Crowd honors Gary Gordon’s heroism > Family, friends, dignitaries at Lincoln hear how fallen soldier saved pilot’s life

LINCOLN — It was hot, dusty and deadly in Somalia that day in October 1993, when Lincoln’s own Gary Gordon took his place among the nation’s most valiant heroes.

Army Warrant Officer Michael Durant of New Hampshire knows firsthand the efforts Gordon and his comrade, Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Randall Shughart, expended to save lives at the cost of their own.

On the ravaged streets of Mogadishu, a city of 1 million angry people, everyone seemed to be coming after a downed helicopter on that day in October. Master Sgt. Gordon lifted an injured Durant out of his damaged cockpit and gave him one of his own guns. Durant had a broken back and a broken leg, but Gordon managed to place him in a sheltered area where the injured soldier could defend himself before Somalis swarmed in, killing Gordon and Shughart.

The sole survivor of a four-member helicopter crew, part of a tragic, bloody incident that eventually claimed 17 American lives, Durant came to Lincoln Sunday. He accompanied Gordon’s widow, Carmen, and other relatives to honor a man who shunned the limelight yet captured a nation’s heart with his final act of bravery.

Hundreds of people gathered in front of the town Masonic hall to view a replica of a monument being built to honor Gordon. A Green Beret who died at 33, Gordon left behind his parents, sister and nephew of Lincoln, and his widow and two young children, now living in North Carolina.

Politicians mingled with residents at the monument dedication ceremony. Maine survivors who have earned the Medal of Honor shook hands with Gordon’s parents, Betty and Duane Gordon of Lincoln.

Frederick Field Sr., father of Durant’s fallen crew chief, Tommy Field, traveled from Lisbon for the ceremony. A soft-spoken man, Field said he learned of the dedication Saturday. “It’s tough, but I had to be here,” Field said.

Last year, Gordon and Shughart were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the first pair to get the nation’s highest military honor since the Vietnam War.

Gordon soon will have a Navy ship named after him. But the awards and the ceremonies cannot bring back her son, said Betty Gordon while clutching a handkerchief Sunday.

Gordon’s widow spoke her thanks in a shaky voice to Lincoln residents who, through the monument, will assure her dead husband won’t be forgotten. But it was Durant’s compelling story of heroism in a foreign land that drew the gasps, the tears, and eventually the first standing ovation from everyone at the ceremony.

“These two men saved my life,” Durant said of Gordon and Shughart. “They went in against awful odds, and they chose to go into that dusty neighborhood alone. What Gary did was not common,” said Durant, dressed in full Army Special Forces uniform for the event.

Durant was the pilot of one of three Blackhawk helicopters shot down while trying to reinforce ground troops sent in to eliminate warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

Gordon and Shughart were in helicopters above the scene. They literally barraged their commanders with requests to aid their comrades, Durant said.

The pair asked once to be let down to the ground and were refused. The mission was too dangerous, their commanders said. They asked again. No, the commanders said. On the third request, the commanders “told them to go in and do what they could,” Durant said. Gordon and Shughart were lowered to the ground and fought their way to the helicopters.

Speculation that the corpse of Gordon or Shughart was one dragged through the streets of Mogadishu has never been confirmed. The details of the incident, played out on TV news, were left untouched on Sunday.

Politicians — from U.S. Sens. William Cohen and Olympia Snowe to Rep. John Baldacci and Gov. Angus King — praised Gordon and compared him to Maine’s other highly recognized military hero, Joshua Chamberlain. Like Chamberlain in Civil War battles, Gordon decided quickly, probably instinctively, to act in a most definitive way, they said.

Promoting peace and freedom around the world “can exact a heavy price,” said Cohen.

“Gary embodied qualities that are increasingly lacking in our society — courage, dedication to others, an understanding of responsibility, a strong belief in family and country. He had a strength of character from which we all can learn,” Cohen said.

Snowe said Gordon was the 76th Maine recipient of the Medal of Honor. From a “quintessential small town,” Gordon was a “caring father and husband, a man with a big heart, a soldier with a larger measure of bravery,” Snowe said.

King gave a spirited message about a soldier’s expectation to perform bravely and valiantly for the country.

Rep. Priscilla Lane, D-Enfield, expressed her thanks for Gordon’s act of courage. In a time when children “are looking for heroes in the Power Rangers,” Gordon showed the world a purity of spirit and dedication to his comrades that should be remembered, Lane said.

At Mattanawcook Academy, Gordon played on his high school football team, and in idle moments drew military pictures of guns, tanks and other things before graduating in 1978.

On Sunday, Durant carried with him a pamphlet published in 1962 that gave information on the Medal of Honor. The last person to check the pamphlet out of the local library was Gary Gordon on Oct. 1, 1971. The library has since given the pamphlet to Gordon’s parents.