January 2 "Boomer's Day"

As Art so often says, we can't forget absent friends. I would like to remind
the world of the loss of Mike Bumanglag, US Navy, and his pilot, LCDR Dick
Carlson. I didn't know Commander Carlson well, but his family seemed to love
him fiercely. Mikey was a comrade and a humane person doing a difficult job.
I consider myself luckier than most of you, because I knew him and you didn't
get to. That night flight, that missed rendezvous is now ancient history, but
I can't forget Mike "Boomer" Bumanglag, US Navy helicopter rescue swimmer and
Anti-submarine warfare operator. He passed the most difficult schools the Navy
could concoct, passed them with an impossible giggle of a laugh that gave a
lift to everyone around him. It ****es me off that he died and went to the
bottom of the sea. No monument, no holiday. Two hours earlier, their SH-2F
had been my SH-2F. I go to the pier at Imperial Beach and face the pacific -
right out there, about 70 miles, the USS Reid scrambled to their man overboard
stations, cranking around in a tight circle and stopping to drop a search boat
that eventually recovered AW3 Mike Ampong and the co-pilot, LT Wick Paul.

I wish I wouldn't dwell on what happened that night, but Mike Bumanglag was too
cool a person to just let be forgotten. Never hurt a flea in his life and
placed himself in harm's way practically every day for years, for people who
never knew he existed. If it was up to me, January 2 would be Boomer's Day.

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Donate your memories - write a note on the back and send your old photos to a
reputable museum, don't take them with you when you're gone.