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These men were among the six killed in Monday's helicopter crash:
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Chief Warrant Officer 4 George P. Perry
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Spc. Rafael Olvera-Rodriguez
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Chief Warrant Officer 2 Gregory I. Montgomery
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Valentine’s Day was marked by grief for relatives of the six soldiers killed in Monday night’s crash of two Army Black Hawk helicopters in Kahuku.
The brothers- and sisters-in-arms of those who died mourned, too — in the mud where the tragedy occurred and in their quarters at Schofield Barracks, where two private memorial services are scheduled for tomorrow at the chapel.
During a press conference beneath a flag at half-staff on Sills Field, Army officials paused repeatedly to maintain their composure. "All those young men we lost the other night, we’re going to remember them and take the time to reflect on it as we have," said Army Brig. Gen. William Caldwell, assistant division commander for operations and training.
"We already had many services out on the field, and all those soldiers will have an opportunity to attend the Friday services."
Gov. Ben Cayetano yesterday ordered all state flags to be flown at half-staff until memorial services are completed.
Among the victims, Chief Warrant Officer George P. Perry, was closest to home and heart for many Hawai‘i families.
Beyond Valentine’s Day, Lovie Perry of Kapolei had a surprise birthday party planned for her husband, who would have been 42 next Thursday.
San Francisco-born, Perry came to Honolulu with his family in time to become a local boy. A St. Louis School football hero, he married his high school sweetheart and graduated from the University of Hawai‘i after a stint on a junior college team.
Lovie Perry "always worried about him when he traveled," said her sister-in-law, Puna Maili.
"He was the officer often requested to fly generals and top officials," Maili said.
But Lovie Perry felt, "as we did, that flying here at home was much safer than flying in some foreign country," said Maili.
The Perrys’ son Michael, 14, attends St. Louis, and son Daniel, 10, is at Kapolei Elementary. A third son, David, deceased, would be 12 years old this year, "and is now finally reunited with his daddy in heaven," Maili said, "and for that we can rejoice."
He also leaves brothers Greg and Geoffrey, and his parents, Lawrence and Beverly.
On the Mainland, family members in snowy villages in Minnesota, in a Texas city under cloudy skies, and in sunny Southern California suburbs spoke yesterday of the men they lost.
Maj. Robert Leslie Olson’s brother, Ken Olson of International Falls, Minn., talked to a hometown Daily Journal reporter. "He was my younger brother, but I always looked up to him," Ken Olson said.
So did almost everyone else in the area, where Olson was a Jack Armstrong prototype — quarterback of the Little Forks-Big Falls high school football team and president of the class of 1983.
Being a go-getter helped win him an appointment to West Point, and a fast-track military career. He earned medals for service in Desert Storm, covert operations assignments with Special Forces, a position as a general’s aide, and was about to make colonel in March, family said.
In Hawai‘i, no one answered the telephone at the home where Olson’s wife, Maj. Holly Olson, was left behind along with their daughter Brittany, 12, and son Tyler, 7.
Another Minnesota man, Sgt. Thomas E. Barber, is survived by a wife and children, said his commanding officer, Lt. Col. Paul Disney. Crew chief Barber, Disney said, was a "top-notch" professional.
The news came hard, too, in El Paso, Texas, where Rafael Olvera, father of Spc. Rafael "Ralph" Olvera-Rodriguez, 22, mourned at home while the soldier’s mother and mother-in-law flew to Hawai‘i to support his young wife, Norma.
"I feel bad, like any father would," Olvera said in an interview with the El Paso Times.
El Paso teacher Jan Herron remembered the 1998 Riverside High graduate as "magical," a hard-working man with a sense of humor who’d come home and talk about the Army and Hawai‘i.
Olvera-Rodriguez had worked with at-risk students in a peer assistance program to steer youngsters away from trouble and toward academic achievement.
Monday was to have been special for Spc. Bob MacDonald, 28, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., because it was his son Andrew’s 3rd birthday, said his brother Mark, 30.
MacDonald, a graduate of Etiwanda High School, joined the Army in 1996 and re-enlisted more than a year ago, continuing to look for direction in his life, his brother told the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif.
The brothers were nicknamed "mischief" and "mayhem" when they were growing up, Mark MacDonald said, and Mark passed the monikers on to his two children.
MacDonald’s mother and stepfather had flown to Hawai‘i for the grandson’s birthday, but hadn’t seen their soldier son yet because he was at work as crew chief of a Black Hawk chopper.
Parents of another Southern California man, Chief Warrant Officer Greg Montgomery, had planned to visit him this week here, but Montgomery had asked them to wait until the maneuvers were over, his mother, Sharon Montgomery, told the Victorville Daily Press.
"Sometimes I think I need to take a lesson from Greg and enjoy life," she said. "He didn’t waste his life. I don’t think he’s sorry or regretted one thing he did."
Montgomery graduated with an economics degree from the University of California at Irvine, and joined the Army at age 27 to follow in his father Tom’s footsteps as an Army aviator.
He’d come home to Hesperia to visit, and take his brother Clayton’s three boys flying over Apple Valley in a rented plane, his mother said.
A memorial service for the six victims will be held tomorrow at Schofield Barracks’ Main Post Chapel. An Aviation Brigade memorial service is at 9 a.m., and a Division Artillery service is at 11:30 a.m.
Advertiser staff writer Scott Ishikawa contributed to this report.
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