OAK HARBOR, Wash. — On January 10, 1973, a two man flight crew from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island was shot down over the jungles of north Vietnam.
It took three decades to recover their remains.
Tuesday, the airmen were remembered as the base's last two sailors killed in action from that war.
Pointing to a map on the wall at Oak Harbor's Pacific Northwest Naval Air Museum, Rod Maskew remembered the location where the plane went down the night Attack Squadron (VA) 115 lost two good men.
He heard the radio calls searching in vain for his two fallen brothers.
"After it really sinks in that they're not answering, the heart starts sinking and you can feel it," he said.
Pilot Lt. Michael McCormick and bombardier Lt.j.g. Robert Clark were shot down 50 years ago, Tuesday.
Thirty-four men from NAS Whidbey died in the Vietnam War. McCormick and Clark were the last.
"You try to compartmentalize it but you can't get rid of it," said Maskew. "It's something that stays, and 50 years later it's still part of our squadron."
These days, the officer's club on base bears Lt. McCormick's name.
Tributes to both men hang inside.
"Growing up I remember age 5, 6 picking up crayons and drawing pictures of jets," said Lt.j.g Clark's son, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Tad Clark.
The general was just three months old when his father perished.
Forty-seven years after Lt.j.g. Clark's death, his son visited the very site where the plane went down and met a villager who lost family in the war, as well.
Once an enemy, now an ally.
"It reminded me that we're all human, we all share this planet," Clark said. "We came to the agreement that the was a war at a particular time. Now, we fast forward to a different time where we can embrace one another and be friends."
NAS Whidbey observed 50 years since the passing of McCormick and Clark, Tuesday.
More than 100 attendees turned out at the McCormick Officer's Club to pay their respects.
Artist Michelle Rauch donated an etching of the pair in front of their A-6 which will be hung on one of the club's walls.
A plane just like it sits on a pedestal, keeping watch over the base right outside its gates.
To the McCormick and Clark children who never knew their fathers or grandfathers, the crowd is their extended family.
It's a "squadron of love and respect" that will never retreat.
"We use this time to remember and to never forget," said Brig Gen Clark.