and Ernest Garrett, who were only 21 years old when they became a casualty of the war and VFW Post 7807 is named in memory of their sacrifice.
“These guys were just kids. It’s a great sadness for me because the war wasn’t prosecuted well. It wasn’t the guys, it was the politicians and I think of how many lives could have been saved if it had been prosecuted correctly and that bothers me a lot,” Moss said. “I didn’t think about it when I was over there.
“We were just trying to stay alive, but when we were over there we knew we could go to Hanoi. We wanted to go, send us to Hanoi, we’ll fight our way there, we’ll finish up, then we can go home, instead of one man, a dozen men dying. That’s the way it was.
“We were almost pigeons out there. We were patrolling along rice fields and on dykes and things like that. If they’re hidden well in the jungle they can kill us one at a time.
“Tony and I stopped the bloodshed. I fell back toward the fire once when we were ambushed and I’d had one man wounded and another one killed already that day. They cut us off on the way back to the base camp. I asked Tony, ‘Do you have any cover? All I’ve got is straw.’
“He said, ‘Yeah.’ I went back to Tony and then we saw them advancing on our guys. They were coming because we were in a single file, killing them one by one. We put a stop to it. I remember Tony’s rifle jamming and I said ‘Tony relax,’ and I was scared to death.”
Again, Moss said that he told Tony to relax, that he could get it cleared. Moss wanted Tony firing while Moss needed to reload.
“Everybody had their heads down. That happens, men are scared, they see men getting killed, but the only way you can stay alive is face the enemy.
“The veterans pretty much stayed together in Washington. Once and a while somebody would get out of pocket, but each of us had been assigned to someone to look after us. Each one of us had a helper and they did a good job.
“The lady that helped me along the way, her daughters met us at the airport and they had things for me. She gave me a big poster. It said, ‘We love you.’ All kinds of designs and patriotic symbols.”
Speaking through tears, Moss said, “See, I made it. I mourn for my people, I do. That’s the reason I’m very adamant when we don’t have the right leaders in place. Every decision militarily should consider the soldiers and the families.
“The families suffer tremendous terror. Owensby and Garrett, when those officers came to their home that was the greatest terror the family ever experienced.
“My mom had two officers visit because they thought I wasn’t going to make it. I don’t know why they jumped the gun, but they did. My brother told me about it. It was chaos. Of course, I wasn’t there. My mother was terrified because I was dead. That’s what they thought.”
The Honor Flight back to Asheville brought more than Moss expected.
“While we were still in the plane coming in they said, ‘mail call, mail call.’ They gave us a box like a big cigar box. It was