The long, lonely battle to vindicate two dishonored military pioneers

Darkness engulfed the Arizona desert as the first of two aircraft closed in on the landing zone. The mission, part of the Marine Corps' controversial evaluation of the V-22 Osprey, called for a simulated communication blackout.

Lt. Col. Jim Schafer, who was co-piloting one of two other Ospreys that were trailing the first pair, sensed a problem as he watched their descent. "These guys are too high," he said aloud. His decision to maintain radio silence has haunted him for the last 16 years.

It was April 8, 2000, and seconds later, that Osprey lost lift, flipped and plummeted to the ground. All 19 Marines were killed, marking one of the deadliest test flights in U.S. military history. The second Osprey encountered its own trouble, slamming to the ground and skidding 100 yards before coming to a stop. Miraculously, no one in that aircraft was seriously hurt. The Marine Corps would blame the pilots, Lt. Col. John Brow and Maj. Brooks Gruber, for causing the deadly crash, refusing to back down from that conclusion even after a formal investigation cleared Brow and Gruber of wrongdoing.
It's a well-known story, in large part because one congressman, Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina, waged a relentless battle to clear the pilots' names. As the years went by, his effort seemed to become more futile. The service's senior-most leaders appeared uninterested at best in the congressman's argument, Jones told Marine Corps Times — heartlessly dismissive at worst.

The Defense Department intervened earlier this year, issuing a letter to Jones and the pilots' families formally absolving Brow and Gruber and gently rebuking the Marine Corps for its obstinance. For Jones, whose persistence came to irritate Marine Corps headquarters, the decision marks an important moral victory — right overcoming wrong. For the pilots' widows, it brings the closure they've so desperately sought since burying their husbands.

For Schafer, who says he suffers from survivor's guilt, the resolution represents far more. Marines never leave their brothers and sisters behind, he said. Everyone who participated in the Osprey's development — the ground crews, the pilots and the generals orchestrating it all — faced immense pressure to meet benchmarks and deadlines. Failure was not an option, even if it meant fudging the truth. Brow and Gruber were victims, he said, of an overly aggressive effort to field this aircraft before all of its many engineering problems were fully resolved. Blaming them for the crash was a sin, Schafer said. They deserved better.

"It took us 16 years to bring our guys off the battlefield," he said. "We left them there, and we finally brought them home with honor. That survivor’s guilt that I live with — that I didn’t call on them to wave off, that I didn’t want to break radio silence — well, that letter helps me."