Short Memory

On Feb. 24, 1973, a rare sight passed over the city: U.S. Air Force planes flying in the missing man formation to honor a comrade who would never return from the Vietnam War.

Below, at the opening ceremony for the new Thousand Oaks Civic Center on Fireworks Hill, city officials and the family of Air Force Capt. Eric Huberth dedicated a small oak tree as a living memorial to the 25-year-old pilot.

The tree and its marker served as a grave site for Huberth, whose body was never found.

Now the tree is dead.

Patches of bark have crumbled from the dried trunk, and insects have gnawed holes into its once proud limbs--one of four memorial trees that sit outside the deserted and dilapidated former city hall.

And Huberth’s family wants answers from city officials, whom they feel have abandoned them and willfully neglected Huberth’s living memorial, known as a Freedom Tree.

“They have a moral obligation to my brother and also his family--meaning us, “ said one of Huberth’s four sisters, 42-year-old Lorraine Larsen of Thousand Oaks.

“We never asked for them to do this, and it was done out of the goodness of the hearts of one City Council,” Larsen added. “That doesn’t mean that 20 and some-odd years later [city officials] can turn around and ignore what that one City Council did.”

Just three weeks ago, council members voted to spare the architecturally striking but rundown old city hall at Hillcrest Drive next to the grove of memorial trees. They gave specific instructions last week that the trees should not be replanted, but remain at the site regardless of what development occurs.

But the action comes too late for Huberth’s oak.

“It’s pretty much infested with pests now,” said George Moore, the senior arbor consultant hired by the city. He said fungus was the most likely cause of the tree’s death. The other three trees--dedicated to Vietnam War veteran Gregg O. Hanson, former Planning Commissioner Bruce E. Cameron and civic activist Irene Bahn--remain healthy.

“I think it’s a tragic occurrence,” said Councilman Andy Fox, who learned Tuesday that the tree was dead. “My heart goes out to the family the tree was designated for.”

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Eric Huberth, Thousand Oaks’ first missing son in Vietnam, grew up in the city. Many residents still remember him working at the old Safeway grocery store on Moorpark Road or at a dairy off Thousand Oaks Boulevard, his sisters said.

He as shot down over Cambodia in 1970.

Without a body to bury, the family would visit the tree to remember him.

“That’s the only gravestone we have for him,” said his sister, Suzanne Huberth, 36, of Thousand Oaks. “He was always listed as missing in action so we were never able to have closure with him being gone, and we never had a funeral.”

Huberth’s three sisters living in the area--a fourth lives in Massachusetts--said they asked city officials several times over the years to trim back the honeysuckle and weeds choking the tree, but received little response.

Suzanne Huberth said she noticed her brother’s Freedom Tree was being ignored soon after the old Civic Center was vacated and gutted for asbestos abatement nine years ago. She started grooming the site during her visits.

Huberth said that two years ago, after returning from an extended stay in Massachusetts, a visit to her brother’s memorial left her aghast.

“I went up there and it looked so bad. The rock with the plaque on it was completely covered and the tree itself was overgrown with stuff,” she said.

“I called City Hall and said, ‘This just does not look good; you’ve got to get someone up there to do some watering and weed the tree.’. . . They said they’d definitely get somebody on it.”

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She and her sisters still have not received word from city officials regarding the condition of their brother’s Freedom Tree.

“I want them to come to us and tell us face to face that they killed my brother’s tree,” Huberth said.

Richard Campbell, one of the three oak specialists on contract with the city, said neglect did not kill the tree. Oaks in the Conejo Valley live for 500 years on average with minimal care, he said.

“The overriding factor is those trees are the toughest indigenous plants in this area,” Campbell said. “Competition from other growth is eating them up.”

Moore, the senior oak specialist, noted that the tree may be dead, “but there’s a seedling from that tree growing three feet from it. It’s probably about a 12-foot seedling.”

Diane D’Andrea, 46, of Thousand Oaks said the death of her brother’s Freedom Tree is not only a loss to family members but to other MIAs and POWs to whom it was dedicated.

“It was a constant remembrance, a constant reminder of the war that should never happen again, and the forgotten people,” she said. “Now, with the tree dying, it’s even more so.”

D’Andrea said she would like city officials to start anew by planting a Freedom Tree in Huberth’s name at the Civic Arts Plaza with its original plaque and rededicating the site.

“It’s not going to be the same, but maybe we could start over,” she said. “One thing I’ve learned is you need to move on, but you need to remember.”