Lawrence J. Pickett

Col. Lawrence J. Pickett, 89, USAF retired, died Wednesday evening at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, after a massive stroke early Sunday morning at home in Las Cruces, N.M. One of his biggest gifts to his family was having an advance care directive in place. As a military fighter pilot (call sign "Pick,") his gifts to his nation were many, including combat missions in the China-Burma-India Theater of WWII and over North Vietnam in the 1960s. He was born in 1918 in Wagon Mound, N.M., and raised in Las Cruces, where his father, Charles, was a rural mail carrier and his mother, Georgia, co-owned a popular dress shop called Geor-Jess. Pick decided he wanted to fly as a tyke in 1931 when a barnstormer in a tri-engine airplane came to town. His military career started in high school when he joined the National Guard at age 16. With ROTC participation at New Mexico Agriculture & Mechanics College, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army. He was awarded a civil engineering degree in May 1941, and entered flying training a few days later in the Army Air Corps. He graduated in January 1942, in the first Army Air Forces class to earn its wings after Pearl Harbor was attacked. The next day, he married his college sweetheart, Ann Miller, of Fort Davis, Texas. After stateside service as a pilot instructor -- including a stint in the ever-fascinating P-39 -- he flew P-47s in the China-Burma-India Theater from 1944 until the end of World War II, escorting the supply transports that flew The Hump over the Himalayas to besieged Kunming, China. After the war, he trained in weather forecasting at Selfridge Field in Michigan, and transferred to flying Air Force Fighters while stationed in Germany, where he patrolled the Iron Curtain in F-84s during the Korean War. In the 1950s, he helped pioneer transatlantic refueling and nuclear delivery in F-84s, and in the early 1960s he flew the Philippines for three years in F-100s. He arrived in Thailand in 1967 as vice commander of the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing at Takhli, in time for the third "reunion" of the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association, known as the River Rats. The group got its start when Air Force, Navy and Marine aviators met to improve tactics that would save pilots' lives in the bombing campaigns over North Vietnam. One of the oldest fighter pilots to fly combat missions during the Vietnam War, he flew two missions in the F-105 on his 50th birthday in 1968. He retired in 1970. At his last duty station, McConnell AFB, he initiated the first stateside meeting of the River Rats, Wichita 1969, by mailing invitations to bases and military newspapers around the world. From his mailing list grew the organization as it exists today -- a brotherhood/sisterhood of combat aviators from the Vietnam era through the current Iraq conflict. As part of the Air Force's 60th anniversary this year, the Air Force Association named the River Rats one of its 10 most important organizations. Pick was able to keep flying throughout his military career. He requested that on his tombstone, in addition to the typical information, there be inscribed these words: fighter pilot. Pick's first wife, Ann, died in August 2004 in San Diego, where they had settled after his retirement. A son, David, also predeceased him. Survivors include his second wife, Trudi Hahn Pickett of Las Cruces, a retired Minneapolis journalist. His surviving children are Charles Pickett and Lauren Stedman, both of Terlingua, Texas. Other survivors include grandchildren Jesse Pickett of Santa Fe, Lara Pickett of Boardman, Ohio, Lawrence Pickett of Ft. Bragg, CA., Pearl Stedman of San Francisco and Jubal Stedman of Ft. Bragg, Calif.; and great-grandchildren John Markovitch and Dean Markovitch of Boardman, Ohio, and Roxanne Pickett of Alpine, Calif. Visitation is from 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday, November 11, 2007, at Getz Funeral Home. Funeral Services will be at 10:30 AM on Monday, November 12, 2007 at St. James Episcopal Church, South Main and St. James St. with Rev. Brian Hobden officiating. Pallbearers are members of the AFROTC Detachment 505, New Mexico State University. Honorary pallbearers are members of the National Board of the River Rats. Cremation will follow per Pick's wishes. Graveside military services will be in a few weeks at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, CA. Gifts may be made in the Colonel's memory to the NMSU Foundation, Inc., PO Box 3590, Las Cruces, NM 88003, for the Pickett Air Force ROTC scholarship purposes. PDF Printable Version