Medallion answers prayers for return of missing Airman's remains

  • Published
  • By Capt. Geoffrey Buteau
  • 66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  Only the late Capt. Pete Cleary's wife and two young children were more special to him than the medallion he wore around his neck during the final two years of the Vietnam War. 

But it was this medallion - along with the keen eye of a Vietnamese farmer - that finally brought his remains back to the United States 30 years after his aircraft was shot down near the demilitarized zone in North Vietnam on his final mission. The authorities originally declared him missing in action, leaving his loved ones unaware of his fate. 

Barbara O'Connor, Captain Cleary's wife and Hanscom's honorary spouse, shared her story with the 66th Air Base Wing honorary commander, reporter Jonathan Elias of WBZ Television, at Hanscom's POW/MIA Memorial park. The Boston CBS Television affiliate reported the story as part of their coverage surrounding POW/MIA Day, which was on Sept. 18. 

In the spring of 1972, northern Vietnamese forces launched a large-scale ground campaign called the Easter Offensive against the South Vietnamese and U.S. forces. 
The U.S. military responded with an aerial bombing campaign surge called Operation Linebacker. Through the summer and into the fall of 1972, Air Force and Navy pilots avoided the threats of mountainous terrain and surface-to-air missiles to identify and destroy tactical and strategic targets. 

The captain was a forward air controller, who flew dangerous missions that required him to identify the targets at very low altitudes, making him highly susceptible to SAMs. His efforts made it possible for other aircraft to fly into the area containing the target at high speeds and quickly and accurately destroy them, minimizing the missile threats to the ordnance-carrying aircraft. 

Though Captain Cleary's duty to identify targets in that manner was a risky one, "it was considered a badge of honor," his wife said. 

While the fear of the unthinkable was in the back of Ms. O'Connor's mind, she said she kept busy raising a 4-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter at the family's home at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, while supporting the other spouses who were dealing with the possibility or reality of a killed or missing husband. 

"That feeling of waiting for men to knock on the door [to notify families of a tragedy] was very prevalent, because we did lose some men in the squadron," she said. 

In the fall of 1972, as the war was clearly nearing an end, the Clearys at last received orders to return to North Carolina, Ms. O'Connor said. "I was very excited; I hadn't seen my family in two years." 

But on Oct. 10, only a day after the squadron was celebrating the end of Captain Cleary's tour and his ensuing final mission the next day, Ms. O'Connor said she felt a deep and unusual feeling of anxiousness about a rain-cancelled tennis match. 

At a friend's house that same evening, she received a knock at the door from a close friend at the squadron. After answering the door, she heard two words. 

"Pete's down." 

"I fell into his arms and kept saying, 'We were so close; we were so close," she said. "We were so close to being done, to it all being over." 

Since that mission was scheduled to be Captain Cleary's last, she said, "[his squadron mates] were waiting with champagne on the runway to douse him." 

"We waited and waited," Ms. O'Connor said, "but realized he was never coming back." 

"I had that odd sensation right around the time he went down," she said. 

As the days passed, her hopes for a rescue came and went, along with her hopes that he was still alive as a prisoner of war. In the meantime, she returned home to the U.S. with her two children. 

"It took me about two years to finally accept that he was gone," she said. The war ended in January of 1973, and even as the State Department released more names of POWs, Pete Cleary's name was never on any of the lists. 

There was never any more definitive information from anyone about what exactly happened to Captain Cleary that day in October. 

"How long did it take before you finally got word?" asked Mr. Elias during the interview here last week. 

"30 years," she said. 

The Vietnamese farmer found Captain Cleary's medallion of St. Michael while working on his property. St. Michael is the patron saint of the warrior, and in some Catholic writings and beliefs, the archangel who defeated Lucifer. He turned it into the government. 

Changing hands multiple times, the medal found its way into the Air Force's possession, who commissioned teams to recover the remains of the F-4 Phantom II at the crash site where the farmer found the medallion. 

Comparing the remains to the DNA of Captain Cleary's brother, Bill, they had found Pete. 

Ms. O'Connor received news of the medallion that year while she was at her then 34-year-old-son's home the morning after a dinner party his wife had hosted in 2000. 

After waiting a few days and through the dinner party to tell her at an appropriate time, "He just said, 'They found daddy's remains,' and I sobbed." 

The family had a service for Captain Cleary at Arlington National Cemetery, where old friends from college and the military came to pay their respects, she said. 

While she describes the service as wonderful and beautiful, it was also a mixture of pain and relief. "You cannot imagine how it feels to have him back and, second, to find out that he was not captured, not tortured; he died quickly, either when the missile hit his plane or in the crash." 

Ms. O'Connor is a member of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, and promotes the cause of all POW/MIAs whenever and however she can. 

To those experiencing a similar situation, she tells them to not give up on any military person who has ever served and sacrificed for this country. "Keep hoping for resolutions like mine and honor what they did." 

And like the medal was special to Captain Cleary - even breaking regulations to wear it on his final mission, along with his wedding ring - it's now special to Ms. O'Connor. She carries the medal, the piece of him that brought him back to her, in her purse always. 

"We had a wonderful, very loving marriage," she said. "I am overall grateful that I had him; it wasn't long enough, but I was sure lucky to have him."