Colonel gets military burial nearly 40 years late

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The remains of an Air Force colonel have been buried at Arlington National Cemetery nearly 40 years after he disappeared while on a supply mission in Vietnam. <br/><br/>James Carter

Saturday, June 11th 2005, 11:37 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The remains of an Air Force colonel have been buried at Arlington National Cemetery nearly 40 years after he disappeared while on a supply mission in Vietnam.

James Carter was the commander of a C-123 Provider that disappeared on a flight to Dong Ha, South Vietnam, on Feb. 2, 1966, according to the Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.

His remains were identified last year by the department after being found by U.S. and Vietnamese teams investigating potential crash sites. The remains were buried Friday with military honors at the cemetery near Washington, D.C.

The service included a 21-gun salute, military flyover and a bugler who played Taps.

``It was lovely,'' said June Carter, his widow.

The family was represented by Carter and her sons, as well as two of her four grandchildren.

Carter was presented with the American flag that had covered her husband's casket at the end of the service in accordance with military tradition.

``Some people may think of this as kind of an unhappy time,'' said Carter's son, John, who lives in Norman. ``But it's not.

``Dad's home now.''

Vietnamese villagers led the search teams to three crash sites, but only one contained any wreckage consistent with the plane Carter had been flying. Several villagers said the bodies of the crew and passengers had been buried near the site where the plane crashed into a mountain in 1966.

John Carter said military officials still aren't sure why his father _ who had more than 10,000 hours of flight time _ would have crashed into a mountain.

``Nobody'll ever know,'' he said in a telephone interview Friday with The Oklahoman from his Arlington, Va., hotel.

Carter, who was 6 in 1966, said he didn't know whether his father was dead or alive after he went missing.

For a while, he held out hope that his father was still alive. He always worried that his father was being mistreated or tortured as a prisoner of war.

Carter said he finally realized his father wasn't coming home, but the nature of his death still haunted him.

He said it was hard to cope with because his family wasn't able to bury his father or visit his grave.

Defense Department officials never stopped searching for James Carter's remains, providing regular updates to his widow.

June Carter said the burial was an emotional experience, even though she came to terms with being a widow nearly 40 years ago.

Carter immediately acknowledged her husband likely wouldn't be coming home from Vietnam and turned her attention to raising their three sons.

Carter went back to college after her husband disappeared and earned a master's degree in social work from the University of Oklahoma before going to work at the Oklahoma City VA Hospital.

She retired in 1995 and joined the Peace Corps.