Club Hears Fascination Story of Finding MIA Aircraft

According to Clayton Kuhles, more that 600 military aircraft were downed during World War II, with over 2,000 airmen missing.  He and his Prescott-based MIA Recovery, Inc. team have been searching for 200 of those aircraft, which are believed to have gone down in the high mountains of India and Pakistan.  The terrain is extremely dangerous and most difficult to climb, due to its ruggedness and the lack of roads and trails in the region.  So far, Clayton and his team have found the crash sites of 28 long-missing military aircraft, thereby accounting for 279 military personnel who had been listed years ago as Missing-in-Action (MIA).  All the found aircraft have been US military, except for 3 aircraft of the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) and 1 aircraft of the Royal Air Force (RAF).  In some cases, Clayton and his team were able to carry out the remains of the MIA personnel and help to bring some closure to the families.  He says that only one of the planes they have found was downed as the result of Japanese anti-aircraft fire.  The rest of the crashes were caused by icing and turbulence. 

 

Clayton and his teams rely heavily on local natives of the areas in which they are searching, asking them to tell about any discoveries of aircraft parts, or any shoes or clothing they have come across in their hunting and other travels in these areas, and ask them to lead his teams to those discoveries.  A longtime adventurer and mountain climber, it was on one of his climbs in that region that he first heard about one of these possible military aircraft crash sites.  He searched for it and found it; and he has been continuing his searches ever since that first MIA recovery.  In answer to a John Stewart question, Clayton did confirm that, although his teams have never found any gold at any of the crash sites they have located, a number of the downed aircraft had reportedly been carrying significant amounts of gold, intended to help back failing currencies of some of the countries in the area.  He showed us a number of pictures of these crash sites, along with the rugged terrain in which they have been found. 

 

Our government has abandoned all efforts to do any further searches for the downed aircraft and MIA airmen, and Clayton said he has been unable to secure any government funding for the work he and his teams have been doing.  Consequently, the costly expeditions have mainly been self-funded by Clayton Kuhles.  However, your tax-deductible charitable contributions to his 501(c)(3) organization can help to fund these ongoing MIA missions, and can bring closure to more families.  Donations can be made via his organization's website: miarecoveries.org

 

 

In last week's issue of The Sunupian we noted that, since 1985, Rotary's #1 goal has been to eradicate polio from the face of the earth.  This Rotary program has been known as PolioPlus, and it's primary tool has been the inoculation of infants and young children with two drops of oral vaccine.  National Immunization Days in the different countries have been enormous volunteer endeavors.  To most easily identify the children who have been inoculated with the drops, the practice has been to dip the end of their pinkie finger in a purple dye.  Picking up on this, in order to help raise funds for the polio vaccine, many Interact clubs around the world sponsor a "Purple Pinkie Day" at a school, at a mall, or other locations to help raise awareness of Rotary's polio eradication initiative.  Asking people to donate one dollar to cover the cost of two doses of the vaccine, contributors are able to either dip their pinkie in purple dye, to signify they have donated to the work, or have the fingernail on their pinkie painted with purple nail polish.  Interact clubs in our Rotary district raise thousands of dollars each year for the vaccines through this fundraising method.

 

Interact clubs in our Rotary District 5495 take it one step further.  Several years ago they asked, "What about the tens of thousands of people, for whom the two drops of polio vaccine came too late, and were consequently crippled for life — destined to either have to crawl on the ground, be carried on a family member's back, or be hauled around in a wheelbarrow, if no mobility devices are available to them?"  They decided they had the power and resources to do something to help those people.  Partnering with the Rotary nonprofit Crutches 4 Africa organization, they developed their own Interact Crutches 4 Africa Project, collecting used, and no-longer-needed crutches, canes, walkers, wheelchairs and other mobility devices to ship to Rotary partners in Kenya and Uganda to begin helping and changing the lives of these "African Crawlers."  Eventually the Interact Ambassadors program was added, to give selected Interactors the opportunity to train and to travel in teams to personally participate in giving the gift of mobility to as many of these people as possible.  We will be hearing from some of this year's Interact Ambassadors at this week's club meeting,

 

 

It was good to have Janet Fohrman, Jerry's wife, with us at our meeting.  President Laura presented her with Jerry's Sunup Rotary badge, and expressed to her the club's sincere appreciation for all of the years of leadership and service, with Janet's support, he had provided to our club.

 

It was noted that the Prescott High Interact Club is requesting the date of our club 's next Roadside Cleanup, so they can get that on their calendar, and plan to assist with it.  Matt Greenlee, the Chair of that project, will work on getting that date set, and get the information to them.

 

Our newest member, Harlan Teller, has agreed to assume the responsibility for creating press releases about our club's projects and events, and will get them to the Prescott Courier for publication.  Thank you, Harlan!  If you have photos and information about ant of our club's activities, please send them to Harlan, along with copies to Cassidy (for social media), Art (for the newsletter), and Clent (for the website).

 

 

Richard Hernandez, Chair of our Prescott Area Shelter Services ((PASS) Meals Project, announced that club members have volunteered to be responsible for purchasing and delivering the elements of a dinner meal for the shelter residents for November and December, to fill the previously open positions.  He said he will soon be asking club members to sign up to cover our club's monthly meal commitment for 2024.  Richard also called attention to the PASS Appreciation Cookout at Goldwater Lake on Sept. 27, and said he hoped our club would be able to have representation at that event.

 

A clergyman was walking down the street when he came upon a group of about a dozen boys, all of them between 10 and 12 years of age.

The group surrounded a dog. Concerned that the boys were hurting the dog, he went over and asked "What are you doing with that dog?"

One of the boys replied, "This dog is just an old neighborhood stray. We all want him, but only one of us can take him home. So we've decided that whichever one of us can tell the biggest lie will get to keep the dog."

Of course, the reverend was taken aback. "You boys shouldn't be having a contest telling lies!" he exclaimed. He then launched into a ten minute sermon against lying, beginning, "Don't you boys know it's a sin to lie," and ending with, "Why, when I was your age, I never told a lie."

There was dead silence for about a minute.  Just as the reverend was beginning to think he'd gotten through to them, the smallest boy gave a deep sigh and said, "All right, give him the dog."
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