The DOD POW/Missing Personnel Office has completed investigation of remains now identified as belonging to Maj. Perry Jefferson of Denver. Jefferson was an aerial observer aboard an O-1 Bird Dog on a mission over Vietnam on April 3, 1969, when contact was lost with the aircraft. A three-day search and rescue effort failed to locate a crash site before hostile action shut down the search. A joint team in 1994 interviewing Vietnamese citizens about a reported crash site learned the aircrew had been buried at the mountainside crash site, however, subsequent excavation revealed wreckage but no human remains. Remains turned over in 1984 were identified in 2000 as those of the Army pilot of the Bird Dog, 1st Lt. Arthur Ecklund. Another Vietnamese individual in 2001 turned over the remains that DPMO identified this year as belonging to Jefferson.
If the Air Force is in line for a big budget bump from President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget in 2027, the head of Air Combat Command said he would make aircraft spare parts his top spending priority—but cautioned that more money to buy parts won’t equal a…
