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Murphy Martin Commentary
September 15, 2005

 "Another Hero Laid to Rest"

There was another funeral at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday. One of about thirty a day they are averaging these days when about a thousand WWII Veterans are passing on daily.

All funerals held in Arlington National Cemetery are special, but yesterday's funeral was particularly special to this writer. It was for Air Force Col. Gregg Hartness.

I never met the Texas A and M graduate who grew up in Dallas. But I felt I knew him really well. He was the husband of one of the four Air Force wives my wife Joyce and I accompanied to Paris in September 1969 asking the North Vietnamese delegation to the Paris Peace talks: Are we wives or widows? They were the first group the North Vietnamese met with and these determined four ladies opened a stream of traffic from throughout America to the North Vietnamese door.

Hundreds of thousands of letters poured in to the North Vietnamese in Paris, so many, they soon started declining receipt of the letters and a warehouse had to be rented just to hold the mail overflow from concerned Americans about missing U.S. servicemen.

With Col. Hartness' wife Paula for that very first meeting in Paris , which this writer turned into a documentary entitled "Red Tea and Promises" for WFAA-TV in Dallas, were Bonnie Singleton, wife of Capt. Jerry Singleton; Sandy McElhanon, wife of Major Michael McElhanon; and Joy Jeffrey, wife of Capt. Robert Jeffrey. All four of the ladies had appeared on an interview program we did called Face to Face. They
said they were getting little information from DOD and no information from the North Vietnamese. That is when we decided to go knocking on their door.

When the Viet Nam war ended and the American POWs began coming home in February 1973, Mrs. Singleton and Mrs. Jeffrey's husbands were among those released. There was no word on Col. Hartness or Major McElhanon. Later, both men were declared KIA.

Years later both Mrs. Hartness and Mrs. McElhanon married again to go on with their lives.

But American efforts continued, looking for any information that would clarify what happened to the missing airmen. Col. Hartness was on a night mission looking for traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail when he was shot down November 26, 1968. Col. Hartness ordered his co-pilot to bail out and he did. Col. Hartness went down with his craft.

Col. Hartness' two-daughters, Kimberly and Terri Lynn and his son Glen grew into adulthood still clinging to hope that some day, some how, there would be more word regarding the end of their father's military career. Then on Mother's Day this year, Kim's cell-phone rang as she was driving her son to catch a flight to Marine boot camp. Her father had been identified from items found at the site where his plane went down.


Kim's brother Glen, told me in a letter written just last week as he prepared to go to Hawaii to serve as a special escort for his father to Washington, D.C., Glen Hartness said: "My mind is constantly filled with thoughts of the many, many people who reached out to our family at such a difficult time". Glen , we deeply appreciate your thoughts, but it was not what we did but what you and your sisters, and your mother and the hundreds of other families who like you who were so strong in the face of unending pain and agony ---it is to all of YOU that we say our heartfelt thanks. By example you pulled us all together and made us proud to be Americans.

Little did Paula Hartness (now Paula Wetherell), Sandy McElhanon,
Joy Jeffrey and Bonnie Singleton realize how their first meeting with the North Vietnamese in September 1969 could so galvanize Americans --- and people throughout the world---that thirty-six years later work continued on trying to locate those who became American heroes by sacrificing their lives for our freedom.

Yesterday's funeral of Col. Hartness brings closure for Kim, Terri Lynn and Glen Hartness and their mother -- Paula. Work continues trying to locate and identify other heroes still missing.

Murphy Martin

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e-mail   murphy@murphymartin.com

Previous commentaries:
"Blame Game"
"Senior Thoughts For the Young"
"Role Model Challenge"
August 18 - "Network News Anchors"
August 11 - "Now All Three Are Gone"
August 4 - "Trust in the Media"
July 28 - "Television Then and Now"
July 21 -  "The Mick"
July 14 - "Forty Years and Counting"