Positivity: Hundreds watch Amityville man finally get war medal
April 6, 2008
In a sprawling aircraft hangar in Westhampton Beach yesterday, about 300 airmen in dress blues and 100 others gathered to honor a national hero - in a ceremony more than 40 years overdue.
Retired Chief Master Sgt. Dennis Richardson, 62, who exposed himself to enemy fire in a 1968 rescue effort near the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam, received cheers and standing ovations as he was awarded the Air Force Cross, the second-highest military honor in that branch.
“It was a long, hard day and very scary,” Richardson said at Suffolk’s Francis S. Gabreski Airport. “I don’t think I did anything different than the rest of the crew that day.”
Richardson was entitled to the medal but never received it for unknown reasons.
Richardson enlisted in the Air Force after graduating from high school in Elmhurst, Queens, in 1964. After serving in Vietnam, he settled in Amityville to start a family with his wife, Deidre, with whom he has five children, and begin a career with the Xerox Corp.
Seven years later, Richardson joined the 106th Rescue Wing of the New York Air National Guard, where he spent 30 years participating in rescue missions before retiring in 2005. Col. Michael Canders, commander of the rescue wing, who flew rescue missions with Richardson, relayed a story of Richardson’s professionalism.
“I came to appreciate his sense of humor and his crusty but special way of letting me know that there might be a better way to do this fly,” said Canders, 52. Then, he imitated Richardson’s deep, gravelly voice. “Listen up, sonny boy. Don’t be goofing off down there.
“We’re running out of gas.”
But, Canders added, local rescues were “a mere walk in the park” compared with Richardson’s time in Vietnam.
It was March 14, 1968, when Richardson, a door gunner on a rescue helicopter that flew to save downed pilots, protected his crew by leaning out of the door to fire his M60 machine gun at advancing enemies. …..
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