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.
