The Department of Defense
POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the
remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam
War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for
burial.
Air Force Maj. Russell C. Goodman of Salt Lake City, Utah, will be
honored this week at Nellis Air Force Base, NV, home of the U.S.
Air Force Thunderbird demonstration team. At the time of his loss,
Goodman was assigned to the Thunderbirds and was flying with the
U.S. Navy on an exchange program. He will be buried in Alaska at a
date determined by his family.
On Feb. 20, 1967, Goodman and Navy Lt. Gary L. Thornton took off in
their F-4B Phantom from the USS Enterprise for a bombing mission
against a railroad yard in Thanh Hoa Province, North Vietnam. They
were struck by enemy antiaircraft fire and their plane exploded.
Thornton was able to eject at just 250 feet altitude, but Goodman
did not escape. Thornton survived and was held captive until his
release in 1973.
Search and rescue attempts were curtailed because of heavy
anti-aircraft and automatic weapons fire in the area of the
crash.
Between October 1993 and March 2008, joint U.S.-Vietnamese teams
led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) investigated the
crash site twice and conducted two excavations, recovering human
remains and pilot equipment. The aircraft debris recovered
correlates with the type of aircraft the men were flying.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial
evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA
Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA - which
matched two of his maternal relatives -- in the identification of
Goodman's remains.
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