THE WALL OF FACES

Calvin is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Just over a year ago our family gathered to welcome our brother home and finally lay him to rest after 34 years.

Joining us were many brave men who had also served in Vietnam and who considered it an honor to be invited to be there. We family members felt that we were the ones honored for these men and their families to be there with us. But, to the members of Chapter 172, Vietnam Veterans of America, it was their brother, too, who was coming home and they wanted to be there to greet him and pay their respects.

As we gathered in the Chapel at Arlington National Cemetery a sense of peace came over me, and I found myself smiling... an odd response for such a solemn occasion. But, I was almost overcome by such a feeling of joy. I could feel Grady there with us and how glad he was to be home and to be among his family and friends. I could almost hear him say, "All of this, for me?"

Now, on a quiet hillside near our parents and grandmother, who loved and missed him so much, our brother can finally be at peace. Home, at last.

Welcome back, big brother. We will always miss you, but, at least you are here with us where you belong. We love you.

STAFF SERGEANT

CALVIN COOLIDGE COOKE JR.

345th TACTICAL AIRLIFT SQUADRON

374th TACTICAL AIRLIFT WING

13th AIR FORCE

( MISSING IN ACTION )

CITATION FOR POSTHUMOUS AWARD OF

THE SILVER STAR

The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the Silver Star Medal (Posthumously) to Calvin Coolidge Cooke, Jr. (578-56-3151), Staff Sergeant, United States Air Force, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against a hostile force during an air mission in the Republic of Vietnam. Staff Sergeant Cooke distinguished himself by intrepid actions while serving with the 345th Tactical Airlift Squadron, 374th Tactical Airlift Wing, 13th Air Force. His unquestionable valor in close combat is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself, the 13th Air Force, and the United States Air Force.





- CITIUS - ALTIUS - FORTIUS -





YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN

NOR SHALL YOU EVER BE

The following article appeared in the 2 May 2006 online edition of The Washington Post:


Remains of D.C., Indiana Air Sergeants identified

By Michael E. Ruane


The Defense Department announced yesterday that it had identified the remains of two Air Force crew members -- one of them from the District -- who were killed when their plane was shot down in Vietnam 34 years ago.

A spokesman identified the two as Staff Sgt. Calvin C. Cooke of Washington and Tech. Sgt. Donald R. Hoskins of Madison, Ind. Their remains were identified in March at the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.

Cooke, who was known as Grady, and Hoskins were among seven people aboard a C-130 cargo plane that was trying to conduct a low-level air drop to resupply South Vietnamese forces surrounded at the city of An Loc, said Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.

On April 26, 1972, the plane left Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon for a hazardous night drop. During its run, the aircraft was hit by ground fire and crashed into the countryside, killing everyone onboard. Cooke, one of the airplane's loadmasters, had just turned 26.

Greer said information and artifacts from the plane and its personnel had been gathered piecemeal since 1975, when a Vietnamese search team first checked the site. Over the years, as artifacts were recovered and sorted, and DNA tests were run on fragments of bone and teeth, remains of other crew members were identified.

Greer said several of those onboard remain unaccounted for. Cooke's remains will be buried next month in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

One of Cooke's daughters, Angela, of Everett, Wash., said her father was married and had three young daughters at the time of his death. She said in a telephone interview last night that she has vague childhood memories of him but a clearer recollection of the day the family learned of the crash.

"Just the sadness," she said, "and I always kind of wondered if he would ever come back. It's just kind of nice to finally have closure. He was a hero, definitely."

U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense
(Public Affairs)

NEWS RELEASE

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 380-06

01 May 2006

MISSING IN ACTION AIR FORCE SERGEANTS FROM VIETNAM WAR ARE

IDENTIFIED AND RETURNED TO FAMILIES FOR FULL MILITARY HONORS


The Department of Defense POW/ Missing Personnel Office ( DPMO ) announced today that the remains of two servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified.

They are ...

Technical Sergeant

DONALD RUSSELL HOSKINS

of Madison, Indiana

and

Staff Sergeant

CALVIN COOLIDGE COOKE JR

of Washington, D.C.

A third person from the crew,

Major

HARRY ARLO AMESBURY JR

has been previously identified.

The funeral for Calvin Cooke will be at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington Virginia, near Washington D.C. on 20 June, with full military honors.

On 26 April 1972, Amesbury was piloting a C-130E Hercules to An Loc City, South Vietnam for an emergency resupply mission.

Hoskins and Cooke were among those aboard the aircraft when it was hit by enemy fire and crashed.

Enemy activity prevented any recovery attempts until three years later in 1975 when a Vietnamese search team recovered artifacts and remains that were later identified as belonging to another crewman.

In 1988, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ( SRV ) confiscated remains from a Vietnamese national in Ho Chi Minh City and returned them to U.S. custody.

The Vietnamese attributed the remains to Cooke.

In April 1989, a Vietnamese woman living in Thailand told U.S. interviewers that she witnessed the crash of a C-130 Hercules in 1972 near An Loc City.

She was a schoolteacher at the time of the incident but moved due to hostilities in the area.

She told interviewers that two of her former students found the complete remains of one of the crewmen, a uniform, identification tags and other items they were keeping at one of their homes.

The students gave her a bone fragment and information from the identification tag of Amesbury, both of which she turned over to the interviewers.

The SRV repatriated additional remains to the United States in June 1989, and in January and November of 1991 which were attributed to Cooke and Amesbury.

In 1992, a joint U.S.-SRV team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), interviewed several Vietnamese nationals who claimed to have recovered remains from a C-130 crash site near An Loc.

The villagers recalled finding a flight suit and almost the complete skeletal remains of one of the crewmen.

One of them led the joint team to the crash site and another turned over several small fragments of bone and an identification tag rubbing for Amesbury.

Another joint team returned to the crash site for excavation in 1993 where they recovered additional remains, personal effects and crew related artifacts.

The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia contacted JPAC officials in 1998 about a woman living in Georgia who had remains and personal artifacts attributed to Amesbury.

Those were turned over to JPAC as part of the evidence associated with this case.

JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory ( AFDIL ) specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed their identifications.

Of those Americans unaccounted for from all conflicts, 1,805 are from the Vietnam War.

Another 841 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the war, with 601 of those from Vietnam.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703)-699-1169.


* * * * * * * * * * * *



PROVIDED BY -

WWW.HISTORICALMILITARIA.COM