In honor of those 'left behind'
Past National Commander Ron Hope marks his 50th Alive Day by paying tribute to those who never came home
If there’s one thing Past National Commander Ron Hope would go back in time and tell his 21-year-old self on July 15, 1969, it’s this: “Zig; don’t zag.”
Fifty years ago, that zag changed his life in ways he could never have imagined. The Army veteran was piloting a helicopter in Vietnam, attempting to extract a company of soldiers they had dropped off several days prior, when the bird was shot down.
“We started hearing a really loud noise in the aircraft and started losing rotor speed. Even putting full power back in and overriding the governor, we could not get it to stop,” Hope recalled. “So the aircraft came down really, really hard.”
Hope’s left brachial plexus—the network of nerves that sends signals from the spinal cord to the arm and hand—had been totally crushed. He’d also broken both legs, suffered compound fractures in six vertebrae and had third-degree burns covering 55% of his body.
Hope recalls very little from the days that followed. He remembers seeing the faces of his hooch-mates standing over him and being told his crew chief had died just two beds from where he lay, but it wasn’t until he returned stateside that he truly began to understand the extent of his injuries.
“When I got to the burn center at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, I realized that I probably wasn’t going to be going back into flying anytime soon,’ said Hope. “And it was about three months later that they informed me that I would probably never use my left arm again. That’s when it really started to dawn on me that I was going to have some major changes in my life.”
Hope would ultimately lose his left arm at the shoulder, and it would be at least a year of rehab before he would be out of the hospital and able to start figuring out the next steps of his life.
The Texas native enrolled at Tarleton State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration. And in 1979, he began working for DAV as a national service officer—an experience he says changed his life.
He recalls helping a World War II Navy veteran who had been discharged many years prior as an amputee with no guidance on how to access VA benefits—and was using a self-made wooden leg.
“The first thing that comes out of a service officer’s mouth is, ‘How are you rated with the VA?’” Hope said. “He looked up with this blank stare and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He’d never filed a claim.”
The man, a farmer, had been fashioning his own wooden prosthetic legs for nearly 40 years until meeting Hope, who helped him file his claim and got him seen at the nearby VA hospital.
“It was one of the most fulfilling things I think I have ever done,” said Hope. “And that was the beginning of my lifelong commitment to DAV, for the simple fact that it’s what they did for veterans every day.”
Hope spent nearly 40 years serving veterans through his career with DAV and was elected as national commander in 2014, giving him a chance to advocate for veterans on a much larger stage.
Each year, on or around July 15, he hosts what he calls a “celebration of life” gathering to mark his Alive Day. The first, many years ago, was simply Hope sitting in his yard with a friend and fellow Army veteran—one of the hooch-mates who stood by his bedside after his crash—sharing a few drinks and memories.
Fifty years later, the tradition lives on, a tribute to others as much as a reflection of his own gratitude.
“I lost a lot of friends over there, and I lost a lot of me over there,” said Hope. “It changed my life, drastically. In some ways bad, but in a lot of ways good.
“I met a lot of good people in Vietnam. Made some of my best friends in life over there. Unfortunately, I don’t have many of them left, but I still remember them. And I try to remember all those we left behind.”
