May 24, 2004
Services held for pilot shot down over Vietnam 37 years ago
Associated Press
NASHUA, Iowa — After decades of questions, hopes and fears, Vietnam veteran Col. Lester Holmes was buried Saturday in his homeland just eight miles from his boyhood farm.
The homecoming and military service by the Air Force Honor Guard was held 37 years to the day after the decorated Air Force pilot was shot down over North Vietnam.
Holmes’ remains came home to American soil this week after a successful recovery and identification effort in Southeast Asia in recent years by members of the Honolulu-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.
The teams of military and civilians work to account for soldiers lost in Vietnam, World War II and other foreign conflicts.
Holmes’ three sons, Bruce, Roger and Tommy could finally slip off metallic POW bracelets.
“I welcome you not to a funeral but a homecoming,” said Tommy, Holmes’ youngest son. “Today we add the final chapter,” the Arizona resident and Army veteran added. “Your tour of duty is finally complete. You are home and home to stay.”
At least 100 family, friends and veterans attended the ceremony at Nashua’s Greenwood Cemetery. Red, white and blue carnations lined polished wooden casket draped in an American flag.
Gasps broke a minutes-long silence as four F-16 fighter jets soared across a blue sky: three followed the horizon, one split for the heavens.
“I have never seen the jets peel off like they did today,” said Vietnam veteran Arnie Boge, with a Nashua Veterans of Foreign Wars post. “It just raises the hair on your neck to see the one jet flaming out.”
Tommy proceeded to weave a eulogy out of humor, pride and tears.
Lester Holmes was a scholar and a hell-raiser who liked to drop toilet paper from the sky as he flew over his grandpa’s farm.
Lester Holmes loved Norma Otto, the local girl he married in the Little Brown Church.
He was buried next to her in a family plot with a shared headstone.
In his 47 years of life, he logged about 25 years and more than 10,000 hours flying in World War II, the Berlin Airlift and Vietnam.
On May 22, 1967, Lester Holmes, a spotter pilot who marked targets and enemy movement and delivered supplies to U.S. ground troops, took off on his final mission. About six miles north of the demilitarized zone the aircraft came under enemy fire. Another pilot saw the O-1E Bird-dog spiral toward a forested hillside.
“So our long wait began ... ,” choked Tommy.
Lester Holmes was declared missing in action in 1975. But for many who loved and knew the Plainfield native, questions persisted for years, even after a memorial service.
“You grieve, you mourn and then you go on,” Tommy said. “But when your loved one is missing, you can only grieve.”
The first service fell short of offering Saturday’s bittersweet relief, family said.
“The initial one was a show,” said Bruce Holmes, Lester’s oldest son. “It’s the end of doubts. The end of not knowing. (We’re) able to put him to rest.”
Tears flowed freely for family members.
Waterloo native Eric Benson, 29, with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, said searching for lost soldiers is nothing short of an honor.
“This is the greatest reward you can have. It’s the one job where no one questions. No one complains,” Benson said. “It gets to a point where no one wants to take leave.
“It’s not just a job,” he added. “They keep excavating until there’s no possibility there are remains or equipment left. They want 100 percent without a doubt this is the person.”
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------------------------------------------------------------ Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.
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