Captain Ronald W. Forrester USMC

3/15/1947 – 12/27/1972

MIA 1972 – 2023

A Texas native, Capt Ron Forrester grew up wanting to serve; more than that, he wanted to fly. As children growing up in Odessa, TX, Ron would often recruit his twin brother Don and younger brother Larry to be his soldiers as he played the role of the general. At age 5, he decided it was time for his first jump. His plan was to climb the tree in the front yard to gain access to the roof and test his skills using his bedsheet as his parachute. His mission was thwarted by his father’s quick intervention, and the young pilot’s “Readiness Activities” were ordered to take place with both feet on the ground.

After graduating from Ector High School in 1965, Ron left Odessa and headed to Texas A&M University, where he became a Fighting Texas Aggie! There, he joined the Corps of Cadets and pursued his degree in Civil Engineering. While a student at Texas A&M, he completed The Basic School and Officer’s Candidate School with the United States Marine Corps. Once he graduated, he was commissioned as an Officer and quickly fit in time to get married before he and his new bride headed to Pensacola, FL. There he would attend flight training to become a Bombardier Navigator of the esteemed A-6A Intruder. While in Pensacola, Ron also became a father to his only child, a daughter named Karoni.

From Pensacola, the young family moved to Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, North Carolina. In August of 1972, Capt Forrester deployed to Southeast Asia, where he was stationed at MCAS Nam Phong, Thailand, aka The Rose Garden. The Marines there flew bombing missions into North Vietnam, most often at night and most often solo. Such was the case on the night of December 27, 1972. Capt Forrester and his pilot, Capt Jim Chipman, left The Rose Garden at 20:00 for a solo night mission in their A-6A “Tiny 05” as part of Operation Linebacker II—Nixon’s effort to bomb Hanoi to the negotiating table. That night, Tiny 05 failed to return to base. Both Capt Chipman and Capt Forrester were listed as Missing in Action. The peace treaty to end the Vietnam War was signed one month to the day later on Jan 27, 1973.

Forrester’s family was devastated by his loss. He was missing, and they had to learn how to navigate being an MIA family: demanding answers from the government, encouraging further investigations, and impatiently waiting for a potential crash site to be excavated.

There’s no quick way to summarize the “lifetime of effort” that led to the phone call Capt Forrester’s daughter received from Marine Corps Casualty on December 5, 2023. “We got a match” were the words she heard. One of the bone fragments recovered during two excavations in 2023 matched her father’s DNA. The answer to his fate had finally come almost 51 years after his shootdown. His pilot, Capt Chipman, has also been identified and laid to rest in American Fork, Utah.

Captain Ron Forrester will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on October 7, 2024.

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