SAN ANTONIO — The Freedom Flyer Reunion, an on-going tradition honoring Prisoners-Of-War at Joint Base San Antonio that had been hindered by the pandemic was back in full force Friday.
Retired Maj. Ted Sienicki stepped off the T-38C Talon Aircraft into a barrage of champagne and loud cheers. The scene reflects an Air Force tradition known as a fini-flight. It celebrates an airman’s final flight before being transferring or retiring.
“We didn’t have a last flight with the organization because we were shot down and captured,” said retired Lt. Col. Fred McMurray
McMurray was a navigator when he was shot down in 1972 just outside Hanoi Vietnam. He was able to evade the Vietnamese for a day and a half before being captured and taken to the prison known as the Hanoi Hilton.
“It was demanding, but at the same time I didn’t have to go through the serious torture that some of my predecessors did,” McMurray said.
Mcmurray was honored alongside Sienicki. They are the 208th and 209th freedom flyers: former P-O-Ws given the Fini flights they had missed and honored with a wreath-laying ceremony and flyovers.
“We were able to have a ceremony today to remember them, to thank them for their service and their sacrifice, but also again remember the comrades who didn’t come home.” said Lt . Col. Benjamin Williams, Commander of the 560th Flying Training Squadron, which hosts the Freedom Flyer Reunions.
Held in front of the missing man monument, at Randolph Air Force Base, the centerpiece of the ceremony was a “missing man formation” in which one of the planes breaks away signifying an airman who has departed.
“The solemness of having a four-ship formation that’s missing a member, it means an awful lot to us as a aviator – as a combat aviator because it’s a chance to, again, say goodbye,” Williams said.