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Friday, August 21, 2009

Local soldier killed in helicopter crash

Eleven years ago, Paul Jackson was trying to find his place in the world.
An outgoing guy with an adventurous spirit, he took a chance on the Army, and ended up as a helicopter air-crew member with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment in Fort Campbell, Ky.
It proved to be a perfect match.
Jackson’s relatives said he thrived in his newfound career with the Army, rising to the rank of staff sergeant. He was deployed 10 times to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Along the way, the former Mount Airy resident and alum of Walter B. Saul High School also married and had a daughter.
Jackson’s full and promising life came to a tragic end Tuesday, when he and three other soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash near Leadville, Colo.
Walter Sokalski, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, said Jackson, 33, was on an MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that was “conducting routine mountain training” near Mount Massive.
Jackson and the other soldiers — Staff Sgt. Chad Tucker, Chief Warrant Officer Robert Johnson and Chief Warrant Officer Terrance Geer — might have been preparing for flying conditions they could encounter in an overseas mission, Sokalski said.
The helicopter crashed about 4 p.m. local time. Army officials recovered the helicopter’s flight data recorder, but are still unsure what caused the crash, Sokalski said.
Jackson’s death stunned his family, which has endured a string of recent heartaches, said Rudolph Tolbert, the father of Jackson’s older brother, Mpozi Tolbert.
Mpozi Tolbert, an Indianapolis Star photographer, died three years ago. Earlier this year, Jackson’s father, Melvin Jackson, also died.
“We’re devastated. We lost another good man,” Tolbert said.
Jackson often visited his old Mount Airy neighborhood, where his mother, Maisha Brenda Jackson, still lives, Tolbert noted.
Jackson’s wife, Loni, and daughter, Desiree, 8, lived with Jackson near Fort Campbell.
“He was a very cordial guy who loved his family,” Tolbert said of Jackson.
Jackson, who thought college would move too slowly for him, loved flying, Tolbert said.
“He used to say, ‘It really helps you focus when you have to take apart a helicopter, put it in a transport, then put it back together and fly it. It keeps your mind pretty tight,’” Tolbert said.
Army officials said Jackson served nine deployments in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
He collected numerous commendations, including the Air Medal for valor, three Air Medals and two Army Commendation Medals.
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About The PhillyConfidential team

Dana DiFilippo has covered murder, mayhem and miscellany at the Daily News since 2000. She grew up in Delaware County and studied journalism and photography at Penn State University. E-mail tips to difilid@phillynews.com.

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Stephanie Farr has been reporting for the Daily News since 2007, covering everything from gay porn stars who entered the burglary business to moon trees, skinheads, murders and naked bike rides. She covers crime, both in the city and suburbs, and keeps clippings of bizarre Associated Press articles. Her favorite this year was the story about the drunk in Punxsutawney who gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dead opossum. E-mail tips to farrs@phillynews.com.

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Phillip Lucas joined the Daily News crime team in 2011. He grew up on the mean streets of Seattle and studied journalism and psychology at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Before landing in the City of Brotherly Love, Phillip was a reporter for The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. Email tips to lucasp@phillynews.com.

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Morgan Zalot is the newest crime reporter at the Daily News, starting in 2011 after interning at the paper twice as a Temple University journalism student. In her past stints at the DN, she covered just about everything, from drunken Phillies fans to a barber shop in a high school to a grisly murder-suicide. She’s a born-and-raised Philly girl who grew up in the Northeast. E-mail tips to zalotm@philly.com.

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