My father was a Fighter Pilot when I was growing up on our farm in small town Pennsylvania. A friend of his was shot down over North Vietnam and never heard from again. Captain Herbert Moore left two son’s my age, Herby and Sammy, and my father used to take us fishing when their father died.

I never forgot that… 

I spent a lot time taking my son’s friends duck and goose hunting when they were boys. Some troubled, fatherless, they needed a role model. They’d have a sleep over the night before opening day. The boat was prepped and decoys loaded the night before. My wife awoke early making a hunters breakfast and filling thermoses with hot chocolate. That night we’d all sit down to her famous Duck a l’Orange and feast after the hunt.

In all those hunts, I always put the boys on the birds. I never cared if I shot the first duck, it was always about those boys.

US Air Force Major Herbert William Moore, Jr. from Imperial, Pennsylvania

Then Captain Herbert Moore was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force upon his graduation from Grove City College in 1963. When he arrived in Vietnam, he had attained the rank of Captain. On September 3, 1967, Captain Moore was flying a mission over North Vietnam when his Republic F105D Thunderchief aircraft was shot down. His aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft artillery fire as he rolled in to deliver his ordnance and Captain Moore ejected in the target area. His empty parachute was seen on the ground and his emergency beeper was heard, but no voice contact was made.

Major Herbert William Moore, Jr. is listed as Missing in Action and is Honored on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Panel 25E - - Line 93. Herbert was posthumously promoted to Major.