One other Marine and I and another officer, "Ski," were the only survivors of the tragic mishap that took those 14 individual's lives. We have been able, through the Grace of God, to continue on with our lives and careers.

We were flying as dash two in a flight of four loaded with troops getting ready to land and drop them off. We unfortunately never made it to our intended point of landing. At approximately 300 feet in the air, on a pitch-black night, we collided with another aircraft that was not a part of our flight of four aircraft. The rotors of the other aircraft cut deeply into our aircraft and intermeshed with the aft rotor system of our aircraft causing two things. It caused the other aircraft to stop flying immediately and caused both of the rotor systems of our aircraft, to stop creating lift and for it to begin a quick plummet to the earth that we were able to somewhat control. I do not know the exact number, but I do know that when our aircraft hit the ground it hit in excess of 30 "G's." That caused the deaths of the 12 people in the back of the aircraft as well as the post collision and crash fire.

Since some of you do not know what a "G" is, I will tell you. A "G" is equal to one gravity. Which is what we are in every day here on the earth. If you experience twice the gravity of earth you are experiencing 2 G's (for example, I weigh 170 lb. Two G's of my weight is 340 lb.) That is a very simple explanation and I am sure that some of you out there know a lot more about the force of gravity than I do.

The other pilots died when their aircraft hit the ground. Its rotors were still imbedded in our aircraft so they did not have a chance; neither did the occupants in the back of our aircraft. 1/2 of them died when the other aircraft's rotors cut through our aircraft and the other 1/2 died of smoke inhalation and the more than 30 G's when our aircraft hit the ground. It is hard for me to tell you about the crash, but I feel it important so that you will understand what I have had to experience overcoming some of this.

At this point I will tell you a little of the injuries that I experienced and why (as far as I know). First of all, I had a closed head injury that put me into a coma that lasted 5 days. A collapsed lung, about 8 broken ribs, two crushed vertebrae in my back, a broken clavicle, and a cut to the bone on my upper left arm. Scrapes and bruises were on all my limbs. My speech was also effected. I spoke a lot slower and conversations with me were very slow and drawn out.

As far as the most serious injury, the closed head injury, I think I have figured out why I received that injury and Ski did not. Shortly after the point of impact, he was able to lock his harness, which holds us in our seats like a seat belt. Initially, I wasn't flying; I was navigating. The collision threw Ski out of his seat towards me. It also knocked his night vision goggles (NVG'S) off his helmet. I immediately came on the controls while Ski reached down and locked his harness once he got himself back in the seat.

When our aircraft hit the ground, the force of the impact caused me to hit my head forward on the dashboard of the aircraft and then slam back into and hit a part of the seat. Ski's head hit the same spot on his seat but his helmet absorbed the impact and split in the same place that I was injured. My helmet had rotated forward, because I still had my NVG's attached to my helmet, when I hit the dash, that impact caused my helmet to rotate forward and when I slammed back, my bare skull to hit the back part of the seat and absorb the impact.

Ski had a new helmet, and I still had an old helmet that was going to be replaced at the end of the exercise. One of the reasons the Navy and Marine Corps have decided to replace the older helmets is to prevent head injuries like mine. A perfect example of this would be for you to see this instead of hearing my explanation. Nevertheless, take my word for it. Ski having a new helmet, enabled him to operate his survival radio and get us rescued sooner than later. I can honestly say those young corpsmen that saved my life might not have had the chance to. I will be indebted to them for life, I know my wife and family are grateful as well.

The other injuries healed in the normal time that it takes for injuries of their nature to heal. They would not have enabled me to continue on with my squadron mates on the deployment, I wish I could have. They left on their 6-month "cruise" while I waited for their return and began the recovery. Believe me when I say, "I would not wish any of the things that I have had to go through, on my worst enemy."

You may be thinking "well what was he like when he began to wake-up?" Well, this is where I've had to check my ego at the door and I will tell you. The best way that I can think to explain it is like this. Picture a newborn child growing up to an adult Major in the Marine Corps in 4 months and still remembering how to do everything, but having to re-experience everything in life over again. That is basically what I have had to do and done in the past 14 months. And, by the way, Everything that you are thinking to yourselves is true. Everything. (I.E. Walking, Eating, Bathing and going to the Bathroom)

Waking up in the hospital is an interesting experience when you do not know how you got there. Waking up to me was when I had my senses about me. The first memory that I have after the accident is of the Commandant of the Marine Corps and his wife walking down the hallway towards my family and me to visit. While I can remember the event I still cannot remember all the details of the visit. My wife tells a humorous story, I was the first to see him walk towards our group and I immediately came to attention while half sitting in a wheelchair. That event and one other were the first ones that were a "big deal" to my family that showed how I was progressing with my recovery.

The other event was when my bother, also a Marine came to visit me wearing his cammies. He had been going to the Basic School in Quantico, Virginia, when this occurred. He had visited me numerous times but this was the first time he had come in uniform. Things for me started clicking up stairs in my brain and I started improving. This had occurred about two days before the Commandant and his wife's visit.

Remember that I still did not know why I was in the hospital. These two particular visits happened about four weeks after the accident. I had been awake after I awoke from the coma but I did not begin remembering things from day to day until then. I would forget things within minutes of their occurrence. A good example would be if you had come to visit me. I would forget the nature of the visit and you by the time you walked out of the room or walked out of the hospital or got into your car to leave. A big step in my recovery was my being able to remember something 15 minutes later, then an hour later and then the next day.

So needless to say, I was in no shape to begin getting along in life as a Husband and Father, much less a Marine. My family, at this point, was just happy to still have me alive. I was beginning to wonder why I was there. I knew it had to have been something big, but I had no clue. Psychiatrists purposely did not want me to know yet. But I started asking anyone that would listen and I wanted to know what had happened and why.

Remember that I was up in Washington, D.C., my squadron mates were about to leave on a six-month deployment to the Mediterranean. There was no one around to explain things to me. I had had to make my own assumptions. I was still not in any condition to make educated guesses, but I was getting there. Everything that had been told to my family was that we were exactly where our aircraft as dash two in a flight of four was supposed to be, but I still wanted to know everything. A few of my squadron mates came up to D.C. to visit me right before they left for their deployment. But, doctors briefed them, my wife and father to avoid discussing the accident. Of course, they can probably tell you that that was becoming very important to me and I wanted to know. My squadron mates had already been briefed not to volunteer any information to me but if I asked about it to be truthful.

At this point in my recovery things started to happen fast. Faster even than the doctors even expected them to. Approaching the two-month point after the accident, I was still in the hospital but making a lot of progress. One of the things that I had to do was plan an event that would be attended by all of my family members. Since I was at Walter Reed and close to Washington, D.C. I decided to plan a trip to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I planned for my group to go to the subway station and ride that to the area. I had been told that the subway stopped close to the museum. Well, when we got off the subway as close as it went to the museum we were still about a mile and one half away which we walked. Luckily for us all, it was a nice clear mild day out. I still fatigued easily so by the time we got there I was ready for a nap. Not wanting to be the party-pooper, I toughed it out for a quick walk through the museum and then back to the subway. By the time we got back to the hospital I was ready for a sorely needed nap.

The reason I tell this story is to give you an example of how things were going for me. This was considered a big deal that I had even been able to plan and execute this event. I was already beginning to think of things like this as nothing special. They were just events that everyone did and not very difficult to plan or do. That was how I looked at them...Normal.

The next big thing for my recovery was would I get to go home for the next step or would I have to stay in the hospital for another two months of recovery going through the hospital's regimented process? Luckily for me, I was able to come home for this step. There was no pressure on me, but my wife saw it as her responsibility, at this point, for my recovery. I just wanted to get on with my life, our lives and begin putting all this behind me. It was just a matter of being able to keep my wife relaxed. Imagine what it must have been like for her. Here I had gone through all the recovery time with professionals watching my every step and now here was her taking on that responsibility. I am here to tell you that We did fine and my recovery to this point has continued to be better than any doctor had hoped for.

When we began to leave Walter Reed, I did so with a little worry. To that point it was all I had for recent memory. Sure I had lived Camp Lejeune and in Jacksonville, NC for almost three years, but recent memory and experience had started all over again for me. I was and still am missing about four and one half weeks of memory. I still had not driven yet and was not allowed to. I had to depend on my wife for everything as far as transportation was concerned. Now, many of you are thinking to yourselves that you would have just driven anyway. My personal desire was to do just that, but had I been in an accident, If I had been in an accident driving, I would have lost any legal battles because they had told me not to.

For me it was just recovery time. I still had to go to physical therapy, so I would ride my bicycle to the Lejeune hospital for exercise and independence.

I was still recovering and I had to take daily naps and I was sleeping about twelve hours a night. My naps would last anywhere from an hour to three and be necessary as late as six o'clock in the evening. I was not hungry either. I had to eat at a scheduled time or I would not remember to eat and will just miss that meal. The other thing is my sense of taste comes and goes. One minute I can taste a food and the next, not at all. This is great for my wife. She does not have to work too hard for me in the kitchen. I am just as pleased with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as I am with steak. There is one thing that I can taste and still do desire and that is anything sweet. So I get excited any time the wife wants to go out for dessert.

Once we returned to Lejeune I was excited to start getting on with my life and recovery. I knew I was getting better when the guilt from not working started hitting me. Picture this, my squadron was gone and I did not have a job yet. The only scheduled thing I had was physical therapy three times a week and that was only for about an hour at a time. Between that and the need for naps to rest, there was not much for me to do. So my wife and I went out and bought me some puzzle books to exercise my brain. I wanted to be doing something all the time. My poor wife had two children to take care of, my daughter and me.

Once two months had gone by, I had to go back to Walter Reed for another check up to see if I was ready to go back to work. I passed many of the tests and it was determined that I could go back to work on a graduated scale. I was cleared to also begin driving again. They wanted me to start working for a short amount of time and increase it gradually. They wanted me to start at two hours a day for the first two weeks and then increase it two hours every two weeks until I was back to a full schedule. I told them that I was a Marine and had too much work to do and I would not be able to get much accomplished in two hours; that I would start out working until lunch time and increase my time from there. They did not like that but they let me. By the time lunchtime came around, I was ready to go home and take a nap.

This was the part that was so frustrating to me. The time needed for the recovery for the brain injury was something that I was not used to. I had had four knee operations and broken a few bones and the recovery time for those things was acceptable. I was just not used to the time required for a brain injury recovery. All the broken bones had healed in the time normally needed for injuries of their type. For the crushed vertebra, I had to wear an upper body brace for three months. I had good posture those three months.

Being able to spend time with friends was also important. My wife's friends were all still around, the majority of my friends were on deployment, but there were a fair amount in the area. It was nice for me to be able to interact with friends again instead of just doctors and nurses. I had been able to see friends when I was in the hospital but this was better. It was exciting for me to go back to work again. The Marine Corps had and has taken such good care of me and I wanted to start earning my keep again.

I had accepted that I might not fly again because of the injury, which was a real possibility. For me, a third generation Marine, the fact that I was still a Marine was blessing enough. Going back to flying would be icing on the cake.

There were a few things that had to happen. In October of 96, I had to go down to Pensacola for a check up and evaluation. Any time an aviator losses' consciousness; they are down automatically for twelve months. My injury had a downing time of thirty months. I should explain "up" and "down" for you. "Up" means medically fine to aviate and "Down" means not physically ready to aviate. For my injury, after twelve months went by, I could and would need to get a waiver for the other eighteen months to return to flying again. Next, I would have to wait until twelve months went by and then be reevaluated by the Navy down in Pensacola. Because of TAD, I got back down to Pensacola for a check up and evaluation to go back to flying in June of 97.

They had a plethora of exams for me including the IQ exam that they give Astronauts. I have taken enough tests for a lifetime. That should reassure you all that they have left no stone unturned as far as examining and evaluating me to go back to fly. Well, I passed the exams and evaluations with sufficient scores for aviators, been given a waiver and have been brought back "Up" and cleared to go back to flying for the Marine Corps. To me it is icing on the cake. Being able to stay on active duty as a Marine was fine enough.

Many things have happened to me in the past 3+ years and I would not wish any of them on anyone. The big thing that I am a living example of for anyone to see is that no matter what challenge anyone encounters in life, they can over come that challenge. I simply could not have gotten here today to talk with you, without the help of God, my family, my friends and the Marine Corps. I have had the choice, and there is nothing on this earth that I would rather be than what I am today. Husband to my wife, father to my daughter and a United States Marine.

Email Chuck