Dec 18, 2007 5:30 pm US/Mountain
Remains ID'd As Denver Officer Missing In Vietnam
DENVER (AP/CBS4) ―
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Maj. Perry H. Jefferson was an aerial observer on an O-1G Bird Dog on April 3, 1969, when ground crews lost radio contact with the aircraft, the military said. A three-day search turned up no sign of the plane.
CBS
The remains of an Air Force officer from Denver have been identified nearly 40 years after he disappeared on a reconnaissance flight over Vietnam, the Defense Department said Tuesday.
Maj. Perry H. Jefferson was an aerial observer on an O-1G Bird Dog on April 3, 1969, when ground crews lost radio contact with the aircraft, the military said. A three-day search turned up no sign of the plane.
In 2001, a Vietnamese national living in California gave U.S. officials human remains that he said were found at a site where two U.S. pilots crashed, the military said.
"He had them, from what I understand, and he gave them to his mother," Michael Jefferson, Perry's brother, told CBS4. "When he came over and then he brought her over, and he said bring the bones."
Military researchers used DNA and dental comparisons to identify the remains as Jefferson's.
It wasn't immediately clear how the Vietnamese national acquired the remains. His name wasn't released.
Jefferson will be buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on April 3.
"The whole story is just really, it tells us what our country is like and what it's doing for. It's just amazing," Michael Jefferson said.
The remains of the pilot of the O-1G, Army 1st Lt. Arthur G. Ecklund, were found in 1984 but not identified as his until 2000.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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