Friday, December 12, 2008

Welcome Home Air Force Maj. John Lee McElroy

RIP Sir.

Kentucky airman killed in Vietnam to be buried

Forty years after his death in a daring rescue mission in Vietnam, a Kentucky airman will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in what his son calls a "Christmas family miracle."

Air Force Maj. John Lee McElroy, of Eminence in north-central Kentucky, will be interred next Thursday with his crewmates, who died when their C-130 aircraft was shot down on Mother's Day in 1968 while evacuating soldiers from a military base being overrun by enemy forces.

In May 1968, McElroy's crew volunteered to fly into a Special Forces base being overrun by enemy forces, his son said. Other aircraft had already been shot down trying to evacuate troops, he said.

The C-130 left the base with about 150 South Vietnamese soldiers and their families aboard, he said.

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