Air Force pilot welcomed home

After an emotional speech, former prisoner-of-war Gary L. Thornton looked at the flag-draped casket holding the remains of his friend and mentor, Thunderbirds pilot Russell C. Goodman, and snapped a salute.

"Welcome home to the hero, professional and patriot," Thornton said. "Welcome home, Major Russell Clayton Goodman, United States Air Force."

In the Thunderbirds hangar Thursday at Nellis Air Force Base, Thornton and Goodman's family and members of the Air Force aerial demonstration team paid tribute to the pilot whose F-4B Phantom jet was shot down over coastal Vietnam almost 43 years ago. Recently a laboratory in Hawaii positively identified Goodman's bone fragments that had been excavated from a grave in a village south of Hanoi.

Thornton managed to eject before the jet crashed. But Vietnamese militia took him prisoner minutes after he slammed into a rice paddy with a broken back. He was held captive for six years at the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison until his release in 1973 near the end of the Vietnam War.

The 68-year-old Thornton said he had been in denial that Goodman had been killed that day, Feb. 20, 1967, while they tried to bomb a railroad yard after taking off from the USS Enterprise.

"I knew when I ejected from the airplane, he was still in it and the airplane was pointed down and going fast and we were low," said Thornton, a Navy lieutenant at the time.

As a radar intercept officer, he sat behind Goodman, a former Thunderbirds pilot and narrator flying the jet as part of a Navy-Air Force exchange program.

As they dove in on the target, they released a bomb from 4,000 feet altitude.

"We pulled up at bottom-out altitude of 2,500 instead of the desired 3,500" feet, Thornton said. "Just as the nose was going up to the horizon, I saw a burst, a flak burst outside the forward cockpit, a sizeable flak burst. The nose continued up, porpoised over and we started down again, rolling from side to side.

"Looking at the instruments, the altimeter was unwinding, the air speed was increasing and the dive angle was increasing. It just looked to me like a really good time to get out of there."

While Thornton barely escaped death by ejecting at less than 250 feet above ground, his friend and "professional big brother" did not.

Looking toward Goodman's son, former Army Spc. Russell Goodman, and daughters Sue Stein and Chris Stonebraker, Thornton offered sympathy.

"Unfortunately, Russ lost his life in that action. You lost a father and a friend. I lost a mentor," Thornton said, pausing to fight back tears. "A friend and a professional big brother. Today almost 43 years later, we can finally celebrate the return home of the man who was our father, friend and mentor. I am proud to have known him and honored to have been in his crew."

Wearing his Army uniform and maroon beret from Operation Desert Storm, Russell Goodman expressed relief that his father's remains had been positively identified even though the news had come six days after his mother, June, died in November.

"This has really been kind of a dream come true. It's very much an honor to the family to have him home finally.

"We have waited a very long time for this to occur and having come just behind my mom's passing, as we were mourning we also went into celebration mode. So it's been a roller coaster ride for us."

Stonebraker, of San Diego, recalled her dad helping her learn to play Christmas carols on an organ when she was 10 years old and "playing in the front yard, playing ball. Those are very fond memories."

Stein, of Soldotna, Alaska, said she was "a little overwhelmed" about the timing of her father's remains being identified. She said the family will scatter his ashes and her mother's on an Alaskan mountaintop this summer.

After a 21-gun salute, a flyover by Thunderbird jets in the missing-man formation and presentation of flags to the family, a Thunderbird pilot handed Thornton a bracelet. Thornton's name was on that bracelet, which was worn by Joanne Boyd of Las Vegas when she was a girl in upstate New York and he was a prisoner of war.

"I've had it on my desk all these years because I thought one day I want to thank him. I'm hoping he would want it," she said Wednesday before delivering it to Thunderbirds commander, Lt. Col. Greg Thomas.

Thornton said he was grateful for Boyd's gesture. Over the years since his release he has collected about 200 bracelets, some of which he gave to a metal sculptor who fashioned a model F-4 Phantom out them.

"We heard about the bracelets from some new shoot-downs when we were in prison. It was extraordinarily gratifying to know that people cared about us."

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.