ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) Air Force Col. Richard A. Kibbey’s “dog tags” have been returned to his Florida family some 50 years after his helicopter was shot down over Vietnam.
Kibbey’s children finally found some closure on Monday when they received their father’s aluminum IDs during a ceremony at Patrick Air Force Base. A Vietnamese farmer found them near the spot Kibbey’s helicopter crashed in February 1967.
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Son John Kibbey, who was 2 when his father was listed as missing in action, tells the Orlando Sentinel the ceremony marks “a fulfillment of a promise made: you will never be forgotten.”
During the somber ceremony, their father was also honored with a Purple Heart and a Silver Star for valor in combat.
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