Remains found, burial for MIA airman

LONGVIEW, Texas (AP/KXAN) - More than four decades after his plane was shot down during the Vietnam War, an Air Force captain from Texas will be buried Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

The remains of Capt. Clyde William Campbell of Longview have been identified and returned to his family, the Department of Defense announced Wednesday. His widow, Diane Campbell, told the Longview News-Journal that she brought home her husband's remains in 2010 after the Air Force notified her of the recovery.

"It is bittersweet," Campbell said of her late husband's burial. "We've waited so long."

She said the family took some time to decide on the burial site. Campbell, who now lives in Albuquerque, N.M., said she and their two daughters struggled over whether to bury him in Texas, where he was raised, or in a military cemetery.

"We knew we wanted him in some place that would honor him, where others could honor him," she told the newspaper. "In Vietnam, a lot of the guys came back and they were spat upon. For me, after all of that, it was very important to have him in a place where he would be honored and his memory respected."

Her husband's aircraft was shot down in 1969 during an air raid in Houaphan Province, Laos. He was 22.

American air controllers directing the mission in the area reported hearing an explosion that they believed to be Campbell's bombs, but later learned that his plane had crashed, according to the DOD statement. No parachutes were seen in the area.

In 1997, a joint United States and Lao People's Democratic Republic team investigating a crash site found human remains, aircraft wreckage and military equipment that correlated with Campbell's plane. From 2009 to 2010, teams recovered additional remains and a .38-caliber pistol with the same serial number as Campbell's gun.

According to the Korean War Project in Dallas, Barker was taken as a prisoner of war while tending his wounded comrades during the battle of the Chong Ch'on River in North Korea in Dec. 1, 1950. He died on Feb. 18, 1951, although he was listed as a POW. He was born on June 2, 1929. His place of enlistment was Rockwall County, Texas. He was with the medical detachment of the 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division, 155-mm Howitzers, US Army.