After 18 years, pilot’s remains come home
by admin on Aug.03, 2009, under Combat
Navy Capt. Michael Scott Speicher was the first person to be killed in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, but his body was never found. He shot down over the desert west of Baghdad while flying a F/A-18 Hornet. The wreckage was recovered, and searches for his body proved fruitless. For years his status in the war flip-flopped – sometimes he would be listed as MIA but other times he might be listed as captured. But now it looks like after all these years, he will finally be able to rest back home.
The Los Angeles Times has this story on our lost hero:
Reporting from San Diego — The remains of a Navy pilot shot down at the onset of the Persian Gulf War — the first U.S. combat casualty of the 1991 conflict — have been recovered by Marines in western Iraq and identified by military specialists.The findings, based on dental records, appear to finally bring to an end the mystery of just what happened to Navy Capt. Michael Scott Speicher.
Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had announced that Speicher was the first U.S. serviceman to die in the war, but the military’s inability to locate his body resulted in unceasing speculation and controversy. Over the years, Speicher’s official status was changed from “missing in action” to “missing in action/body not recovered” to “missing in action/captured.”Successive presidents, secretaries of Defense and secretaries of the Navy wrestled with the mystery and a paucity of information. Some politicians in Washington expressed exasperation with the military and CIA.
At one point, rumors circulated that the father of two was alive and being held prisoner by Saddam Hussein.
The uncertainty led some of Speicher’s friends as well as several powerful politicians to assert that the military had broken its promise to never leave a fallen comrade behind.
Finally, nearly 15 years after the wreckage of Speicher’s plane was found in the desert west of Baghdad, Marines got a tip leading them last week to the remains, which had apparently been buried by Bedouin tribesmen.
The remains were flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where they were identified on Saturday as those of Speicher by specialists at the military mortuary. Read on…
