Monday, October 13, 2008

Carl Karst Tribute - Forward Air Commander

Tribute page to Forward Air Controllers in Vietnam.


These Tributes are to recognize the sacrifice the 223 Forward Air Controllers who "gave their all" in the Vietnam War. They are made as personal as possible to let you know they were real people who put themselves in harms way to protect the South Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian citizens from being forced to live under a communist regime caused by the invasion of their country by the forces of North Vietnam. They are also recognized for their devoted effort to protect ground forces when they came under attack by flying their aircraft low and slow over the battlefield to control the air strikes necessary to disrupt the enemy attacks. The listing has been laid out in alphabetical order but the capability to select any one grouping of the alphabet is built into the listing. Just select the letter of your choice and you will automatically go to the start of that group listing.

Or if you wish, you can CLICK HERE and review the names that were read during the Hurlburt Memorial Dedication by name / by year.

As you are reading these Tributes, if you were to "click on" the individuals name you will be taken to a graphic map showing the general area where the FAC "went down". No one should ever try to use this graphical display for anything other than a general understanding of where the fighting took place. There is also background music that was specifically selected for this file. If you choose to listen to this music while you read, just click on the music CD icon located in the lower right corner of your screen.

These tributes could not have been written without the through research done by Jim Meade and Bob Green and posted on the www.thewall-usa.com and www.virtualwall.org web sites and the massive book "Vietnam Air Losses" by Chris Hobson. This page was designed and built by Bob Gorman (Jake 44).

1 comment:

The Tittels said...

Tom, I am a USAF Major and an F-16 pilot from Russell, KS. Your dad is related to my Grandmother (her maiden name is Karst) and I heard about his story when I was in high school and college. I was researching air losses in Vietnam for a staff paper today and came across your dad's name and this website. His sacrifice still has relevance for us today. It's great that you started this site!