The Wall

I took this photo in 2008 at the Vietnam War Memorial, near the Lincoln Memorial. 

There is one Sensing whose name is engraved on the wall, Capt. John L. Sensing, US Army. I never knew him, but we are some ordinal of cousin, since all Sensings (in the South, anyway) descend from one Jakob Sensing, who immigrated to North Carolina from Germany in the 1730s. One of his sons, a Revolutionary War veteran, took his veteran's land grant in Tennessee. So here we are.

Capt. Sensing was a helicopter pilot, flying an OH-6 Cayuse aircraft (right) in the Thua Thien Province when his bird was hit by an RPG near Firebase Ripchord, April 30, 1970. He was serving in B Troop, 2/17 Air Cavalry.

Also killed on the helicopter were SP5 Robert E. Masseth and SP4 David W. Staton.

In 2019, Capt. Sensing's cousin, Dave Davidson, posted a moving tribute to him on Facebook and included this photo of John:

God rest you all, John!

In 2010, Debbie Masseth sent this: 

My son sent me this article [from where it was originally posted] and it gave me chills. Robert E. Masseth was my brother-in-law and my son is his name sake. My husband, David Masseth passed away with cancer this summer. We did not get a lot of information about his brother other then he was killed in a helicopter crash on April 30, 1970.

Somehow, the circle remains unbroken.