In 1996 Stephanie began a search for her birth parents because she needed medical history. What started as a practical search quickly became something much larger: she found her birth mother and learned that her father was Navy Corpsman Gary Norman Young, who had been killed in Vietnam two months before she was born. That revelation set her on a long and moving quest to learn who he was and how he died.
During those early days she was sending messages out to military sites looking for anyone who might have known him. As webmaster for the USMC/Combat Helicopter Association I happened to get one of those emails. I replied right away and started spreading her message through our member emails and posts, which helped connect her to former crewmembers, squadron families, and others in the helicopter community. That single exchange grew into phone calls, reunions, and a friendship – and it launched the wider effort to piece together Gary’s story and honor his service.
Gary Young enlisted in the Navy and trained in San Diego before volunteering for Vietnam duty. He arrived in country in September 1968 and initially served in a dispensary at MAG-11 in Da Nang. He longed to fly on medical evacuation missions and was eventually reassigned to Marble Mountain and joined the Purple Foxes, HMM-364. On February 7, 1969, during a medevac mission, the CH-46 he was aboard was shot down; six of the seven men aboard were killed. Over time Stephanie uncovered details from squadron records and eyewitness accounts and even located a survivor who could help piece together what happened that day.
Stephanie’s search did more than fill in facts. It connected her with veterans who had flown with and remembered her father, and with families who had questions of their own. Through persistent research and outreach she helped bring closure to others, and she made a promise at the Vietnam Memorial Wall that she would secure the combat aircrew wings her father had earned but never received. It took five years of work and navigating military bureaucracy, but in 2002, at the Purple Foxes reunion with more than 175 people in attendance, those wings were finally presented to her on her father’s behalf. She turned her journey into advocacy and storytelling—publishing two books, “A Corpsman’s Legacy” and “A Corpsman’s Legacy Continues,” that document her discoveries and the network of people who helped her along the way.
Her ties to the Purple Foxes deepened in unexpected ways. When the unit deployed in the 2000s, Stephanie’s book reached service members and leaders in the squadron. One of those readers, SgtMaj Rick Caisse, became a close friend and later her husband. The squadron also honored her father by flying flags and carrying his memory forward—an act that led to both profound comfort and, tragically, an improbable connection between two crashes decades apart when a Purple Fox helicopter lost in Iraq in 2007 was carrying a flag the unit had flown in Gary’s honor.
Stephanie has made it her mission to give back: supporting veterans, helping other families research their own histories, speaking at reunions, and preserving her father’s legacy online and in print. Throughout this work, she’s had the unwavering support of her husband Rick, who understood the mission. What she accomplished is remarkable; starting with nothing more than a name and a need for medical records, she spent nearly three decades researching, writing, connecting, and advocating. She didn’t just find her father; she brought him home to a community that never forgot him, earned him the recognition he deserved, and built a bridge between generations of Purple Foxes. Her persistence turned personal loss into something that has brought healing and closure to countless families.
I’m proud to have been able to help her early on and to still call her a dear friend.
If you’d like to learn more about Stephanie’s work or her books, visit her website that honors her father’s story and all who served.
Semper Fi!
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