Wine Country Marines

DISTINGUISHED LOCAL MARINES

The area located north of the Golden Gate in California is home to several very distinguished Marines:

- Major General J. Michael Myatt, USMC (Retired)

- General Richard D. Hearney, USMC (Retired)

In honor of these Marines, the following two recent newspaper articles profiling their distinguished careers appear below.

General Richard D. Hearney, USMC (Retired)

In the far corner of the room, almost completely obscured from view by a wooden rocking chair draped in a U.S. Marine Corps rug, a rectangular wooden box frame hangs on the wall, barely 10 inches off the ground.

A simple plaque bears the name Richard D. Hearney and the dates 1962 -- 1996. Mounted inside the frame are the trappings of a sterling military career: four silver stars and 15 medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, Defense Superior Service Medal and the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

But retired Marine four-star General Richard ``Rich'' Hearney, 64, won't tell you they are there unless you ask -- twice.

``He operates on a need-to-know basis,'' said Maggie Hearney, his wife of 42 years.

A Petaluma native now living in a home overlooking Lake Mendocino, Rich Hearney retired from the Marine Corps eight years ago as the second-highest ranking officer in the corps -- Assistant Commandant, four-star General.

Still active in military and political circles, Hearney travels regularly from his Ukiah home near the Mendocino County ranch that has been in his family for more than 140 years to Washington, D.C., as a consultant for the Marine Corps and the Department of Defense.

``I keep my hand in, let's say that,'' he said.

For a commanding officer that prided himself in taking personal care in dealing with families that lost loved ones in the military, watching the war with Iraq and its aftermath has produced mixed feelings.

``During a shooting war, you expect to lose people, you expect things to happen. But the situation in Iraq, where the combat was to have ended and we are still losing a lot of youngsters, men and women, every day -- for the families back home, the anxiety they are experiencing must be terrible,'' he said.

But his sympathy is tempered by military realism forged by almost 36 years of active duty during which he was shot, lost a son on a training mission and endured long separations from his family.

Hearney, a pilot who flew 680 missions during two tours in Vietnam, said military personnel and their families should have an understanding of what is expected in times of war.

A two-star General and deputy commander of all Marine forces during Operation Desert Storm, Hearney dealt directly with the families of the pilots he deployed to Iraq during the 1991 war.

``They wanted a date when their spouses were going to come back and I said `We're going to war, I can't give you a date,''' he said. ``Look at the World War II guys. They left until it was over. So people whining about six months or a year, I just don't have time for that.''

Hearney, the oldest of Helen and Harry Hearney's three children, grew up in Petaluma hearing stories of Dante Benedetti, a celebrated Marine Corps Captain who was killed in the Battle of Guadalcanal in World War II in 1942. Both generations-old Sonoma County families, the Hearneys and Benedettis are longtime family friends.

His mother's family were ranchers around Penngrove dating back to the 1800s. Over the years his maternal grandfather purchased and cobbled together wild land in Mendocino County that Hearney and his brother now share.

After graduating from Petaluma High School in 1957, Hearney attended Stanford University on a football scholarship where he enrolled in Platoon Leaders Class -- a reserve program similar to the Army's Reserve Officer Training Corps. After graduation in 1961, he went into the corps.

``When I went in I had no intention or expectation that I would stay. I wanted to fly,'' he said.

After one 13-month tour flying single-seat bombers out of Danang in Vietnam, Hearney flirted with leaving the military for a career as a commercial airline pilot. He even submitted a letter of resignation.

``I was tired of being away from the family, and I thought a different lifestyle would be better,'' he said. ``But then I just said `I love what I'm doing.' I asked them to pull my letter (of resignation), which they did. Then they promoted me and sent me back to Vietnam.''

Hearney flew everything he could strap into: attack planes, spotting aircraft and low-flying machines that dropped flares from 1,000 feet over active battlefields at night.

``We were taking ground fire all of the time,'' he said. ``It goes through the airplane. It's just aluminum, you don't have any heavy armor on the airplanes.''

On one of those flights on his second tour in Vietnam, Hearney was at the controls of an A-4 Skyhawk attack plane and took a hit in the cockpit. The bullet pierced the shell of the plane, hitting him.

``We brought the plane back -- no big deal,'' he said about the flight that earned him the Purple Heart. ``That's not something you write home about. There is no sense in raising anxiety levels unnecessarily.''

Hearney did not write home about it -- literally.

``I didn't hear about it for a long, long time,'' Maggie Hearney said. ``I think he thought it would make me a hysterical wife to know about it.''

No use worrying

But Maggie Hearney, who shepherded three children around 10 states as well as Japan and Germany as her husband rose through the ranks, chafes at the notion of being ``a hysterical wife.''

``Nothing I said would make him not go,'' she said. ``I just have learned that I don't kill myself worrying.''

``Through the eye of the needle'' is how retired Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle describes Hearney's ascent to second in command of the entire corps during which he participated in two rounds of contentious debate over base closures.

``It takes a great deal of dedication, it takes intelligence and it takes luck,'' said McCorkle, a three-star general who was a colonel when Hearney was in charge of Marine aviation in the early '90s.

``But I always say the harder you work, the luckier you get, which is certainly true of Rich Hearney because he is a very intense man,'' he said.

Hearney calls that intensity the Marines' legacy.

``Every time you send someone out on a mission in combat, there is a potential that something is going to happen. That goes with the territory,'' he said. ``A fight is a fight. Being risk-averse or worried, wringing your hands about losing some assets -- you know the mission comes first. You have to be bold, aggressive.''

But Hearney's intensity -- evident even in retirement -- gave way to compassion during the most trying times in the lives of Marines and their families, according to McCorkle.

``Whenever we lost a Marine, no one could have done it any better in taking care of the families,'' he said of Hearney, whom he has known nearly 20 years. ``He personally met -- and a lot of Generals don't -- he personally met with every family member. If it was in Beaufort (South Carolina) and he was in Cherry Point (North Carolina) and it was seven hours by car, he would be there.''

Empathy is a family trait with the Hearneys, according to McCorkle.

When a woman lost her husband, the commanding officer's wife was asked to offer assistance to the widow. It is a duty some women perform more naturally than others.

``She (Mrs. Hearney) would drive 50 miles at nine o'clock at night and 50 miles back and I'm not talking about California roads -- I'm talking about pig trails in North Carolina,'' McCorkle said.

Hearney's military journey recently came full circle.

At the D-Day Memorial unveiling in Washington, D.C., in May, Hearney acted as personal host to Dante Benedetti's younger brother, Gene, who at 84 is himself a decorated World War II Marine veteran.

Hearney crafted the itinerary, made travel arrangements and hosted the elder veteran at an invitation-only drill performance that boasted military luminaries and politicians.

``The Marines just took exceptional care of Gene and that's through Rich,'' said Gene's grandson, Marcus Benedetti, who went on the trip. ``He gave Gene one of the best weekends Gene could ever hope for, and so selflessly. He's truly an amazing guy.''

Never in the history of the Marines has an aviator risen to the rank of Commandant. Hearney could have been the one to break the barrier, according to retired Marine Corps Commandant Al Gray.

``He was one of about two aviators who I would have considered for Commandant -- he was that good,'' he said. ``He is extraordinarily well thought of in the entire Marine Corps ... Hearney had it all.''

Hearney credits his family -- especially his wife -- for providing a support system that let him pursue his career.

``It takes a lot of dedication. You have to be an extraordinarily strong woman,'' he said.

A career in the military is a lifestyle choice for an entire family, he said.

The military became even more of a family matter when Hearney's younger son, Brenden, signed on with the Marines' aviation program.

Like his father, Brenden flew the Harrier attack jet, one of the most volatile and controversial planes in the Marine fleet. Over the last 30 years, the Harrier has the highest rate of major accidents of any Air Force, Army or Marine plane now in service.

Rich Hearney, a member of the first Harrier squadron, called the plane a ``rocket ship ... the best airplane I have ever flown.''

The Harrier is reserved for the best pilots in the corps.

``Brenden was experienced. He had been flying the Harrier for years. He was in the Gulf War with me -- he flew some 40 missions in the Gulf War,'' Hearney said.

On one such mission, a pilot in Brenden's squadron of 20 pilots went down. Hearney, then commander of all Marine aviation, was left waiting for word of his son's whereabouts.

``I just stood there and bit my lip and didn't ask any questions,'' he said. ``That squadron commander never called me and I found out through another route that it wasn't Brenden. If I could have gotten a hold of that squadron commander I would have strangled him that day for not giving me the courtesy of a call.''

But later in his career, it was Brenden.

On a 1994 training mission with the Royal Air Force in England, Brenden was at the controls of a Harrier when it went down and he was killed. He was 29.

``I guess I had encouraged him to take that exchange (assignment),'' the elder Hearney said.

Maggie Hearney said ``time is a wonderful healer.'' But coping with the loss has been a struggle.

``It's profoundly moving,'' she said. ``It really does shake the timbers of your family.''

Hearney retired from the Marines in 1996. Despite a lifestyle that on its surface appears tranquil, Maggie Hearney said her husband is now ``busier than he used to be.''

Now a consultant

As a consultant for both the Department of Defense and the Marine Corps, Hearney is often 3,000 miles away from his hilltop home overlooking Lake Mendocino as well as the 2,000-acre ranch north of Ukiah that has been in his family since the 1860s.

He is currently preparing a report on how the Marine Corps responded to water pollution at Camp Lejeune over three decades ending in the mid-1980s. Water at the North Carolina Marine base has been linked with birth defects of children born there over a span of 30 years.

``The first indications of pollution were in the early '80s and the wells weren't closed until 1985, so we are trying to sort out who knew what, when,'' he said.

Investigating fellow Marines' conduct does not run contrary to the corps' motto of ``Semper Fi'' -- always faithful -- according to Hearney.

``We are just collecting data and let the chips fall where they are,'' he said. ``Again, business is business. We have an obligation to be as thorough and as accurate as we possibly can.''

And Hearney still flies whenever he can.

Every two years he gives retired U.S. senator, astronaut and fellow Marine John Glenn a flight check, a requirement to make sure pilots are fit to be at the controls.

``I must be easy, I guess,'' Hearney said. ``After the first one, we are sitting in the lounge, debriefing the flight and he says, `Rich, what do I owe you?' ... So I said, `Senator, you only owe me one thing. I want a Xeroxed copy of your log book showing Rich Hearney signing off astronaut John Glenn on a flight check.'''

Hearney, courteous, but reserved, becomes animated when talking about flying. His scariest moment in flying 680 missions over Vietnam? When he learned the pilot of his commercial flight home for his first rest and recuperation break was a fellow flight school classmate who was booted from the program after crashing twice in six weeks.

And at 64, Hearney still relishes physical activity.

"When you are over the hill, you pick up speed,'' he said. ``I relax through physical activity.''

Strewn about his home office are the trappings of a world traveler, not a decorated career military man. Among the model planes and wall hangings from around the globe are two rubber exercise balls and three kayak paddles.

A competitive rower, Hearney has two sea kayaks and a single-seat shell he takes down to Lake Mendocino. Next year, he and his elder son, Brian, will take part in an indoor rowing competition in Sacramento.

And he cycles. Seven bikes -- three mountain, three road and one tandem -- hang from hooks on the walls and ceiling of his immaculate garage. He will churn out a 40-mile round trip to Hopland and be back before 9 a.m. some mornings.