Presumably, by now you have seen at least a minute or two of the news coverage of the incredible, devastating brush fires in Australia that have routed families from their homes, decimated forests and wild lands, and killed more than one billion animals. Earlier this month, approximately two hundred firefighters from across the United States headed Down Under to help their Australia brethren fight these fires.
As a civilian who is fortunate enough to participate annually in the Siller Foundation Tunnel to Towers 5K Run in New York City, I was not terribly surprised to learn of American firefighters lining up en masse to help their fellow firefighters more than half a world away. The corrals at the Tunnel to Towers 5K each September contain firefighters from all the world who travel to New York City - and who run in full gear - to honor the memory of those killed on September 11, 2001 and to assist in the charitable works of the Siller Foundation. It takes a special type of person to run into the gaping mouth of Hell when safety lies in exactly the opposite direction. We are truly blessed, each and every one of us, that such men and women live among us.
Earlier this week, three American firefighters, each of whom worked for an Oregon-based aerial firefighting company, Coulson Aviation, and each of whom had volunteered to go to Australia, died when the C-130 transport plane that forty-four-year-old Captain Ian McBeth was piloting crashed while on a firebombing mission in the state of New South Wales, Australia. In addition to Captain McBeth, First Officer Paul Clyde Hudson, 42, and forty-three-year-old Flight Engineer Rick DeMorgan, Jr., died in the crash.
Ian McBeth, a resident of Great Falls, Montana, was a Wray, Colorado native son. He is survived by his wife, Bowdie, his three children, Abigail, Calvin, and Ella, his parents, William and Anneliese, and his three siblings, Rick, Eleanor, and Aislinn. Captain McBeth had served as a member of the Wyoming National Guard and, at the time of his death, was serving as a member of the Montana National Guard.
Paul Clyde Hudson, a resident of Buckeye, Arizona, is survived by his wife, Noreen. First Officer Hudson graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1999. He served this nation as a member of the United States Marine Corps for twenty years from which he retired having attained the rank of Lt. Colonel.
Rick A. DeMorgan, Jr., lived in Navarre, Florida. His two children Lucas and Logan, his sister Virginia, and his parents, Rick, Sr. and Linda, survive him. Flight Engineer DeMorgan was an eighteen-year veteran of the United States Air Force.
-AK
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