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On September 24, five days
after National POW/MIA Recognition Day, the Department
of Defense’s POW/Missing Personnel Office announced
that the remains of two U.S. servicemen missing from the
Vietnam War have been identified and will be returned to
their families for burial with full military honors.
Air
Force Captains James E. Cross of Warren, Ohio, and Gomer
D. Reese III of Scarsdale, N.Y., were flying a U-17B light
aircraft April 24, 1970, on an orientation flight over
Xiangkhoang Province in Laos when it was struck by enemy
ground fire, crashed, and burned. Recovery efforts proved
futile. Cross, 27, and Reese, 25, were Raven Forward Air
Controllers assigned to the Ambassador to Laos.
American and
Lao teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, conducted
several investigations of the incident from 1994-98, including
surveying the crash site and interviewing Laotian citizens
who claimed to have seen the crash. Another joint team re-surveyed
the crash site in 2004, and recovered life-support equipment.
A third joint team excavated the crash site last year and
recovered human remains. In the spring of 2008, a team completed
the excavation and recovered more human remains, leading
to the identification of the two FAC pilots.
Cross was buried
Oct. 10 in Warren, Ohio. Reese will be buried in the spring
in Arlington National Cemetery.
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