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Osprey test pilots and crew to be memorialized at National Museum of the Marine Corps Date published: 5/31/2008
By PAMELA GOULD Today, for the first time, the families of eight Marines killed in 2000 during test flights of the Osprey aircraft will be together to memorialize the men. For North Stafford resident Carol Sweaney, widow of test pilot Lt. Col. Keith Sweaney, it will be both a time of celebration and a somber and symbolic coming full circle. When she buried her husband in December 2000, there could be no flyover by the Osprey, the aircraft he loved and was committed to seeing succeed. His had been the second Osprey to crash within eight months and had left the tilt-rotor aircraft grounded and its future in limbo. But today, that final piece of his funeral is scheduled to take place when the families dedicate a permanent memorial to the men. The families of the eight Marines raised $85,000 for the 10-foot-tall, black granite obelisk that will stand within Semper Fidelis Memorial Park on the grounds of the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The location, on land just outside the main gate of Quantico Marine Corps Base, is fitting given that Schafer and the families are thankful that the memorial will be in a place of such high visibility. Since it opened in November 2006, more than 800,000 people have visited the Marine Corps museum. "The fact that it's at the museum pleases all of us--that it's not going to be at some side field somewhere but that it's part of the Marine Corps heritage in Memorial Park," Schafer said. ACHIEVING A GOAL Plans for a memorial started in October 2002 during a reunion that included members of six of the eight families. Since then, it has been a grass-roots effort to raise the funds and get approval for the memorial. "Everybody has contributed from big to small ways," Sweaney said. But she and Schafer said that Blauvelt, N.Y., resident Anne Murphy was the driving force in the effort. "Without Anne Murphy, this could not have happened," Sweaney said. "She spearheaded it all."
Date published: 5/31/2008
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