Overdue Honor

摘要

After more than a decade of planning, cold war veterans and U.S. Forest Service officials broke ground ast November for the Silent Heroes of the Cold War National Memorial. Steve Ririe spearheaded the effort to dedicate the site at the base of Mount Charleston, Nevada, where 14 people died in the crash of a Douglas C-54 in 1955. The transport had been headed to the Watertown Airstrip, later known as Area 51. That the nine civilians and five military personnel who died in the crash had been assigned to the Lockheed Skunk Works' U-2 test program remained secret for more than four decades.