Antelope Island

There is an island in the Great Salt Lake.  I am told Jim Bridger named it Antelope Island after the native wildlife he found when he discovered it in the early 1800’s.  It is reached by driving on a long causeway from just south of Ogden.

One warm and sunny day around 2002 I finished work early in a conference I was attending at Hill Air Force Base.  I decided I would take a ride over to this beautiful spot to see what I could see.  Imagine my surprise as I reached the island and the first thing I see is a monument with an Air Force Special Operations Command Shield and a Ranger Tab on it.  I pulled in to see what it was all about and the memories came flooding back.

In early 1992 I was a mission commander for a small task force charged with providing search and rescue support of US Air Force fighters and cargo aircraft flying from Incirlik Air Base, Turkey into Northern Iraq as part Operation Northern Watch.  I had under my command three MC-130P Combat Shadow aircraft and four MH-60G helicopters, along with combat controllers and PJ’s.  During that time the leader of the helicopter force was Lt Col Roland Peixotto, "Randy" was the DO of the 55^th Special Operations Squadron from Hurlburt Field, FL.  We had a very good working relationship and I came to rely on his opinion and advice.  Randy came from a family of US Army Generals, all from West Point.   He had graduated from West Point and served a number of years with the Army, but had made the decision to transfer to the Air Force when his career would have required him to stop flying and lead ground forces.  After about six weeks I rotated back to my unit and soon after Col Peixotto and his men loaded up on a C-5 and flew back to Hurlburt.

AFSOC was not a very big command and most of us seemed to end up serving or overlapping with each other on assignments.  I expected I would see Randy again.

I think Randy was given command of the 55^th that summer.  The following October, elements of the 1^st Special Operations Wing, including the 55^th SOS, and elements of US Army Special Operations Command, including elements of the 160^th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and 75^th Ranger Regiment were conducting a training mission from Hill AFB into an objective area across the lake.  The weather on the day of the mission was not forecast to be bad but it did have low ceilings, light gusting wind, light rain and no moon illumination.  This led to conditions where their night vision goggles where only marginally effective.  The Air Force MH-60G’s were leading US Army MH-60Ls carrying a small force of Army Rangers into the objective area.  The formation took off from Hill AFB at approximately 9:15PM turning west towards the objective area.  A little less than five minutes later it is believed the pilot flying the lead MH-60G call sign Merit 81, developed vertigo and flew the aircraft into the lake, crashing just north of the causeway and Antelope Island.  Twelve men were killed, and one survived.  Those 12 men are memorialized on the Antelope Island.

Their names:

US Army:  Col John T. Keneally, LTC Kenneth W. Staus, Sgts Blain A Mishak and Harvey E Moore, Jr., Specialist Jeremy B. Bird.  All were Rangers

US Air Force:  LtCol Roland E. Peixotto, Jr, Capt Michael L. Nazionale, TSgt Mark Scholl, Sgts Phillip A. Kesler, Steven W. Kelly and Mark G. Lee, and Sr Amn Kerek C. Hughes.  All were Air Commandos

This link is to a geo-caching site that describes what you find at the memorial.  

Memorial on Antelope Island, UT