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Home Post: The Military Life

Soldier Killed In Vietnam War Buried Today At Arlington

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

By Beth Ford Roth

Army Capt. James M. Johnstone

U.S. Army

Army Capt. James M. Johnstone

Army Capt. James M. Johnstone will be buried today in Arlington National Cemetery. The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced last week that Johnstone's remains had been identified.

According to a Department of Defense news release, Johnstone was piloting an OV-1A Mohawk aircraft when it crashed in Laos on Nov. 19, 1966. A heavy enemy presence prevented U.S. military from recovering Johnstone's remains at that time.

Things changed between 1993 to 2009, when the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) headed up a group of U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic teams to investigate and excavate the crash site:

The teams located human remains, military equipment, an identification card bearing Johnstone’s name, and aircraft wreckage of an OV-1A, which correlated with the last known location of Johnstone’s aircraft.

JPAC scientists used dental comparisons and circumstantial evidence to identify the human remains as belonging to Johnstone.

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