John Edward Darling

West Point, 1968

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by David Martin on May 28, 2007:

John Darling, Don Workman and I were all serving at the same time in 1970 in the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne, at Camp Evans, Vietnam. I was the Signal Officer of the 1/506th Inf Battalion and John was the Signal Officer of the 2/506th. We both had similar missions flying out to fire bases and delivering communications equipment. Not unlike Jeff Wilcox' experience but from the opposite perspective, the last time I saw Don Workman was when I was dropping crypto codes in an ammo can out the door of the Huey to Don on the ground in a jungle clearing the Huey could not land in. Then one day John's helicopter did not make it back to Camp Evans. Mine always did. Luck of the draw. So last month I'm at a bar at the Renaissance Hotel in Wash DC during the AFCEA (Armed Forces Comm Electronics Assoc) conference and I meet LTG Robert Gray (Ret) who told me that at the time of John's death, Gray was a company commander at the 501st Signal battalion at 101st HQ at Camp Eagle, and was waiting for John to arrive as one of Gray's platoon leaders, when John's helicopter did not make it back. Later, when LTG Gray was Chief of Signal at Ft Gordon, he named Darling Hall after John at Ft Gordon. Small world.

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