Thousands of people did all they could to get out of the Vietnam War, but fighter pilot Harry Sarajian wanted to go so badly he wrote a letter to the president. He was told, because of his age, he could do more for the war effort by training others.
Disappointed, Mr. Sarajian swallowed hard, then did his job.
“It was a big source of angst that he didn’t go,” said his wife, Jane Sarajian, of Smyrna. “He felt so bad that his buddies were over there. But he did what he was told to do in a letter from the president.”
Mr. Sarajian died Aug. 28 after a long bout with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 79. The body was cremated, and R.T. Patterson Funeral Home in Lilburn handled arrangements. A memorial gathering to celebrate his life is planned at the Officers’ Club in Pensacola, Fla., within a few weeks, with burial with military honors at Barrancas National Cemetery.
A Navy pilot for 20 years, Mr. Sarajian retired at the rank of commander in 1974. He’d logged more than 2,000 hours in F-8 Crusaders, and flown off the USS Midway, the USS Forrestal and the storied USS Enterprise.
He next bought and operated a Radio Shack store in Marietta, and later went to work for Walmart, where he held several management positions.
“I don’t think he had ever flown before he went to flight school,” his wife said. “He was an even-going rock of a guy, who never raised his voice.”
One of his daughters, Shawn Perez, of Atlanta, is happy for that. Once when she was a student at the University of Georgia, he received her grades before she did, and there were too many C’s. She expected an explosion. “All he said was, ‘Keep up the mediocre work,’ looking me straight in the eyes,” she said. “It was his way of saying he knew I could do better.”
Fellow Navy airman Al Wattay, 76, of Hilton Head, S.C., said his friend was a man given to understatement, and understated pranks.
Once, flying in formation, Wattay said, “I was on his wing, and it was getting more and more difficult to stay in position.” Wattay was sure he was flying as he should, but soon “figured Harry was putting his plane into a skid, making it difficult to fly formation. He turned around and looked back at me with this big grin on his face. He was a pretty happy person.”
Mr. Sarajian’s wife said he was a Navy “Top Gun,” made famous by the Tom Cruise movie of the same name, and had very high standards.
Born in Pennsylvania, he loved the ocean, and talked with his wife about throwing a party at the the Officer’s Club in Pensacola, rather than the memorial function now planned.
Mr. Sarajian, who held a bachelor’s in business and an MBA from Drexel University, is survived by his wife, four children from a previous marriage, two step-children, a sister, nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
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