‘We never leave anybody behind:’ Vietnam veteran’s remains returned to Waynesville

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‘We never leave anybody behind:’ Vietnam veteran’s remains returned to Waynesville

A detachment from Shaw Air Force Base prepares to escort Capt. Fred Hall’s remains to a waiting hearse. Cory Vaillancourt photo

For the first time in nearly 55 years, a Waynesville native and Air Force captain who didn’t return from his mission over Quàng Nam Province in South Vietnam is finally back among his family, friends and loved ones.

Fred Hall, a hero, has come home.

Fred’s journey began in Waynesville in 1943, where he was born to Robert “Birdie” Hall and Irene “Reeney” Galloway. A bright student and talented musician, Fred graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and enlisted in the Air Force in 1967. Around that time, he met and married Julia Jean Keith, a Texan who was crowned Miss Houston in 1965.

In February 1969, after completing navigator training, Hall was deployed to the southeast Asian theater. Less than two months later, on April 12, 1969, Hall and his pilot Col. Ernest DeSoto crashed into a steep hillside under heavy cloud cover while returning from a mission . Their fate remained largely a mystery for decades. Both were listed as missing in action.

Hall’s journey home began on that hillside in 1995 when the crash site was rediscovered, although it would be another two decades before a Vietnamese excavation team was able to recover evidence from the site — aircraft debris and osseous remains.

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A joint forensic review conducted with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and their Vietnamese counterparts determined that there was a high likelihood that the remains were those of American servicemen. The remains were repatriated in 2021, and formally identified by the DPAA this past March.

DeSoto was buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery on June 30. Hall’s remains were brought back to Waynesville on Oct. 8, thanks to the combined efforts of hundreds of people who’d never met him and had likely never even heard of him until very recently.

“I can relate to some of these guys,” said Joe Taylor, a Navy veteran of 23 years. “This guy we’re supposed to meet today, he was killed in the Vietnam War and I guess they must have just identified him.”

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Dozens of motorcyclists escorted Capt. Fred Hall’s remains from Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport to Waynesville on Sunday, Oct. 8. Cory Vaillancourt photo

Taylor is part of a fraternal organization of motorcyclists called the Patriot Guard Riders, formed years ago in response to a Kansas church that had protested the funerals of soldiers — ostensibly for defending a licentious, godless nation. The Riders would form a human wall between the protesters and mourners to shield them from verbal abuse.

Thankfully, that doesn’t happen as often as it used to, so the Riders mostly spend their time now at the head of motorcades, escorting the remains of fallen soldiers to their final resting places. Taylor rode into the parking lot of Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport on a sunny Saturday morning and was quickly joined by dozens of other Riders who would escort Hall back to Waynesville upon his arrival.

“We’re bringing him home now,” Taylor said. “It’s about time he came home. I just got respect for him. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Dignitaries from the Vietnam Veterans of America were also in attendance, including Sam Brick, South Carolina state council president. Brick explained that the group has 10 chapters and about a thousand members who make it a point to pay their respects when the remains of a servicemember are returned to the Palmetto State, no matter where they’re from originally.

“This is one of our people, and it means a lot to us,” Brick said. “It really does.”

Brick was joined by Jack McManus, the national president of VVA who splits his time between North Carolina and Florida.

“We never leave anybody behind. That’s our goal,” he said. “Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another, and we are certainly not going to abandon our brothers from our era.”

Some Vietnam veterans were treated with contempt after the war, a fact that lingers just beneath the surface of all the dignified ceremony that accompanies repatriations like Hall’s.

Air Force Technical Sgt. Erica Phillips, a native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was on hand with an honor guard detachment from Shaw Air Force Base. Phillips and her unit carried Hall’s flag-draped casket from the cargo hold of a Delta Airlines commercial flight out of Atlanta to a hearse stationed nearby on the tarmac.

A small crowd of relatives gathered outside the aircraft to watch Phillips and her team do their work as onlookers in the airport terminal gazed reverently at the lock-step military precision with which Hall was received.

“It helps to honor our military members, especially those that were active duty,” Phillips said of her task. “Unfortunately, he had passed several years ago, and his remains have just been found. So he’s still honored with that due diligence, that respect.”

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Capt. Fred Hall’s widow Julia (left) looks over his flag-draped casket with Don Cooper (right) of Wells Funeral Home. Bob Scott photo

Fred’s widow Julia was there as well, having been informed only days before that he would be arriving in Greenville on the same plane as she was. She described the revelation as like a dam breaking.

“It was emotionally wrenching. I don’t know what that emotion is,” she said. “It was the first time I’ve been with Fred in over 54 years. That moment in time, after all the time we spent apart, that moment in time is all we have together until we meet again in the hereafter.”

During the two-hour trip from the airport to Waynesville, led by state and local law enforcement agencies as well as the Patriot Guard Riders, Julia marveled at the flags swaying gently from highway overpasses along the route and waved to people who had stopped to line the roadsides.

Her entire journey, she said, was marked with kindness and compassion — from the baggage agents at Houston’s airport to the man who wanted to donate barbecue for the reception.

Once the lengthy procession had snaked up Russ Avenue to Walnut Street and onto North Main, Fred and Julia were greeted by dozens of well-wishers and another honor guard at Wells Funeral Home.

“It was incredibly monumental,” she said.

After Fred’s casket was transferred from the hearse to the funeral parlor, a long line of people waited in line to speak with Julia.

“I told them how much it meant to me that they came,” she said. “I was absolutely in awe and thankful and so pleased. This country, it has hope, because of down-to-earth people like that, coming together. I’m sure Fred and Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall were looking down, and I’m sure they were ecstatic.”

Capt. Hall was buried in Green Hill Cemetery on Tuesday, Oct. 10, as The Smoky Mountain News was going to print. Look for coverage of the service in next week’s issue, available online and on newsstands on Wednesday, Oct. 18.

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