My first experience with terrorism occured over 20 years ago when I was a young Airman stationed in Korea. I was a bomb loader, and we all kind of knew each other. My neighbor in the dorms was a fellow loader, John Raven. His best friend, Curt Green, lived downstairs and often attended our rauncus parties. We used to engage in a weird ritual of what we called "pig piling", which was essentially tackiling someone, then having everyone jump on top. If you were on the bottom, you could not breathe, and only after gasping for what seemed like minutes would the pile get off you. One night before the 80th AGS (Aircfaft Ground Squadron) deployed to the Philipines in May 1990, we piled on both John and Curt taking pictures of them turning red as they got squashed. Little did we know these would be some of the last photos taken of them.

On the night of 13 May 1990 outside a hotel in Angeles City, near Clark Air Base in the Philipines, John, Curt and Randy Moore were leaving a hotel after attending a barbeque and headed back to their hotel. Randy was bartering with a motorized Tricycle driver for the ride back when two gunmen emerged from some bushes behind them. Curt must have heard something as he was shot in the side of the face, the bullet exiting the back of his head, John was shot in the back of the head; both were shot with .45 semiautomatic pistols. Randy heard the shots and ran away, he later told me he didn't know what happened and actually ran towards the gunmen but they were fleeing and didn't notice him. Later, as John and Curt layed in a pool of their own blood, Randy was brought back because they couldn't find their IDs. Randy had told them it was in their shoes, a common practice in the PI due to pickpockets, but they didn't find them. Randy was forced to take of the shoes of his dead friends to retrieve their IDs. An AP photo of this scene, John and Curt lying dead on the ground with their shoes off while Randy stands nearby graced the cover of the Pacific Stars and Stripes. Colonel (later General) Patrick Gamble wrote a scathing letter to S&S for having the insensitivity to run the photo.

The group claiming responsibility was the New People's Army (NPA), and the assailants were never caught. I used to play golf with Randy and he rarely talked about the incident, and I wasn't going to ask. I know he seemed to drink quite a bit, but can you blame him? The last time I saw Randy was on a flight from Ontario, CA to Chicago; he was headed to DC to talk about the incident to investigators, I was headed to Bahrain for Desert Shield. The NPA was a communist based group that wanted the US military out of the PI. About a year later, after Mt Pinautubo erupted, they got their wish. This was my first brush with terrorism, and though today we see Islamic terrorists all the time, back then it was mainly these small factions causing trouble.

I serve my country today in part to honor the memory of John and Curt, most people don't know who they are or what happened. I can never forget. About a week after they were killed, a friend got some photos developed. John and Curt were being "pig piled" in the hallway in our dorm.

Recently, another friend from my AF days was killed in Afghanistan by a crazed Afghani on a US base there. Major Phil Ambard was a fellow comm officer that worked with my friend. He had just completed a PhD and was teaching at the Air Force Academy. He was married with 5 adult children, 3 currently serving and one a cadet at the AF Academy.

So for John, Curt, and Phil, here's to you this Memorial Day Weekend. May we never forget your sacrifice.