The goal of the 57th AHC Memorial Project is to provide and erect a monument at Fort Rucker, Alabama to honor all Gladiators of the 57th Assault Helicopter Company. While the project may go through several phases before completion, this page is here to keep you updated on it's progress.
Below is a conceptual rendering of the memorial we have preliminarily designed so far. On the right side of the granite base sections we will have a slick with “57” on the door, doing a “String” or “Ladder” extraction of a SOG recon team. On the left we will have a Cougar gunship with a patch on the nose rolling in on a gun run. The back will have a list of our fallen brothers from the 57th while we were in country. Additionally, the front will have our unit awards, i.e. “Presidential Unit Award”, "Valorous Unit Award” and Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry Unit Award, possibly on the first riser above the base slab. The statue would be bronze and would depict a generic aviator, no rank or designation, which could denote a pilot, crew chief or doorgunner. The patches on the front are under discussion as is the entire design, which will probably be altered a bit during the development of the project.
This is all still preliminary and subject to revision based on further input and ongoing discussions within the committee and subject to Fort Rucker’s approval of course. We will post updates as they develop.
We have been known, over the years, as the Gladiator Reunion Committee. For financial and logistical reasons, we have now formed a corporation and obtained Not-for-Profit status as a 501(c)3 corporation, which is tax exempt and is named "The 57th AHC Memorial Fund.” Joe Sottile, Gary Neely, and Steve Hayduk are the directors of the corporation.