The former cadet and Bishop Moore High School graduate was 27 when he was killed in a Corpus Christi, Texas, helicopter crash on Oct. 30, 1985 — almost 20 years to the day after the death of his father.
His father, twice decorated with the Bronze Star for valor during combat, served under Gen. William Westmoreland in Vietnam. He was 37 when he died from combat-related injuries on Oct. 12, 1965. Cadet members of the Society of American Military Engineers decided to erect the Bulldog monument in his honor.
Savas Jr. was a faculty adviser to the society and while at The Citadel, he had begun collecting brass for a monument to inspire competitive spirit in athletes and other cadets. The bulldog is the school’s mascot.
”I remember when my brother and I returned to the monument in 1975 for the first time” since its unveiling in May 1966, said Joseph Savas, 27. ”I was determined not to attend the school, saying I didn’t want my head shaved. Sam enrolled that year.”
Sam Savas III had a Navy academic scholarship and could have gone to any school, even Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said his brother. He chose The Citadel because his dream was to be an astronaut, but he became a helicopter pilot because of a shortage of those pilots. Three years later, Joseph received an athletic scholarship and joined his brother at the Charleston, S.C., school.
On the fatal flight in 1985, Savas was co-pilot of a helicopter that responded to another helicopter’s request to fly near to test evasion techniques. On the ninth maneuver, the helicopter slammed into the ground. Savas and two servicemen died. A Navy investigation blamed the crash on pilot error.
”He died doing something he loved very dearly — flying,” said Renee Savas, his 30-year-old wife and mother of their only child, Chante. The University of Central Florida student and her 2-year-old daughter live in Winter Park.
Jerry Ogier, a 1966 graduate of The Citadel who served under Savas’ father, set up a scholarship fund in the name of Sam Michael Savas III.
”All our lives, my brother and I lived under a legend,” said Joseph Savas, a salesman who lives in Lake Mary. The strong principles and confidence for which their father was famous have become tradition at the school and in the Savas family, he said.
Orland Sentinel,7/8/2013
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