USAFA Class Histories

Memorial Service for Classmate Stu Fenske

On a windy but warm, 50 degrees is warm in December at the Academy Monday morning (29 December 2008), family, classmates, and other friends gathered in memory of Stu (Stuart Vonne) Fenske. Stu died on 28 August, and his family returned his ashes for burial at the Academy Cemetery near the Rocky Mountains that he loved.

Classmates Bill Ball, Ev Vaughn, Gordon Bredvik, Bob Hayes, Stinky and Karen Steinbrink, and Jimmie Butler converged on the cadet chapel only to learn that the service was at the cemetery. So we arrived about five minutes before the ceremony somewhat as a group. Stu?s family seemed quite surprised but very pleased by the attendance of classmates under our Class of 1963 banner.

The ceremony started shortly with another outstanding performance by the Academy Honor Guard. Incidentally, in one of the pictures of the honor guard bearing Stu?s ashes and the American flag, you can see the new Honor Guard Statue on the rise just west of the gravesites.

After reading scriptures and making other comments, the chaplain asked the family for personal remembrances. I was running around taking pictures and couldn't hear most of the comments due to the wind. However, the family laughed often, so it was a time of fond remembrances along with the sadness. I was touched by a little granddaughter, I presume, who was particularly sad over the passing of Stu.

After reciting the 23rd Psalm, the chaplain had us join in the Lord?s Prayer. Following the 21-gun salute and TAPS, a colonel from the Academy presented the flag.

Everyone stayed around afterward in the warm weather, so we got to visit. Stu had been from a family with 3 boys and 3 girls. The oldest girl was killed by a drunk driver in around 1961. The four surviving siblings were at the ceremony. I met one son and I believe there was another or a younger brother, but I didn?t get all the details since I was taking pictures. One sister told of being age four and accompanying Stu on his paper route. She had picked up some chewing gum in a drug store. Later on, when Stu discovered she had the gum and hadn?t paid for it, he made her walk back to the drugstore and apologize. She said she tells that story each year to the classes she teaches. The other sister told of having to rescue someone (maybe the younger brother) from Lake Michigan, I believe it was, after Stu had thrown him in to teach him to swim. I believe the family knew him as Vonne while most of us knew him as Stu. The son happened to mention that some of the football season of our senior year has been put on DVD, so he had gotten a copy and had been able to see Stu play for the Falcons.

They had set up a nice framed picture of Stu in parade dress. I commented about it being a great picture, and they said it had been part of a recruiting poster that had been up in every post office in the United States. I asked if it had had Wanted posted on it.

I talked for a while with Stu?s brother, who was beginning submarine duty (I believe he said 9 Polaris cruises) when Stu was at the Academy. He said that Stu had been suffering greatly in trying to come to terms with experiences during the Vietnam War. He had flown AC-47s and since John Borling had mentioned reuniting at Ubon and Stu pouring whiskey over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in memory of a roommate, I?m assuming that perhaps Stu was in the 1966 deployment of 6 AC-47s to operate over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The concept sounded good and was later proven by the higher flying AC-130s. However, the AC-47 operating altitude was about 3000-3500 feet in areas heavily defended even in 1966 by 37mm AAA. With the 37mms effective range of 5600 feet or more, and a bright spiral of fire leading back up to the blacked-out AC-47, the AC-47s were extremely vulnerable. Two of the six AC-47s were shot down in a short period in the spring of 1966. In one case, Stu had been assigned to a mission, but his friend took it instead and was lost. Over the years, Stu had become disconsolate over such losses and over lives taken in his missions, and the brother thought that the Iraq war had increased his concerns. So that was a factor in his passing?in a sense a belated class casualty of the Vietnam War.

I?m sure Ev, Bob, Bill, Gordon, and Stinky picked up some other stories. Ev, Bob, Bill, Gordon, and I gathered for lunch afterward at Cracker Barrel, after aborted stops at the closed golf course snack bar and closed officers club. Those of us who routinely attend the memorial services for classmates witness first-hand the importance of our being there with the class colors. After sending a few pictures yesterday to Todd Fenske, I got a note back that included: ?We really appreciate you and your classmates attending. Those of us who attended already knew that because you can see it in the families reactions to our being there. It was good to have the six of us and Karen. Twelve would be better. So we continue to encourage all of you who can to join us whenever a classmate comes back to the Academy for the final time.

I?m sure many of you noticed in the December Checkpoints that Stu Fenske, Don Gordon, and Bob MacFarlane were listed side-by-side in the Gone but Not Forgotten segment. So take extra care of yourselves out there, keep an eye on your PSAs, and be around for the 50-year reunion and beyond.

Jimmie
Jimmie H. Butler
Proud Member of the USAFA Class of 1963.