DOB/DOD: October 22, 1963 (Fort Campbell, KY) – November 27, 2004; 41 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married Jeanette M. Regan [West Point ’83; Colonel, retired] (1961-) on August 15, 1987, at West Point
CHILDREN: Three sons, Michael Jr. (1990-), Thomas M. (1993-), and Dennis “Ricky” IV [West Point, Class of ‘25] (1999-).
LOCAL ADDRESS: Howland Road; West Hartford
COMMISSIONED: May 1985
MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY: 15B; Aviation Combined Arms Operations Officer
UNIT: 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division (Light); Schofield Barracks, Hawaii
FAMILY: Born to Dennis R. Jr. [Lt Col, Army, retired] (1928-2022) and Elizabeth A. “Libby” Cook McMahon (1929-1986). One brother, Dennis R. III [Captain, Army] (1954-1982). Four sisters, Lezle M. McMahon Harris (1958-), Nora E. McMahon Boyer (1958-), Kelly J. McMahon Cook (1958-), and Stacie McMahon Ferry (1964-).
DECORATIONS: Awarded the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal with V device for Valor, Purple Heart Medal, National Defense Service Medal with device, Southwest Asia Service Medal with device, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal (Expeditionary), Global War on Terrorism Service Medal (Service), Koren Defense Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Army Overseas Service Ribbon, Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi Arabia), Kuwait Liberation Medal (Emirate of Kuwait), Parachutist Badge (Basic), Air Assault Badge, and the Aviator Badge (Senior).
CIRCUMSTANCES: Killed when a Presidential Airways Inc. aircraft assigned to security contractor Blackwater USA, call sign Blackwater 61, crashed in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Others killed in this incident:
Presidential Airways Pilot, Noel English; New Orleans, LA
Presidential Airways First Officer, Loren Hammer; Needles, CA
Presidential Airway Flight Mechanic, Melvin Rowe; Bowling Green, OH
Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Travis W. Grogan; Moore, OK
Army Specialist Harley D.R. Miller; Spokane, WA
OTHER: The crash was investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board and the U.S. Army Collateral Investigations Board. The investigation showed that the cause of the crash was an inexperienced flight crew flying an unfamiliar route and the lack of adequate terrain clearance. In additional comments, it was noted that it’s possible the pilots had hypoxia, which impacted their decision-making due to the high elevation of the flight and lack of oxygen on board.
Conard High School (West Hartford, CT), Class of 1981
Memorialized with a monument in front of Conard High School, West Hartford. One of three people in this book who graduated from Conard High School; the other two being Paliwoda & Philippon.
West Point Class of 1985
From The Honolulu Star-Advertiser on December 2, 2004
By Curtis Lum and Mike Gordon | Advertiser Staff Writers
SCHOFIELD SERVICE HONORS 3 SOLDIERS
Men Were Among Six Killed In Plane Crash In Afghanistan Mountains
A prayer service will be held this morning at Schofield Barracks in memory of the three soldiers who died Saturday when their aircraft crashed in Afghanistan. The soldiers were assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division (Light). The men, along with three American civilians, were killed when their private transport aircraft that was contracted by the U.S. Air Force, crashed in the mountains of Bamiyan province in central Afghanistan. The Army yesterday identified the soldier as Lieutenant Colonel Michael J. McMahon, 41, of Connecticut. McMahon, an aviation officer, enlisted in the Army in May 1985 and was assigned to Schofield Barracks in June 2002. McMahon is believed to be the highest-ranking military member with a Hawaii-based unit to be killed in the war and is one of the highest-ranking service members killed in Iraq or Afghanistan in the current campaign. Chief Warrant Officer Travis W. Grogan, 31, of Moore, Oklahoma. Grogan, an aviation logistics warrant officer, enlisted in August 1991 and was assigned to Schofield Barracks in August 2001. Specialist Harley D. Miller, 21, of Spokane, Washington. Miller, who repaired OH-58D Kiowa helicopters, enlisted in the Army in April 2002. He was assigned to Schofield Barracks in September 2003. This morning’s prayer service is not open to the public. McMahon was a member of St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Enchanted Lake. His wife, Jeanette, an Army Colonel at Fort Shafter, is an active member of the congregation, and their three sons are students in its school. “He was a very involved father,” said Principal Jane Quinn of St. John Vianney School. “Despite a busy military career, he was always present for parent conferences and school activities.” McMahon also was a Boy Scout leader and was involved in the community sports teams that his sons played on, Quinn said. His constant enthusiasm for life touched the boys and their friends, Quinn said. “Before he left, he was at church every Sunday with his family,” she said. “He was enthusiastic and interested in what they were doing and with the other school kids.” When he left for Afghanistan, the students in his oldest son’s class threw him a party. On Tuesday morning, they learned that he had died in the mountains of Afghanistan. “They have done a lot of praying about it,” Quinn said.” When the kids learned about it, the two classes where the two older children went to Mass right away. There is not much you can do, but you can pray.” The deaths bring to 12 the number of Schofield soldiers killed in Afghanistan since May. There are about 5,800 25th Division troops in Afghanistan. The cause of the crash is under investigation, although Army officials said there is no indication that hostile fire brought down the CASA 212. The plane went down Saturday while enroute from the U.S. military base at Bagram to Shinband.
From The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) December 2, 2004
NO HOSTILE FIRE SEEN
SOLDIER’S REMAINS RECOVERED
The Bodies Of Three U.S. Soldiers And Three Civilian Crew Members Killed In A Plane Crash In Afghanistan Are Found
HONOLULU – The Pentagon on Wednesday confirmed that three U.S. soldiers, including a Spokane man who died in a plane crash in Afghanistan’s mountains, were from Schofield Barracks. The remains of Lieutenant Colonel Michael J. McMahon, 41, of Connecticut; Chief Warrant Officer Travis W. Grogan, 31, of Moore, Oklahoma; and Specialist Harley D. Miller, 21, of Spokane, were recovered along with those of three civilian crew members. The fixed-wing CASA 212 plane went down Saturday, but search efforts were complicated by bad weather and difficult terrain, said military spokesman Major Mark McCann. A plane carrying the bodies of the six plane crash victims back to the United States left Bagram late Tuesday, bound for Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, McCann said. “At this time, we have no indication this crash was caused by hostile fire,’ he said. The bodies were found amid the debris of the plane in the Hindu Kush mountains. “The indication we have is that it got into a valley and tried to gain altitude quickly,” said Major General Eric Olson. “The pilot apparently recognized that he was not going to be able to gain altitude quickly enough and tried to make a very dramatic turn, didn’t make it and crashed into a narrow valley.” The three soldiers were assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 25th Infantry (Light). McMahon was an aviation officer who enlisted in the Army in May 1985. Grogan, an aviation logistics warrant officer, joined the Army in August 1991. Miller, a helicopter mechanic, enlisted in the Army in April 2002.
From The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
By Rafael A. Olmeda | Staff Writer
FATHER MOURNS OFFICER SON KILLED IN AFGHAN PLANE CRASH
Dennis McMahon Jr. wasn’t crying on Thursday afternoon. He had held back the tears on Saturday when he learned that his son, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, was missing in Afghanistan. But they flowed freely two days later when his greatest fear, his son’s death, was confirmed. He cried for days. Finally, at his beachfront Pompano Beach condo on Thursday, he convinced himself to be strong for the rest of his family. Lieutenant Colonel Michael McMahon, 41, was killed in a plane crash in the snow-capped mountains of Bamiyan. He was returning from a meeting at Bagram Air Force Base, ready to rejoin the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division. His troops. They were the ones he had served Thanksgiving dinner to just days earlier, smiling, and appreciative of their service. His father recalled him as a consummate soldier, determined to rise in the ranks of the military from a young age. Dennis McMahon knew the feeling. He, too, joined the military at an early age, serving at the end of World War II, in Korea, and Vietnam. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1969 at the age of 41. He and his wife had six children, two of them sons. Both boys graduated from West Point. Both are gone now. Dennis III, who was born nine years before Michael, died in a car accident in 1982. McMahon sensed his son was bound for Afghanistan shortly after September 11, 2001. The younger McMahon was stationed in Fort Hood, Texas, at the time. “Mike called and said now would probably be a good time to visit,” said his stepmother, Melanie Crandall-McMahon. And they did. But the deployment never came. Instead, McMahon, a Desert Storm veteran, was assigned to lead the 3-4 Cavalry, based out of Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. He missed Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, but the unit was finally called into Afghanistan in April. “He was not allowed to communicate his mission to anyone here,” his father said. He did contact the family as often as he could through e-mails and phone calls. In his final e-mail, which was sent November 23, he wrote about literally and figuratively disarming potential enemies. “If you can believe it, 99.5% of all Afghans have never seen juggling,” he wrote. “So, l am able to win the hearts of many through Yak, Du. Say (1-2-3), where three rocks make their way into the air, and somehow 200-plus former fighters decide they want to give me their weapons.” It was the kind of charm that typified the younger McMahon’s early life in West Hartford, Connecticut, where his father lived when he retired from the Army. Unable to find work with the area’s defense contractors, McMahon wound up selling candles with considerable success. With one son already in West Point, he encouraged his younger son to be a banker, with no success. “Mike saw that his father was an Army pilot, and all his friends were Army pilots,” said Crandall-McMahon. “Whenever they got together and talked, they looked like they were having so much fun, and Mike decided that’s what he wanted.” The McMahons visited family members in South Florida frequently, ultimately resulting in Dennis McMahon’s decision to move to Pompano Beach in the mid-1980s. From what little the family has been told, they are convinced Michael McMahon did not suffer. He was probably sleeping when the plane crashed on Baba Mountain, the elder McMahon said. Two other soldiers in McMahon’s unit also died, as did the pilot and two other crew members. In addition to his four sisters, Michael McMahon is survived by his wife, Jeanette, a fellow West Point graduate and Army Lieutenant Colonel who lives in Hawaii. They had three children. Three sisters, Lezle, Nora, Kelly, and Stacie, greeted his coffin at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Thursday. Michael McMahon’s funeral has not been scheduled, but he will be buried at West Point, not far from his brother.
From Army.mil on August 1, 2023
By Eric Bartelt | Pointer View Managing Editor
His voice cracked as his remarks were deliberately delivered to the attentive group of air assault trainees who were taking in every word intently about his father. The purpose of the speech was to remind the group of nearly 190 participants that attention to detail and meticulousness in their work to do it 100% accurately without room for error has life or death consequences for those who put their trust in them.
It was an eerily foggy morning on July 26 in the peacefully silent West Point Cemetery, minus a few random chirps from birds, where Class of 2025 Cadet Dennis Richard “Ricky” McMahon IV spoke about his father, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Jerome McMahon, a 1985 U.S. Military Academy graduate, to the trainees of the fourth iteration of The Sabalauski Air Assault School (TSAAS) at the academy this summer.
From June 22 through August 6, TSAAS holds five 10-day sessions of its air assault school at West Point for about 250 participants, mainly cadets, per session. During this summer’s air assault detail, much like the other West Point summer details such as Cadet Field Training, it is named after a graduate who died in the recent era of the Global War on Terrorism.
This year’s air assault detail is named Task Force McMahon after Ricky’s dad, who died in a plane crash in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, in 2004. The black T-shirts that the air assault instructors and cadet cadre wear during the detail reads, “All For the ‘Ohana – Task Force McMahon,” as ‘Ohana is a Hawaiian term meaning “Family.”
McMahon, a Systems and Decision Sciences major, is the S-4 (Supply, Transportation, Logistics) of the air assault detail, which he said his job revolves around “Beans, Bandages, and Bullets.”
“When not fulfilling the various requests for supplies from incoming air assault trainees, I coordinate the preparation and movement of many bags of ice we use to facilitate training and treat heat casualties,” said McMahon, the self-proclaimed Army Brat who grew up in places like Hawaii, Fort Hood, Texas, and West Point. “However, with such a small staff for this detail, I often find myself helping my other S-shops in their duties, and they helped with mine. We created not just a ‘team’ but a ‘family’ to overcome the many challenges of supporting the rigorous air assault training.”
McMahon had to step up into the position of the S-4 since he was pegged to be the assistant S-4 due to his class year as a rising junior but was “surprisingly” promoted into the position.
“I was quite hesitant, having already been told by many of the long hours and difficult tasks I would be faced with as the assistant S-4, and now I had to help steer the ship,” McMahon said. “I was nervous. However, this detail has further cemented my belief that teamwork makes the dream work, and without the other amazing cadets, noncommissioned officers (NCOs), tactical officers (TACs), medics, and task force, and other cadets in other details who have helped us facilitate our training – I would have struggled exponentially more with my position.”
The detail has helped build his confidence and foundation as a leader, but he does come with plenty of life experience as he is a prior-service Soldier, a combat engineer (12 Bravo), who served in the Vermont National Guard while earning a bachelor’s degree in political science at Norwich University in Vermont.
“As my TAC NCO likes to say, I’m ‘Two Scoops of Hooah,’ and while my parents were both aviators, as a combat engineer, I was able to see the level of support required to enable combat arms,” McMahon said. “Boy, it’s no joke. I fought for this position so I could gain experience in supplying a fluid and dynamic force. Furthermore, it has only cemented my leadership philosophy on the pertinence of healthy attitudes and teamwork through the development of a familial unit or an ‘Ohana.” Following his parents’ legacy to West Point, thoughts about detail named after his father
While his two older brothers took different paths as a civilian mechanic and a civilian engineer involved in solar energy, McMahon was always intent on serving in the military and especially going to West Point since he was young. However, that path for the 24-year-old was not a straight one directly into the academy.
McMahon was unable to gain admittance to the academy during his first try-out of high school and decided to go to Norwich University, where he joined the men’s rugby team and participated in Army ROTC. He said he felt removed from the military, so he chose to enlist in the Vermont National Guard.
“During that time, I continued my studies, attended Mountain Warfare School, and was soon to be deployed,” McMahon said. “After finishing my bachelor’s degree in political science early, my unit was set to depart for Djibouti, Africa.”
Prior to his senior year at Norwich, he decided to submit one more application to West Point. He received the notification of his acceptance while at the range qualifying for the M249 Bravo machine gun, preparing for his deployment.
“I did not want to grow old and live to possibly regret never giving West Point the old college try,” McMahon said about submitting his final application.
However, there was a dilemma in his mind as the days crept closer before the deployment, so he had to make a final decision on what he wanted to do. West Point doesn’t offer deferments, and the deployment went about a month after he would have had to arrive at West Point for Reception Day. With the importance of family, he wanted to serve with his guys in Africa, which made the decision a hard one.
“I did not want to leave my squad and for them to go on the deployment without me – I was extremely conflicted and couldn’t make a choice,” McMahon said. “Part of me wanted to ensure I was with my team, and the other was inspired to follow my parents’ footsteps and earn the right to join the Long Gray Line. I eventually decided to attend the U.S. Military Academy and take on the challenge of living up to the legacy my mother and father left behind to create my own ‘Ohana at my new rocky mountain home.”
He credits his first sergeant for helping him make the decision to come to West Point; however, he did mention that at one point, he decided to do a coin flip. Using a quarter, with George Washington being the head of the coin and Washington Statue on The Plain being a major academy landmark, it signified going to West Point, or if it landed tails, he would lean toward going on the deployment with his unit. If you believe in coincidence, on how the coin landed, and that is how his destiny was meant to be. He now is following in his mother, Jeanette, a retired colonel who is a 1983 USMA graduate, and father’s footsteps at the academy.
“My mother, despite being a rabble-rouser and full of ‘Go Army, Beat Navy’ spirit, has never pushed me toward the military or West Point,” McMahon said. “I think it is a legacy I have slowly undertaken to carry onward. My father was remembered as an inclusive, joyful, and supportive officer whom I hope I can emulate one day.”
When you tie a small bow around everything within McMahon’s legacy, he is now experiencing the venture of being a part of a summer detail named after and honoring his father.
“I feel an intense burden on my shoulders to ensure the success of the detail and the actual growth of the trainees in the air assault course,” said McMahon, who earned his own air assault wings last summer. “My name is quite literally on the shirt. However, my father being honored by this summer detail is immeasurable in its impact on myself and my family. For each class that I have been in within our detail, we have an intro brief and a silent cemetery run. During both, I give a speech to the incoming air assault trainees about the history of my father, the events surrounding his death, what it means to me, and what it could mean to them.
“I emphasize that while our cadre staff want them to earn the badge and become qualified, we would rather them become individuals who have instilled the habits necessary to get their troops – their ‘Ohana – home,” he added. “I will admit that in each brief I have given, I have cried. However, my hope is that for at least one person, he or she will carry that conversation with them and just maybe they become the person to get that father, mother, brother, or daughter home to their family. Because in the end, that means everything; it certainly did for me.”
Jeannette McMahon, who is currently a development officer for Children of Fallen Patriots, is proud of her son for having the “foresight and energy to put together a proposal and submit it to the chain of command,” which led to the naming of Task Force McMahon.
“As a family, we feel honored to be able to have the opportunity to remember Mike’s legacy,” Jeanette said. “Mike and I met at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the home of The Sabalauski Air Assault School, where we met, fell in love, and got married while stationed there.”
Jeanette, who is also air assault qualified, will be the guest speaker at the graduation of the fifth and final iteration of air assault school on August 6. She said she would speak about some of the same things that Ricky talks about during the cemetery speech.
“I want to convey the emphasis that Ricky points out when he addressed the trainees at the cemetery at his dad’s grave with attention to detail and measuring risk, and that making appropriate decisions as leaders save lives and bring soldiers home to their families each night,” Jeanette said. “In the end, I am confident their training puts them in a position to help keep us safe and to protect the freedoms of our country.”
As for her son’s involvement in the detail, she is proud of his continuing development as a leader.
“I am glad he has been able to step up to this challenge and use it as a learning experience and add it as part of his lieutenant toolkit,” she said.
Then came the morning of the cemetery run by the fourth iteration air assault class, where McMahon got a chance to speak about his father to the remaining members of the class, which was down to about 190 from the day zero group.
McMahon started out by thanking the class for coming out and then proceeded to mention his dad and his uncle, who he is named after – Captain Dennis Richard McMahon III, a 1976 USMA graduate who was killed in a car accident in 1982, is laid to rest a few headstones apart from Ricky’s dad.
He prefaced to the group about getting choked up while speaking, so he needed his notebook to keep himself on point while telling the story of his dad.
“With respect to the life of an aviator, those who choose aviation often have an expectation of a life of adrenaline through air assault missions, gun runs, and medevacs of a hot LZ (Landing Zone),” McMahon said. “The reality can often be disappointing and even a little boring. Aviators like my father have to perform multiple inspections, long flight plans, and mountains of paperwork for just a short flight. They often find themselves becoming a simple means of transportation – moving cargo – or flying long hours in a straight line.”
Although life as an aviator can be boring at times, Jeanette did tell a remarkable story of Michael while in Herat, Afghanistan, in September 2004, where his whole cavalry squadron was on a scouting mission, and they came upon a huge compound fire on the ground.
Jeanette recalled that Michael realized there was an NGO, a non-governmental operation such as Doctors Without Borders, or something similar, in the compound, with about 85 civilians who were being attacked by green-on-green fighting, and Michael sensed “they needed to get these folks out of there, and they were now in danger.”
Jeanette said that Michael understood that with the way things were playing out, he needed to be on the ground to supervise the clearing of the area so they could bring in Black Hawks to evacuate.
Michael basically landed and jumped out of his OH-58 dual pilot aircraft so he could manage the ground operations because he had the ground troops there with Afghan National Forces and Afghan Police.
“They needed to be brought together so they could manage the situation,” Jeanette said. “They tried to push back the crowd so they could get the helicopters in.”
Jeanette said his unit successfully managed to get all the civilians out safely with no one killed, even though it was very tense at points, as Michael got hit in the head by some big rocks thrown by the crowd.
“One of the Special Forces guys who was on the ground called me (sometime) after Mike died (in the plane crash a couple of months later) and wanted to share some stories,” Jeanette said. “He said, ‘You know, Mike, he was always doing a hundred things at one time, and he was kneeling on the ground while bleeding all over his face. A Special Forces medic was trying to staple his head together so he could stop the bleeding while (Mike) was talking on two radios.”
After the incident, about a week later, Michael put his men in for awards because they acted bravely and calmly in a dire situation while completing the mission without casualties. The head of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan at the time, Lieutenant General David Barno, came to award the members of the cavalry unit. Michael earned a Bronze Star with a Valor Device and a Purple Heart from that mission.
In bringing the element of ‘family’ together and in a moment where the world was reduced to a small place when Barno was pinning Michael with his medals, he asked him, “McMahon, do you have a brother?”
“(Michael) said ‘Yes, Sir, my brother Dennis,’ and (Barno) goes, ‘Yeah, he was my roommate at West Point,’” Jeannette said. “David Barno was USMA Class of 1976, and Mike sent me these notes that he was worried about the general’s visit, and after he realized that he knew his brother, he wasn’t worried about the visit anymore.”
While life as an aviator isn’t always that dramatic, McMahon, during his speech, reminded people about the monotony of the job, which in turn can lead to “people letting standards slip, going through the motions and that becomes the new standard, and everything is fine until someone dies.”
“My father was an aviator, and that meant he didn’t always know who was in the back of his aircraft,” McMahon said. “But what separated him from the rest is he treated every passenger like they were his family – their safety was paramount. He sacrificed his time and his energy to perform those menial tasks that had become monotonous for others. Unfortunately, one person’s lack of responsibility can be a catalyst for tragedy.”
Two months after the compound incident in November, McMahon’s father left his headquarters for another base to meet with his boss. After the meeting concluded, with a desire to get back to his family – his squadron, his ‘Ohana – he boarded an earlier flight. As the flight was about to taxi, his father had to jump off to make a call to cancel a meeting with one of his other bosses, but the plane waited for him.
With a crackle in his voice, as he tried to compose himself through his obvious emotions, McMahon began by saying, “I know some of you might not be religious, and I’ve certainly been lost for a while, but I would like to think that someone or something was trying to get him home to his family.”
“My father’s desire to get back to the men and women he cared for was so great, he somehow managed to get them to stop the plane before it took off,” McMahon said. “Having listened to the last words my father spoke on the black box of that aircraft, I can tell you the pilots made numerous errors. They were undisciplined and cared more about the radio station they were listening to than planning a detailed route through their terrain. They did not sacrifice the time or energy to ensure the safety of their passengers like they were family.”
Due to the civilian contractor pilots’ errors, all six people on board died when the CASA-12 plane crashed into the snow-covered Hindu Kush mountains. This happened while McMahon’s father commanded Task Force Saber, which provided security and reconstruction efforts in the cities of Herat and Farah.
But the key in telling this story from McMahon’s perspective is to remind the air assault trainees that every little detail is important, whether it is attaching a sling-load properly without deficiencies or making sure a battle buddy is harnessed and attached correctly to a rope correctly before rappelling from a tower or a Black Hawk.
“I say this because it’s bigger than air assault, it’s bigger than you, it’s bigger than me,” McMahon said. “I hope as your cadre, and I like to think the hope of my father too, is not that you pass this course, but rather you build the habits that allow you to become the person who gets them home to their family.”
After his speech, he told everyone to take a breath and a moment of silence to reflect on what this meant to them because, to McMahon, “It meant the world to me.”
As for the class he spoke to, 185 of them ended up graduating on July 29. To McMahon, just like the recent participants, it was “fulfilling” to have earned his badge a year ago.
“My mom’s ear-to-ear grin throughout the ceremony made it worth all the Y-squats and eight-count push-ups,” said McMahon, who ran the 12-mile foot march in 1 hour, 52 minutes while earning the right to bear the colors during his graduation.
But the upcoming air assault graduation with his mother speaking will be very special for him, more so than his own graduation.
“I think opportunities such as this are once-in-a-lifetime and serve as a reminder that those lost are never forgotten,” McMahon said. “Living on in the deeds and thoughts of those who follow them, I like to think my dad will be in attendance, too.”
From The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Search teams have recovered the bodies of six Americans who died when their plane crashed high in Afghanistan’s snow-covered mountains, U.S. military officials said Wednesday. “We regret to report that all six individuals on board the aircraft – the three U.S. civilian crew members and three U.S. soldiers – were killed in the crash,” said U.S. military spokesman Major Mark MacCann. He said their identities would be released later by the U.S. Defense Department and Florida-based Presidential Airways, which had contracted the CASA 112 transport plane to the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan. “An investigation will be conducted to determine the cause of the crash. However, at this time, we have no indication this crash was caused by hostile fire,” McCann said. The bodies were found amid the debris of the plane in the Hindu Kush mountains, southeast of Bamiyan. “They found pieces of the engine and the wheels scattered on top of Baba Mountain,” which rises to 5,060 meters (16,600 feet) and was covered in fresh snow, said Ghulam Mohammed, a senior police official in Bamiyan. McCann said the plane’s flight recorder had been retrieved, but it was not clear what it showed about the crash. He said the plane crashed en route to Farah, in western Afghanistan. However, a senior U.S. general said it was headed for Shindand, 60 miles further north. “The indications we have is that it got into a valley and tried to gain altitude quickly,” Major General Eric Olson told The Associated Press. “The pilot apparently recognized that he was not going to be able to gain altitude quickly enough and tried to make a very dramatic turn, didn’t make it and crashed into a very narrow valley.” The fixed-wing CASA 212 is designed to fly in and out of the kind of short, rough airstrips used to supply American forces deployed in remote areas of the country to search for Taliban and al-Qaida militants.
From FallenHeroesMemorial.com
“Mac, I mourn your departure far ahead of your time. It was my honor to serve with you. We from Osan gathered here in your memory both your ROK and US compatriots. Your impact and legacy live on. Would that we may someday be half the professional that you were… See you on Fiddler’s Green, my friend.”
— Colonel Steve Mullins of Seoul, Korea
From Defender.West-Point.org
Many years have passed since we both wore cadet grey. I wanted you to know that I still soldier on and continue to try and make some good come out of the two wars our nation finds itself in. I wanted you to know that for several years, I had your picture under the glass on my desk, you know, the one with that grin on it! It gave me strength. Thank you for serving and for the leadership that you provided to your soldiers and your family in the time you had on this earth. I wanted you to know that your sacrifice and others we have lost are why I continue to soldier on. Well done, Mike
— Colonel Dan Williams; Class of ‘85; D4
Memorialized on Route 218 in West Hartford from Route 44 north to the Bloomfield town line.
Memorialized on the Connecticut Veterans Memorial, Farmington Avenue, and North Main Street, West Hartford, Connecticut.
Memorialized at the St. John Vianney School, 940 Keolu Drive, Kailua, Hawaii. Photos contributed by Annie Chee, Administrative Assistant at the school. She said, “The years 2003 and 2004 were very difficult ones for the class of 2005. Mike’s eldest son, Michael, had just begun his 8th grade year at St. John Vianney School when Mike was killed. He and his two younger brothers had been with us for several years. Another member of his class had lost her father the year before. He was a police officer for the Honolulu Police Department and was killed in the line of duty. As a gift to our school, the graduating class of 2005 unanimously agreed to erect a monument in honor of the two dads who they had all grown to love.” The name of the police officer was removed from the picture below due to the inability to find a surviving family member.
Lieutenant Colonel McMahon is buried in the United States Military Academy Cemetery, 329 Washington Road, West Point, New York; Section XVIII, Site F-55B.
