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Remembering Lt. Jones: Airman searches for a hero's family

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol
  • Air Force Expeditionary Center Public Affairs
FORT DIX, N.J. (AFPN) --  Memorial Day was a day when Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia was at its finest.

Each gravesite was adorned with American flags. Many had wreaths, flowers or personal memorabilia left behind by visiting families. Even the weather was appropriate with partly cloudy to an overcast sky and balmy spring temperatures.

For Staff Sgt. Gary Ritter, a combat arms instructor from the Air Force Expeditionary Center at Fort Dix, coming to Arlington from New Jersey with his wife, Kristina, and daughter, Cheyenne, marked the end of a very long personal journey. It's a journey that began at the age of 9 and spanned some 19 years.

Born into a military family, Sergeant Ritter grew up traveling and living around the world. In 1988, when he was 9 years old, he and his family lived in Landstuhl, Germany.

"My parents and I were attending an air show at Ramstein Air Base (Germany). While we were there, we walked by a booth that was selling prisoner of war and missing in action bracelets," Sergeant Ritter said. "I asked my parents what they were, and they told me what they stood for. I decided to buy one from the Vietnam vet who was selling them."

With only $5 in his pocket, Sergeant Ritter said he remembers handing over the money, and specifically asking for a bracelet with the name of a person from Mississippi. His parents are natives of Mississippi.

The Vietnam veteran selling the bracelets gave him one with the name, 1st Lt. George E. Jones, an Air Force lieutenant from Aberdeen, Miss.

"I immediately began wearing the bracelet," Sergeant Ritter said.

He wore that bracelet continually until 1999.

"I was searching on the Internet for information about the man on my bracelet," Sergeant Ritter said. "I found that his remains were returned to the family and interred at Arlington National Cemetery in 1997. At that point, I took off the bracelet and put it in my jewelry box. I then began my search for any family member of Lieutenant Jones to return the bracelet to." 

The Department of Defense official announcement stated that the remains of Lieutenant Jones and another two servicemembers previously unaccounted for from Southeast Asia were identified and returned to their families for burial in 1997.

The announcement added that on July 7, 1967, Lieutenant Jones, a B-52 Stratofortress crewman, was en route from Guam on a bombing run toward a target in South Vietnam. While over the South China Sea, his B-52 collided in mid-air with another B-52. Both stricken aircraft crashed into the South China Sea about 22 miles off the coast of South Vietnam. An extensive search and rescue operation resulted in the recovery of seven crewmen from the two aircraft. However, Lieutenant Jones' remains were not found.

In 1993 and 1994, joint U.S. and Vietnamese investigative teams interviewed Vietnamese fishermen who claimed to have located wreckage and human remains from a large aircraft in 100 feet of water, the announcement said. The fishermen turned the remains over to U.S. authorities. 

Reading about Lieutenant Jones made him even more determined to find a family member to return the bracelet to, Sergeant Ritter said. The search continued through hundreds of Web sites and several more years.

"In October 2005, I found an entry in a blog site by a retired Air Force major who was looking for wearers of the Lieutenant Jones' bracelet," Sergeant Ritter said. "I responded immediately."

After a few days, Sergeant Ritter received an e-mail from the major who lived in Aberdeen.

"I told him I was trying to get in touch with Lieutenant Jones' family," Sergeant Ritter said. "He said he knew the lieutenant's sister and would give her my contact information the next time she came to town."

Several months went by, but in December 2006 Sergeant Ritter was contacted by the major in Aberdeen once again.

"He provided me the address and phone number of Lieutenant Jones' sister , Rebecca Shelby," Sergeant Ritter said. "I stopped and basically started crying -- the search was almost over."

Around the same time Sergeant Ritter was finding out who Mrs. Shelby was, she was busy working with her family to plan a 10-year reunion on Memorial Day 2007 to commemorate the burial of her brother at Arlington.

"Around Christmas time, I received the call from Sergeant Ritter," Mrs. Shelby said. "We continued to plan the reunion, but this time we planned to honor my brother and Sergeant Ritter and his family."

As Memorial Day weekend approached, Mrs. Shelby and her family worked to make the meeting with Sergeant Ritter special. They had a cake made with a "big American flag" and reserved space for a large dinner at the hotel they stayed at in the Washington area.

"We had the dinner the night before Memorial Day, there were about 30 of us, and Sergeant Ritter was there with his wife and daughter," Mrs. Shelby said. 

"Sergeant Ritter told us his story of the bracelet and how he was so happy to finally return it to my brother's family," she said.

Sergeant Ritter gave the bracelet to Lieutenant Jones' youngest daughter, Kristine Galemmo, who accepted it with very few words.

"We honestly didn't know what he had planned going into this dinner," Mrs. Shelby said.

Lieutenant Jones has two daughters, Kristine and Jennifer, who were 1 and 2 years old when his B-52 disappeared into the South China Sea, Mrs. Shelby said. When Lieutenant Jones was laid to rest in Arlington in 1997, the oldest daughter, Jennifer, received the folded American flag in honor of her father's sacrifice. Because of that, Sergeant Ritter wanted Kristine to have something special representing her father as well.

"It was a beautiful thing that he did," Mrs. Shelby said. "Sergeant Ritter is a grand representation of humanity. He bought that bracelet when he was just a boy and held onto it for 19 years just to make this effort to find our family. It certainly is special."

"I returned the bracelet to the youngest daughter because I felt this would shine the light on her father and what kind of person he was," Sergeant Ritter said. "She began to cry and so did I."

The day after the dinner, Memorial Day, everyone made plans to meet up at Arlington at Lieutenant Jones' grave. This was the final step in Sergeant Ritter's journey.

"We were so happy for Gary because he had never been to Arlington," Mrs. Shelby said. "The cemetery was decorated so beautifully, and this was the first time our family would see the actual grave stone for my brother. It wasn't complete when we had the burial in 1997."

Once everyone gathered around Lieutenant Jones' gravesite, they held a small ceremony for the fallen Airman.

"We sang 'Amazing Grace,' and we also sang a prayer that's special to our family," Mrs. Shelby said.

At that moment Mrs. Shelby realized how special all this was, she said. Four years after her brother went missing, she vowed she "would not let him die again."

For the past 36 years she has spent time each year with her brother's daughters and their families and "celebrated life." Having them there for the 10-year reunion at Arlington along with Sergeant Ritter and his family was another celebration.

"We've adopted Sergeant Ritter, his wife and his daughter into our family," Mrs. Shelby said. "His story is now a part of ours and is more expression of life. That is what my brother was about; he was about life. George Emerson Jones was a family guy, and we're all still gathering because of him."

One piece of colored metal with the engraved name of a Mississippi native brought two families together -- something Sergeant Ritter said he never quite realized could happen. He always thought the bracelet truly belonged to the family though. 

"I was just keeping it safe," he said. 

"This experience has been overwhelming to me," Sergeant Ritter said. "I would do this again if given the chance. I now have an extended family. I showed them dedication, empathy and respect for their dead loved one, a person I never knew, and they gave me love in return. How beautiful is that?"

Though one road has come to an end, the journey still continues for Sergeant Ritter. He began a new one when he learned Lieutenant Jones' remains had made it home.

"After I found out Lieutenant Jones had returned officially, I bought a new bracelet," Sergeant Ritter said. "This new bracelet also has the name of a Mississippian -- 1st Lt. Danny Entrican. I've been wearing this bracelet for eight years. I would love to return this bracelet to the family when either he or his remains return home as well."

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