Wonder why they didn't just request DNA from one of his kids?


http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/05262004/news/18101.htm

Airman’s remains to be buried

By Associated Press


MANCHESTER - Thirty-eight years was a long time for Patricia Stickney to go
without knowing what became of her husband in Vietnam.

In May 1966, a cargo plane carrying Airman 1st Class Phillip Stickney of
Manchester was shot down over North Vietnam. He was reported missing in action.


Stickney’s remains were returned to the United States in 1998 and identified
in February.

Today, Patricia Stickney, 65, is in Arkansas. She and Stickney had four
children. She’s now a grandmother of nine and a great-grandmother of two.

She thought he could have been a prisoner in Vietnam, or maybe he returned
under a pseudonym and wanted to be left alone.

"That was a hope. Now there’s no more hope," she said.

On Memorial Day, Stickney will be commemorated at a ceremony to be attended by
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and other dignitaries. Stickney’s remains will be
buried the next day at the Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery.

"It’s been a long road," Patricia Stickney said.

She and her husband were just 17 when they married. She grew up in Hudson as
Patricia Connell; her grandfather had been the town police chief.

"He was wild and crazy, just a kid who got married. We had our troubles. He was
just a fun-loving person. He loved his kids, a real neat guy," she said.

Stickney enlisted in the Air Force and wanted to make it a career. According to
newspaper accounts, he was on his last mission before he was scheduled to
return stateside to flight school.

Patricia Stickney eventually returned to Sewart Air Force Base in Tennessee,
where her husband had been stationed. By living near the base, she felt closer
to her husband, and if he returned, she’d be nearby.

Later, when the Air Force closed Sewart, she followed Stickney’s old squadron
to Little Rock Air Force Base.

Patricia Stickney said authorities traced her husband from adoption records in
Massachusetts. Authorities found a New Hampshire man whom they suspected was
Stickney’s half brother and asked him to give a DNA sample.

Patricia Stickney said her oldest son, Phillip Edwin Stickney, insisted on
flying to a military identification center in Hawaii to retrieve his father’s
remains. He was 12 when Stickney was shot down.

He will give the eulogy on Monday. Patricia said she will look to him for
strength.


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A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown