Vietnam vet pays respect to fallen buddy

Sayville resident Willard Spencer Lund, "Spence" to friends, was many things in his 24 short years -- son, brother, athlete, college graduate and an Army helicopter pilot.

To retired Maj. William Smith of Gettysburg, Pa., he was a close friend and comrade during hunter-killer missions over the jungle in Vietnam. Smith vividly remembers the day in March 1969 that he lost his friend.

"I was a scout pilot -- the hunter, if you will -- flying the little aircraft called OH-6As," Smith said. "I flew at 30 feet, hunting bad guys, luring them, and if I got in trouble, Spence came down in the Cobra and shot rockets where I told him."

Lund's death had a profound and lasting impact on Smith, 69. So much so that he and his wife, Jane, also a retired Army major, have made a pilgrimage to Sayville to honor his fallen buddy at a Memorial Day ceremony in the hamlet.

Last week, Smith talked about the comrade who had become his best friend. "We flew together all the time," he said. "I loved Spence. He was a good man. You get real close to somebody like that when you fly together. He was the guy who kept me alive."

Smith remembers the morning of March 18, 1969.

"We'd been hunting all morning and were due to be relieved on station . . . Spence didn't have much ammunition left. . . . We refueled, loaded more ammunition on my machine, humped rockets to rearm Spence's machine. Then they called Spence back to the battle to dump his rockets on the bad guys. I was sent home and before I got back to my airfield, Spence was dead.

"I landed my aircraft . . . and was flown to where Spence's aircraft crashed. I was the first American to the site where he'd gone down. And all it was," Smith's voice quavered, "was a tail boom and a hole because they shot up his tail rotor and he lost the main rotor at 500 feet."

Smith, more senior in rank than Lund, said their friendship evolved quickly. Lund had approached him early on at their post, Dong Tam, on the Mekong River Delta. "My family had a beer garden back home and Spence picked me out and we went into a business together, opening up an officers club."

The "club" was a derelict building that had sunk into the ground.

"We built a bar," he recalled. "I was the mess officer at the time so I could get extra mess tables and chairs -- and I could get ice. . . . We started with sodas, beer, and as we collected war memorabilia we'd hang 'em up there."

After Lund's death Smith said he never went back to the mess. And he told his superiors, "I'll go up as often as you like, but don't send me up with the same guy over and over."

Asked why he wanted others to remember his friend, Smith said: "Freedom isn't free. . . . somebody's paying the price. That's why it's important. And if people fail to remember that, your country's probably going to go down the drain."

Preparations for today's ceremony put Smith in touch for the first time with Lund's brother, John Lund, also 69, of Sayville. Smith is bringing his former unit's scarf to present to the Lund family. The two men and their wives plan to share a meal.

John Lund has a nephew who'll attend the ceremony whose middle name is Spencer and who in turn named his son for his fallen uncle.

Of the ceremony, Smith said: "It's important for all military fellas who passed away during our wars, but this particular fella was a personal friend of mine. He died in a battle I started. I've talked to God many times about Spence. I figure I can go see the family and say goodbye one more time."