The Last Flight of

Bernie “Touch” Touchette

Bernard L. “Touch” Touchette died of cancer on 7 May 2006.

“Touch” and I have been friends since we met at Binh Thuy in February 1967. We met again at Kadena, Okinawa in December of 1968. I was heading to DaNang as an FE on the H-3‘s & he was going to NKP as an FE on H-3’s When I got to Hill AFB in Utah in 1973 I again had the pleasure of working with Touch in the H-3 FE section. I retired & moved to Naples Florida in 1975 and stayed in contact with him. We both moved a few times but kept in “Touch”. One day he called me and talked me into joining the Jolly Green Association and going to the reunion. I made it to that reunion but he didn’t. The next year we both made it, I took my motor home and we stayed in the campground at Eglin AFB. I would get up early in the morning and Touch would be out walking or just sitting on the little beach. He said he had never been so relaxed. We only planned on staying for three days but he talked me into staying about a week, we both had a great time. After he retired from his civilian job he and his wife Bettye would come down to Florida to visit. The women would go shopping and do women things while Touch and I would sit around telling War Stories. One of my favorite stories was about the time that Touch walked into a mine field on one of our missions and the people were hollering at him but he couldn’t understand what they were trying to tell him. When everyone started diving to the ground he realized that something was wrong; he froze in his tracks. We had to pick him up with the hoist. We went through good times and a few rough times but we stayed friends through all of it.

Crewmate and Friend (FE) Bill Crawford