Mike Clausen his death and update 2005

[cato2]

This is an update to a Marine and a helochopter that together made history in the Marine Corps. Mike is no longer with us physically, but in spirit he lives on.

Medal of Honor Winner Mike Clausen Dies

By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 10, 2004; Page B06


Mike Clausen Jr., 56, who died in a Dallas hospital May 30 of liver failure, received the Medal of Honor, the highest military award for valor, for rescuing a platoon of Marines trapped in a minefield during the Vietnam War.

In the Marine Corps, Pfc. Clausen liked to disobey authority; he had repeatedly been demoted after every promotion.

"I will come home a live private before coming home as a dead sergeant," he had said.

On Jan. 31, 1970, he seemed to have forgotten his credo.

That day, he was serving with Medium Helicopter Squadron 263. He was part of a mission to extract members of a Marine platoon near Da Nang that had wandered into a minefield while attacking the enemy. They were under heavy fire and frozen in their places, fearing that they would trip a mine.

Mr. Clausen was crew chief of his CH-46 helicopter and guided the pilot to a safe landing in a spot that had been cleared by a mine explosion.

The pilot told him not to leave, but Pfc. Clausen ignored him -- six times, as he repeatedly left the safety of the helicopter to help carry back one dead and 11 wounded Marines to the aircraft.

He then tried to lead the eight remaining Marines to the copter.

On one trip, while he carried a wounded man, a mine went off, killing a corpsman and wounding three other Marines.

"Only when he was certain that all Marines were safely aboard did he signal the pilot to lift the helicopter," read his Medal of Honor citation.

His other decorations included the Purple Heart and the Air Medal.

He once told an interviewer that the Americans pinned down in the minefield mistakenly thought he knew where he was going.

"I ran over there [and] picked up the guys that couldn't walk," Mr. Clausen said. "The ones that could walk were under the assumption I knew where the mines were, obviously, and they followed every footstep I made back to the helicopter."

Raymond Michael Clausen Jr. was born in New Orleans and raised in Hammond, La. After six months of college, he joined the Marine Corps in 1966 and became a jet helicopter mechanic.

He left the service in April 1970 and became an inspector for the Boeing Co. Soon after, he was in a car accident that left him comatose for months, nearly blinded in one eye and without the strength to walk. Back at home, he had all his furniture placed in the center of a room so he could walk the perimeter using the wall for occasional support.

He spent his time speaking to veterans groups and continued to suffer from poor health.

In 1996, Mr. Clausen made news reports for facing a speeding ticket charge in Louisiana. He chose to defend himself and was ready to do so when the state district judge ordered him to take a sobriety test. He refused, claiming all he had had that morning was a nonalcoholic beer. The judge sentenced Mr. Clausen to a night in jail for contempt of court.

In court, he had worn the Medal of Honor "to remind [judges] that people fought and died in wars to defend the Constitution."

At his death, he was awaiting a liver transplant.

Survivors include his wife, Lois Clausen of Ponchatoula, La.; two brothers; and a sister.

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Taken from Popasmoke
Popasmoke
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I am the Acquisitions Chairman of the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, NC. In February 2005, Michael Starn, Aircraft Curator of the USMC Air and Ground Museum at Quantico called me and asked if we could do a job for him.
He told us that there was a CH-46 at Cherry Point that had suffered a hard landing in Iraq, but then had been seriously damaged during the recovery, having struck a low bridge while being trucked to the repair depot.

It was estimated that it would take $4.5 million dollars to restore it to flying condition. He told me that this was a very historiclly important helicopter,
and that the Marine Corps wanted it saved, repaired, and properly displayed.

Since we are an all volunteer, nonprofit organization, we needed to take the expense of recovering this helicopter from Cherry Point, the transportation back to our Museum in Charlotte (310 miles) as well as the actual costs of repairing it into consideration.

He provided us with a number of closeup photos of the damage that had been taken in Iraq, but they were such closeup we ready couldn't gage the overall condition of this bird. So I asked for time to be able to go over to NADEP at Cherry Point and examine the extent of the damage, and take along our metal fabricating expert for his opinion.

Michael agreed to give us two weeks to reach a decision on weither to take accept this project. We traveled over and closely examined all the damage. Our expert deemed it a do able project, so we have agreed to take on this task.

During the week of March 27, our recovery crew removed the winglets, and took the fuselage apart at the production break at frame 210.
Part of our agreement to repair this helicopter was that NADEP would allow us to secure needed parts off any other Ch-46s that were available in their
"bone yards".

It was apparent from the start that the whole rear fuselage was too badley damaged to consider repairing. NADEP offered us a CH-46E that had been damaged in a hard landing in Afganistan, then futher damaged by numberous fork lift punctures. However the tail on this helicopter was too badly damaged as well. So this only left us with a Navy CH-46D model which was structually in pretty good condition.

NADEP assured us that a D & E aft section were interchandable and agreed with our plan to just swap the aft sections to over come the most heavly damaged area. Since we were going to use a D aft section, we pretty much decided from the start that we would just go ahead and convert this helicopter back into a D model since these were going to be the only parts that would be available.

The damage on 153389 included a large vertical tear which ran from the centerline on top of the fuselage to almost four feet down the starboard
side of the fuselage forward of frame 210. On the port sde the major damage was aft of 210. All of our repairs are being done to keep the overall structures
in as near flight worthly appearances as possible. All the damaged skin is being drilled out and new repacement portions are being fabricated and rivieted back in place. We have the torn section repairs about 85% completed, and the replacement tail has been bolted on.

Stay tuned for further updates. Since I'm new to your organization I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have and share the many photos that I have if you can tell me how to go about posting them. We would welcome any assistance anyone would care to give. It can be in the form of warm bodies to help buck all these rivets, or donations to help cover the expenses.

We are located at: Carolinas Aviation Museum
4108 Airport Drive
Charlotte,NC 28208
Semper Fi

Museum






This is about a four foot vertical tear forward of station 210 on the starboard side. NADEP at Cherry Point estimated it would take about $4.5 million dollars to restore this helicopter to flying condition. This photo was taken in Iraq shortly after the rear section of the helicopter struck a bridge while being trucked to a repair depot after making a hard landing.