Finding Spike
By lex, on August 2, 2009
The US military has found the remains of the last American still officially missing in action from the Gulf War.
Capt Michael Scott Speicher, an F18 pilot, was shot down over Iraq on the first day of the war in January 1991.
Last month, an Iraqi citizen took US marines, based in Anbar Province, to the crash site. He told them where the remains had been buried in the desert.
Subsequent excavations recovered bones and bone fragments. Capt Speicher was identified through his dental records.
Spike was one of the good guys among a group of good guys. He was flying a SEAD mission on the first night of Operation Desert Storm when an Iraqi MiG-25 leaked past the Eagles and some FA-18 strikers and shot him down. His status got changed from MIA to KIA and then Missing/Captured over the years. We never stopped looking for him, fearing the worst and hoping for the best.
At least his family knows, now. Rest in peace brother.
“They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”
–Laurence Binyon