REMEMBERING GEORGE: AFTER 25 YEARS, FAMILY KEEPS HIM ALIVE IN THOUGHTS

By Wilson Brown/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

The family has moved on but after 25 years their memories of their loved one are as strong as they were when they heard the news at 9:30 a.m. on April 25, 1980.

George's helicopter had gone down.

Cpl. George N. Holmes Jr. had graduated from Pine Bluff High School four years before joining the Marines.

"It's still very vivid in our minds," said Sallylu Holmes, George's mother. "My sons were teenagers."

While George, the eldest, joined the Marines, Richard went onto the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and James Douglass was a Pine Bluff High sophomore.

Twenty-five years ago, Mrs. Holmes and her husband, George Holmes Sr., (now deceased) woke up at 6:45 a.m., turned on the television and heard then-President Jimmy Carter announce that eight servicemen were killed in Iran. Their son was presumed dead in the aborted rescue mission.

Holmes died in the mission to rescue the U.S. Embassy hostages from Tehran when the helicopter he was riding in collided with a U.S. transport plane over the Iranian desert.

"The memories really stay the same," Mrs. Holmes said by phone Monday from her North Little Rock home. "They stay fresh."

Her son was supposed to be discharged from the Marines in August and planned to return to school.

"Those were trying times," said George's uncle, Joe Holmes of Pine Bluff. "They certainly affected the family."

He wasn't able to tell his parents about the secret mission he was preparing for, his parents told The Commercial in 1980, but on his visits home, Mrs. Holmes said she could tell he was preparing for Iran.

Memorial ceremonies were held in the Florida Panhandle at the operation's base and in Arlington National Cemetery at Washington, D.C., on Monday, Mrs. Holmes said.

"Several of the hostages will attend," she said. "It's a very, very nice ceremony."

The commemoration at Arlington was previously held every year, but was later changed to every five years, she said. The last time Mrs. Holmes attended was on the 15th anniversary.

Her niece, who lives at Arlington, Va., will represent the family this year, she said.

"I'm just glad that he's being remembered," Mrs. Holmes said.

Joe Holmes has fond memories of taking his nephews fishing on Lake Hamilton at Hot Springs and showing George the proper way to chop wood.

"We had a lot of laughs," he said.

According to the uncle, James Douglass now works with computers at Little Rock while Richard is a pilot for Delta Airlines at Atlanta.

After 25 years, George still hasn't left his uncle's thoughts.

"I took my first cousin back to the airport and he said 'I want you to take me out next time I'm in town to visit his grave site,'" he said.

"I sure do miss him. He was a very good boy."