(The Boston Globe posted the following article on its website on April 13.)
Fittingly, there was a Hollywood ending yesterday to the prisoner of war saga of Ronald D. Young Jr., the Army helicopter pilot from Georgia with the movie-star looks and the John Wayne attitude.
Even though his parents were frightened for him when he was paraded in front of Iraqi state television cameras as a POW three weeks ago, the 26-year-old chief warrant officer looked more stubborn and angry than scared, said his mother, Kaye Young.
Yesterday, his parents were overjoyed by new video images, which show their 6-foot, 4-inch son cutting a heroic figure – despite having lost several pounds and still wearing blue-striped prisoner pajamas – as he shook hands with fellow soldiers and boarded a plane for Kuwait, the first leg of a long journey home.
”It’s almost like Christmas, New Year’s, and everything all rolled into one,” Young’s father, Ronald Sr., told MSNBC from the family’s home in Lithia Springs, a suburb about 17 miles east of Atlanta. ”The only time I can remember being this elated was the day when he was born. This is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.”
Young, a pilot of one of the six Apache Longbow helicopters in the Vampires unit of the First Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment of the First Cavalry Division, and copilot David S. Williams of Florida were shot down on March 23 when they ran into a wall of antiaircraft fire south of Baghdad.
Young, who was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, is described as man with a love of the outdoors and a lifelong obsession with aircraft and flight. His parents tell stories of how, at age 2, he would beg to visit his grandmother because she lived near an airport.
Young is the middle child of a large Mormon family. His father is a Vietnam War veteran who is railroad freight conductor and a part-time hairdresser.
Single with a young son from a previous marriage, Young attended Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, Ga., but joined the military at age 22 when a recruiter promised that the Army would teach him to fly.