COLUMBUS — Margo Truett engaged in a kind of magical thinking after her father was killed in the Vietnam War. Army Maj. William Callinan died in a helicopter crash in 1966. It happened on Nov. 11, Veterans Day.
Just 8 years old, she walked with the funeral procession, from the chapel to his final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery. Lined up with the mourners ahead of her was Black Jack, the riderless horse that participated in the funerals of President John F. Kennedy and Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Because Callinan’s wounds were so grievous, his casket was kept closed, leaving just enough doubt — or hope — for Truett to wonder amid her grief if her father would eventually return home.
“It just seemed surreal to me,” said Truett, 65, a retired nurse who lives in Columbus. “As a kid, I kept thinking, ‘Maybe he will come back.’”
Many times in the ensuing years, Truett traveled to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington, D.C., so she could connect with him. The wall, which lists Callinan’s name and more than 58,000 other U.S. service members who died during the war, is something tangible, something she can see and touch.
On March 29, National Vietnam War Veterans Day, a newly renovated replica memorial wall will be dedicated at the National Infantry Museum near Fort Moore. Just 16 miles from Truett’s home, it offers a much closer venue for her to remember her father.
“Having it right here in this area where we can all see it and touch it and be a part of it has been very moving,” said Truett, who has three grown children and six grandchildren. “It means a great deal to me.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
‘He loved me so completely’
The oldest of two children, Callinan was born in Bangor, Maine. His father worked as a fur salesman and a professional church musician, and his mother made hats. Callinan studied economics at the University of Maine, where he met Marilyn Ann Pooler, a nurse, at a fraternity party. When he saw her across the room for the first time, he told a friend he was going to marry her. He did just that in 1953, the same year he graduated from the university and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army.
The Army sent him to Germany and then to the Korean peninsula after the war ended there. The couple also moved across the United States, from military post to post. Meanwhile, they started a family, bringing six boys and Truett into the world.
Truett remembers her father as a devout Catholic and a gifted athlete with a goofy sense of humor, someone who did whatever he could to make others laugh. He could easily connect with kids. Neighborhood children occasionally showed up at the Callinan family’s door, asking if he could come outside and play ball with them. Truett and her father’s birthdays fell two days apart, so they celebrated together. A seamstress, her mother made Truett and her father matching plaid outfits.
“I was his only girl,” Truett said. “He loved me so completely.”
An Army aviator, Callinan deployed in March of 1966 to Vietnam, where he served as a logistic officer for the 52nd Combat Aviation Battalion. He returned home for two weeks of leave in June. As he was heading back to Vietnam, Truett said, her mother told him: “You better come back.” His response: “I just can’t tell you I am coming back. It’s really bad.’”
After he returned to the war, Callinan wrote to his wife’s parents, praising her as “an outstanding woman and wife.”
“They broke the mold when they made her,” he wrote on Sept. 26, 1966. “For a woman to be an Army wife, it takes a lot of self-sacrifice. Marilyn has always been completely behind me in whatever I do.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Bravery under fire
A short telegram delivered the news to her two months later.
“The Secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deep regret that your husband, Major William F. Callinan, died in Vietnam on 11 November 1966,” Maj. Gen. Kenneth Wickham wrote, “as a result of injuries received in a helicopter which he was piloting that crashed while landing on return from a supply mission. Please accept my deepest sympathy.”
In the following months, she would learn more details from fellow soldiers in Vietnam and as her husband was posthumously awarded with the Bronze Star Medal and other commendations for his heroism.
On Nov. 11, 1966, Callinan readily accepted a dangerous rescue mission after another helicopter crew was forced to abandon its supply flight because two of its members were wounded during a landing attempt, according to the citation for the Distinguished Flying Cross that he received.
Viet Cong machine gunners fired on Callinan’s helicopter, which was loaded with ammunition and blood plasma for besieged friendly forces in Vietnam’s central highlands. Once the supplies were unloaded and after the wounded were placed aboard his helicopter, Callinan sought to evade more enemy fire by taking off in the opposite direction.
“His fearless penetration of hostile antiaircraft defenses saved the lives of at least five of the ground personnel and restored fighting strength to the weakened unit,” his citation says. “Major Callinan’s outstanding flying ability and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
His commanding officer, Lt. Col. Foy Rice, sent Marilyn Callinan a handwritten letter detailing what happened. He called that day “the most hectic and tragic that we had while I was with the 52nd,” adding the military lost four aircraft to enemy fire.
Fatigued after flying all day, Callinan and his copilot were preparing to land at an outpost and pick up some air traffic controllers before returning to Camp Holloway, Rice wrote. The area was unlighted. Evidently, Rice added, they thought their helicopter was higher than it actually was when they hit the ground hard. Their landing lights were not on. One of the chopper’s skids struck an embankment, turning the aircraft partially on its side. The crew members were killed upon impact.
“Needless to say, all of us were heartbroken,” Rice wrote. “They were the 11th and 12th of our brave soldiers who were to give their lives for their country that day.”
Credit: Courtesy of Margo Truett
Credit: Courtesy of Margo Truett
A mother’s vow
Marilyn Ann Callinan made a vow to her seven children immediately after she told them their father wasn’t coming home. She told them, according to Truett, “I love all of you so much, and I will do everything that I can do to take care of you.”
The herculean effort amid her grief required incredible perseverance. She later told Truett there were evenings when she would put all of her children to bed, turn in for the night and pray that she would not wake up. Like her daughter, she engaged in magical thinking after her husband’s closed-casket funeral.
“She always talked about how it never seemed real to her because she couldn’t see him,” Truett said. “She said, ‘For the longest time, I kept expecting him to show up, to come back — that they had made a mistake.’”
Her mother, Truett added, was a Catholic who attributed her resilience to her faith in God.
“She did everything she could to make sure we were taken care of and had everything we needed,” Truett said.
Her mother eventually fell in love with a Vietnam War veteran who worked as chaplain’s assistant at Fort Benning, now called Fort Moore. They married in October 1969. She gave birth to her eighth child in 1971 and worked as a public school teacher and as a clerk at a mental health treatment center. She died in 2011 at 78.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
His namesake
Standing eight feet high and stretching more than 200 feet, the Vietnam veterans memorial wall replica in Columbus features photos of Callinan’s funeral and his family.
It lists his name along with those of other Vietnam veterans in chronological order by the dates of their deaths. Visitors can see their faces reflected in the wall’s shiny black surface.
Dignity Memorial, the cemetery and funeral service provider that commissioned the three-fourths scale replica, donated it to the National Infantry Museum in 2017 after the memorial had traveled to more than 200 cities nationwide. The wall’s newly completed renovation involved a granite refacing.
At the wall’s dedication, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who led U.S. Southern Command, will speak before the documentary, “Truths and Myths About the Vietnam War,” is screened at the museum. A U.S. infantryman graduation ceremony is planned for the same day nearby.
Truett plans to attend the proceedings with her brothers, her children and her grandchildren. Among the grandchildren is her late father’s 5-month-old namesake, William.
“I look forward to when he gets old enough to understand — to be able to bring him there and for that to be a part of his life, too,” she said, “not just to see the pictures and hear the stories, but to be able to go there and touch his name and for it to be part of his life, as it has been for my brothers and me throughout our whole lives.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
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