Together for eternity

Hack Stone sends us a link to the story of James Sizemore and Howard Andre who were friends in college and died together as the crew of a Douglas A-26 Invader in Laos in 1969. Last year a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command task force reached the crash site and recovered the two friends. They will be buried side-by-side at Arlington tomorrow;

“It’s very meaningful. They flew together, they died together and they ought to be buried together,” James Sizemore’s brother Gene Sizemore said.

But, ya know what sucks? The family had to pay for the traditional aircraft fly-over at the funeral;

Sequestration forced the men’s families to pay for the traditional flyover — a final [tribute] to the fallen airmen.

“In our economy, I think there needs to be a fund for funerals just like this,” James Sizemore’s son told News4. “I think that whatever the government is going to do to balance the budget, they should make it a necessary requirement to honor those families.”

It’s too bad that the government couldn’t find a couple of bucks in their budget for some fuel so that the Air Force could honorably pay their own tribute to the former pilots, but instead had to stick the family with the bill, like your chintzy old uncle. Especially since the last Secretary of Defense used to stick taxpayers with a bill every weekend when he flew home. One trip home might have paid for a year of overflights for our honored dead.

If this pisses you off enough to do something about it, Warrior Aviation will accept your donation to help the family pay for a flyover of military aircraft by private civilian pilots.

The folks from Warrior Aviation wrote to clarify;

The family is NOT being forced to pay for the fly over by The Warrior Flight Team. All the aircraft owners and aircrews ( USAF,USN & USMC vets themselves) are donating there airplanes and time to fly this most honorable mission. Not sure how the media screwed that up so bad but the only thing the family has asked for is donations to the fuel fund for the 10 aircraft involved which is enormous. We are honored and humbled that the family contacted us and all the team jumped at the opportunity to fly this.

Category: Air Force, Arlington National Cemetary, Barack Obama/Joe Biden