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MARINE: Lisa Tutt’s parents want answers about crashFROM 1able to walk away front the accident.Those injured were Col. George J. O’Connell Jr. of Mission Viejo, Lt. Col. W. Tom Reid of Lake Elsinore, Maj. S.P. Toth of Irvine, Maj. Warren E. Jones of Laguna Ililis and Staff Sgt. P.L. Gauthier of San Juan Capistrano. They are helping officials investigating the crash, according to officials at the Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada, and could not be reached for comment.Schroeder’s husband. Mike, has declined to discuss the crash that killed his wife, a career Marine radio operator attached to Marine Air Support Squadron 6.Tutt’s parents said they have many questions that the military has been too slow in answering.“Why was she in the helicopter?” asked Louise Tutt, Lisa Tutt’s mother. “Why were she and the other woman the only ones who died? What actually happened?”“We can’t find out anything,” said her father, Martin Tutt. “They say they won’t know anything until Tuesday.”Until then, they will not even be able to make arrangements to bring the body of their daughter back home, the parents said.“We’re in the dark,” Louise Tutt said.The accident was still under investigation Sunday, said Maj. Jim McClain, a spokesman at the El Toro air station.“We won’t know anything more until Tuesday,” McClain said. “We can’t speculate on what happened.”A spokesman at Fallon Naval Air Station and the Marine Corps Reserves also said Sunday that no more information on the accident would be released until later in the week.That kind of response has Lisa Tutt’s family frustrated.Gathered Sunday in the large living room of the family's home in west Santa Ana, a dozen family members and friends expressed quiet anger over the lack of information.Foremost on their minds was why Lisa Tutt, a reservist and company clerk, was in the helicopter.“We’d like to know what is going on,” Martin Tutt said.The Marines had been an important part of Lisa Tutt’s life since she graduated from La Quinta High School in Westminster in1984.“She joined up right out of high school.” said longtime friend Shir-lane Palmer. “I asked her why she was doing it and she said it was a personal challenge.”Martin Tutt, who was in the Navy in the late 1950s, said he wasn’t especially thrilled about the idea of his daughter in the service.“She came to me with the papers, I had to sign them if she was going to join,” Martin Tutt said. “I thought, OK, since it was the reserves, she couldn’t get hurt.”Palmer said Lisa Tutt never complained about the Marines.“She really enjoyed it,” Palmer said. “She is the only person I know who enjoyed going through boot camp. She said it was fun. She was just so full of life, very outgoing. She had lots of friends. She didn’t believe in staying depressed for very long. She lived every moment to the fullest.”Lisa Tutt had received an associate degree in commercial art from Rancho Santiago College and planned to continue her studies this fall.“She just got a letter saying she had been accepted at Cal State Fullerton,” Louise Tutt said. “I didn’t have a chance to tell her about it.”Louise Tutt last talked to her daughter Tuesday.“She called and asked me to pay a bill she forgot, her union dues,” Louise Tutt said.The dues were to go to Local 324 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents employees at the Thrify Drug store at Edinger Avenue and Harbor Boulevard in Fountain Valley, where she had worked for five years.“She was a great worker, an outstanding person,” store manager Larry O’Donnell said. “She didn’t talk much about the Marines. I do know that she didn’t want to go this last time. I don’t know why.”Sitting in a tiny break room in the back of the store, clerks Margie Ilarper and Jeanette Anderson remembered Lisa Tutt as a fun-loving person and steady co-worker.“She always talked about how she wanted to be an artist; she loved art,” Anderson said.“She got a lot of gold stars from the company. The customers really liked her,” Harper said. “She was just a great person. People used to kid us that we were like sisters.”
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Orange County Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Mon, May 29, 1989
Page 70
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
CA, USA 20 Sep 2018
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