PDA

View Full Version : Former Marine pilot shares his experience



thedrifter
01-17-06, 07:13 AM
Former Marine pilot shares his experience
Published Tuesday January 17 2006
By LORI YOUNT
The Beaufort Gazette

The last time Jim Warner saw Beaufort, it was through the eyes of a fun-loving 25-year-old Marine Corps pilot heading off voluntarily to duty in Vietnam.

Almost 40 years later, he returns with the savvy and lessons learned in combat and more than five years tortured as a prisoner of war.

Warner, recently retired as a legal adviser for the National Rifle Association, took up an invitation to visit Paul Davies, a fellow former pilot in VMFA-251 at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort and Dataw Island resident.

Surrounded by five fellow pilots, a few of whom flew with him in Vietnam as well as in Beaufort, in Davies' cozy living room, Warner joked with his old friends as if it were four decades ago and they were planning their next weekend trip to California in their F-4B Phantoms.

"We've all flown with him, and for us to come back and reminisce, it's a real thrill," Davies said.

Klaas Van Esselstyn jokingly boasted that, as their instructor, he taught them everything they know.

"To the extent the uninstructable can be instructed," Warner quipped back, adding he isn't sure if he could measure up to the strict standards of the Marine Corps today.

Besides visiting friends, Warner took a couple of trips to the air station to speak with squadrons on Jan. 5 and 6 about his combat experiences.

Warner, who was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1966, flew more than 100 missions in Vietnam before being shot down Oct. 13, 1967, in North Vietnam.

For the next five and a half years, he was tortured at a prisoner of war camp.

He said he was often asked by young Marines what it was like to be shot at for the first time, which he said he experienced about 10 days into his tour.

"You have to respond," Warner said. "There's this momentary hesitation. You're thinking, 'Somebody's trying to kill me.'

You have to prepare ahead of time and realize this is what is actually happening.'"

Lt. Jeff Dean, whose squadron leaves for Iraq in February, said he particularly liked Warner's message that failure is not defeat and that people must push through mistakes.

"Throughout history, there have been great men who have lessons to apply to the rest of your life, and I think Jim Warner is one of these men," Dean said.

Warner agreed that his lessons reach beyond military deployed in foreign lands.

"Everyone is going to have to meet adversity," he said. "You have to resolve ahead of time to put steel in your soul."

During imprisonment, Warner was tortured for four months for information he simply didn't have, contracted the vitamin-deficiency disease beriberi from lack of nutrition, leaving his legs damaged for life. His captors kept him awake for as long as three weeks at a time and locked him in a cement box for months.

For his service, he earned the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit with a Combat V, three Bronze Stars with a Combat V, two Purple Hearts, 11 Air Medals, including two single mission Air Medals and the Navy Commendation Medal with a Combat V.

"I'm not a hero, just a guy in an unfortunate circumstance," Warner said.

After his military service ended, Warner went on to earn a bachelor's and law degree from the University of Michigan, served as a domestic policy adviser to the Ronald Reagan White House and worked for the NRA in Fairfax, Va. He now lives in Maryland with his wife and daughter.

Davies and his wife, Dale, visited Warner last summer in Washington, after his second hip replacement surgery, and that's how Warner said he got back in touch with his old buddies.

"Only in the last few years all this is happening," Davies said. "Now that we all have the time."

Ellie