“U.S. Marine Who Died While Rescuing Crew to Receive Honorary Noncombat Medal” – One America News Network
OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
5:32 PM – Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Last week, a group of Marines visited an Arlington, Virginia, home to inform a couple on the circumstances surrounding the Osprey crash in Australia earlier this year, which claimed the lives of their son and two other Marines.
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However, they weren’t prepared to learn that their son had actually initially survived the crash.
Spencer R. Collart, a corporal, had gotten out of the plane safely. However, the 21-year-old saw that the Osprey’s two pilots had not made it out, so he bravely reentered in order to save them despite the flames and smoke.
Spencer “heroically reentered the burning cockpit of the aircraft in an attempt to rescue the trapped pilots,” according to the official Marine Corps probe into the crash. “He perished during this effort.”
“For his valor, Collart will be posthumously awarded the service’s highest noncombat award: the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. It is an honor awarded for acts of heroism at great risk to the service member’s life,” ABC News reported.
The slain Marine’s father told reporters that he was not surprised that his son risked his life in order to save the pilots.
“I heard a song the other day. I’ve heard it many times,” Bart Collart, Spencer’s father, stated. “There was a quote in there, about how ‘the last thing on my mind was to leave you.’ And I think that was Spencer talking with me a little. He had no intention of leaving us. I think he thought he’d go in and get the job done.”
On his eighteenth birthday, Spencer, who was described by his family as a “goal-oriented, 6-foot-2, lacrosse player” from Washington-Liberty High School, surprised his parents by telling them he had enlisted.
“The Marines are the top of the top. The best of the best,” Spencer reportedly told his mom, Alexia Collart, when she asked him the reason.
The Collarts were in no way a military family, but Spencer desperately wanted to serve. The brave Marine soon met his two closest buddies, Lance Cpl. Evan Strickland and Lance Cpl. Jonah Waser, and received his first choice assignment.
Together, they trained for a year to become enlisted Marine crew commanders, in charge of the plane and its occupants.
They were operating the dual-purpose V-22 Osprey, which can be used as a chopper and an airplane. However, the aircraft had a problematic past with four deadly mishaps in the last two years.
Strickland and four other Marines perished in a training crash in California in June 2022, and Collart helped carry their coffins.
According to Strickland’s mother, Michelle, he kept in constant contact with the family, making phone calls to see how they were doing, and even facetiming them on the anniversary of the tragedy.
Spencer asked his mother whether he could give Michelle Strickland her phone number so they could text each other when his unit traveled to Australia in April 2023.
“He had the foresight to connect me with Michelle. I don’t know if he was concerned or worried. I suspect maybe he was,” Mrs. Collart said.
Spencer was a success in his position. He took on difficult tasks that nobody else wanted to do, like packing the unit’s plane before they left. He would unpack and repack it since his squadron kept arriving with additional items.
Spencer’s captain informed Bart Collart that he was “red and black, just covered in grease and sunburn” after the fourth attempt. For his efforts, Spencer was rewarded with a first-class ticket to Australia.
Spencer aimed to become a pilot himself, therefore he spent the most of the Osprey flight in the “tunnel,” or the space directly behind the pilot and co-pilot. Following Spencer’s passing, Bart Collart discovered his son’s Marine Corps camouflage cap, or “cover,” among his personal belongings.
However, a group of mournful Marines knocked on the Collart’s door on August 27th, 2023.
During an Australian military drill, Spencer Collart’s Osprey crashed, killing him, Maj. Tobin Lewis, the aircraft commander, and Captain Eleanor LeBeau. This information was all that his parents were informed of for months. That’s why more Marines returned to the couple’s residence last week to give a briefing on their probe findings.
The Osprey had burst into flames and smoke shortly after it touched down. Collart remained in the tunnel during the plane’s descent. The majority of the 23 soldiers aboard, including a captain who informed investigators he saw Collart flee by a side door, fled out the back.
Later, a site crew discovered Collart’s unharmed tether—which he would have used to cling to the Osprey and maneuver during flight—outside the plane.
However, some did not make it out, as the pilots remained inside. They were stranded after the Osprey crashed nose first. Nevertheless, Collart turned around.
Before Lewis passed away, investigators believe that he might have unbuckled Lewis from his bindings.
According to Bart Collart, his son “thought the world” of Lewis and LeBeau. He believes that the men in the back survived since Lewis made a last-minute decision to level the aircraft as it was collapsing right side down.
Cpl. Travis Reyes, the fourth member of the flying crew, has also spent the past year recovering from serious injuries at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. It was his first time returning home by plane to his parents’ home in Maryland on Saturday.
It was at the funeral that Waser was first introduced to Spencer’s family. Waser escorted his closest friend’s remains from Dover Air Force Base to Arlington National Cemetery.
Gwyneth Collart, Spencer’s younger sister, sensed chemistry right away. Her parents were also witnesses to it.
“As soon as I met him, I was like, this is not the time or the place to be falling in love,” said younger sister Gwyneth Collart, speaking about Waser. “Grieving will never be easy, but he made grieving a little bit more comfortable to do. And he just, I mean, he took my breath away.”
Gwyneth Collart and Waser later married at Top of the Town, a ballroom with a terrace overlooking Arlington National Cemetery. Their wedding took place on July 6th in Arlington, in a nearby area where Spencer was buried. Gwyneth even attached her brother’s photograph to her wedding bouquet.
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