Mike Henrickson Memorial Dedication

As this 2017 Memorial Day approaches, we want to recall and remember all the men and women in our armed services who stood the wall and sacrificed their life for country and for all of us.

In particular we remember with fondness our mate and brother Michael, Hendrickson, with whom we shared many life experiences during some of our most formative years. We miss you, Mike.

So many of our Band of Brothers either enlisted or were drafted into the armed services. While I did not experience the honor to serve my country in that manner,

I can only imagine that you who served also made sacrifices, great or small, in some manner or another. I think I can speak for all of us. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your service and the unspoken sacrifices you made.

Included are additional photos of Michael's relatives and his Band of Brothers taken last year during the Memorial Gathering Dinner in Virginia.

Thank you Norm Birzer for the attached early photo of Michael with an unnamed soldier.

Chris Bradley
Apparently, Mike's family has a photo of him at the Knoll in a large room heading to the Chapel.
IN MEMORIAM: MICHAEL HENDRICKSON (from James Schutzman, Navy 1965 - Nov 1969??)

Died 1968, Battle of Khe Sanh, South Viet Nam

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. Luk 17:33

One minute of Silence

If you travel to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, there is a grave marker just a few steps away from JFK's exactly like the thousands of others there. The engraving however identifies it as + MICHAEL HENDRICKSON 1LT USMC MONTANA.

Later I would go to the Viet Nam Memorial to search for 2 names-Mike's being one. Mike Hendrickson was a forward air observer whose plane was shot down during the battle of Khe Sanh - one of the biggest battles of the war, 1968. By chance I ran into him on Okinawa at the Marine base there and we had lunch maybe a few weeks (?) prior to Khe Sanh. Somehow we got our picture taken together at the lunch table. Later I was able to send it to his mother in Montana with a note about my recollections with him. She, apparently, was single at the time but thankfully Mike had other siblings so it was not a total loss for Mrs. Hendrickson.

As you know, I only attended Maryknoll College my senior year so I never got to know Mike very well. But the image of him in a cassock with a never failing gentle smile on his face seems to be formed in memory. He was a guy any of us were proud to call "friend". I think we all would agree he was totally unassuming with never an unkind word. None of us would have guessed that such a warrior was behind that never failing exterior.

Let me draw some inferences about this guy who was called Mike Hendrickson. We know his intention was to live a life of service. It can be said of Mike that he was willing to lay down his life for his friends. (Reportedly over 800,000 were murdered by the NVN plus innumerable 'boat people'after the fall of Saigon in 1975)

He volunteered for one of the most hazardous jobs in the war - perhaps more hazardous than being a helicopter pilot - maybe even without hazardous duty pay. From the world's standpoint my sense of loss of this man is great yet I can believe that his underlying substrate that is in each of us is eternal. It's been 42 years now.

May he REST IN PEACE.

For our brothers who opposed this war and other wars (and ourselves):

"Forgiveness is still and quietly does nothing. It merely looks, waits and judges not."

Closing Hymn: "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me"

- Unity FINIS
Michael Franc Hendrickson
First Lieutenant
HQ CO, HQ BN, 1ST MARINE DIVISION, III MAF
United States Marine Corps
29 May 1943 - 25 July 1968
Great Falls, Montana
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