DOD’s POW/Missing Personnel Office announced Monday that the remains of four airmen who served during the Vietnam War had been identified. They were: Maj. Bernard L. Bucher, of Eureka, Ill.; Maj. John L. McElroy, of Eminence, Ky.; 1st Lt. Stephen C. Moreland, of Los Angeles; and SSgt. Frank M. Hepler, of Glensdale, Pa. They were flying a C-130 evacuating Vietnamese citizens from Kham Duc Special Forces Camp near Da Nang, South Vietnam on May 12, 1968, when their aircraft, according to a forward air controller in another aircraft, exploded in mid-air. The crew had reported taking ground fire as they took off. Excavations of a crash site in 1993 and 1994 produced remains that analysts identified as those of the four airmen. According to the Pentagon release, remains of these four airmen and those of A1C George W. Long, of Medicine, Kan., and Army Capt. Warren R. Orr Jr., of Kewanee, Ill., both identified in 2007, are to be buried as a group.
House, Senate Unveil Competing Proposals for 2026 Budget
July 11, 2025
Lawmakers from the House and Senate laid out competing versions of the annual defense policy bill on July 11, with vastly different potential outcomes for some of the Air Force’s most embattled programs.