Army Chief Warrant Officer (Retired) Forrest Edward Myers, was born in April 1926 and passed away June 2021, in Fishers, Indiana.
Forrest grew up in the gentle hills of southern Indiana along the Ohio River in Crawford County. He was working on a barge on the lower Mississippi when he was called up for World War. As a farm boy he was familiar with livestock, and he was not surprised to be assigned in July 1944 to Fort Riley Kansas. He reported to 1st Platoon, Troop Y, First Training Regiment CRT (Cavalry Replacement Training Center).
After training, Forrest was placed on a transport ship to the Pacific and during the trip they stopped in Australia to re-fuel. He was supposed to rotate to the mule ship, but it was sunk by the Japanese.
While in Australia the unit asked for volunteers to be Military Police in Burma and Forrest said it would be better than chasing mules! After a crash course in Military Police, he was shipped to India and then rode a train into Burma to the “Burma Road”. He escorted numerous conveys into China transporting U.S. military equipment for the Chinese.
Forrest came back to the states and re-enlisted and went to Germany in February of 1946 and was assigned to the Ordnance school and was placed in charge of an engineer section driving trucks. In June 1949 Forrest returned to the United States and was assigned to Fort Polk, Louisiana.
In 1951 he applied for and was excepted as a Warrant Officer Junior Grade for Maintenance School. He was then assigned to Japan and spent most of his time in Korea because of the Korean War.
In 1955 Forrest re-enlisted for flight school and was sent to Fort Eustis Virginia and ran into a major he knew when he was an engineer, who helped with his flight packet. After six weeks he received orders to Walters, Texas and was in the first class trained on the B Model Hiller Helicopter. His class of 75 was reduced to only 25 who graduated!
June of 1961 Forrest went back to Germany and began flying the H 37 helicopter. In 1964 Forrest was assigned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He helped form the first military maintenance company, 580th Maintenance Company, at Fort Campbell. Forrest was then assigned to 1st Cavalry Division and sent to Vietnam in 1965 as part of the maintenance unit.
Forrest returned to Fort Rucker, Alabama in 1968 and started training on the U.S. Army Sky Crane. He went back to Vietnam with the 478th Maintenance Company at “Red Beach”! The NVA was continually shelling the aircraft area, so they had to move the unit to a nearby Marine Base.
