F-16 pilot laid to rest at Arlington for 3rd time
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016 ... /95743052/
Pilot shot down in 2006 has been buried at Arlington 3 times
Linda Hervieux, Newser 10:02 a.m. EST December 22, 2016
EPA USA ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY WAR WAR USA VA
(Photo: Michael Reynolds, epa)
(NEWSER) – A decade after his plane was shot down over Iraq, Air Force Major Troy Gilbert has been laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery — for the third time.
Time reports pieces of Gilbert's body had been previously buried there in 2006 and 2012. Monday's interment was no less somber as a lone bugle wailed Taps for some 400 mourners gathered in Section 60 of the hallowed cemetery, the final resting place for many soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Country singer Lee Brice performed songs dedicated to Gilbert, who was killed on Nov. 27, 2006. The 34-year-old pilot was protecting US troops not far from Baghdad when his F-16 crashed. Militants seized his body, leaving only bone fragments to bury at his funeral one month later. "He was like a trophy, going from tribal leader to tribal leader," says his father, Ron Gilbert.
When the military balked at recovering the rest of her husband's body, Gilbert's widow, Ginger Gilbert Ravella, began a campaign that reached into the highest echelons of the Pentagon, according to Stars and Stripes. In 2013, Gilbert's toe bones were recovered and there was a second funeral. Ravella puzzled about how to explain the multiple burials to the couple's five children, then ages 7 to 17. "You can imagine what it’s like for children to bury their father three times," she says.
In September, a US special operations team recovered the rest of Gilbert's body, which on Monday found a final resting place amid a sea of white marble graves bedecked with a quarter-million holiday wreaths. Gilbert was a Texas Tech graduate, and bells at the school rang Monday in tribute, reports LubbockOnline. (In a milestone, a female WWII pilot was buried at Arlington this year.)
This story originally appeared on Newser:
Pilot Shot Down in 2006 Buried at Arlington-3 Times
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Newser is a USA TODAY content partner providing general news, commentary and coverage from around the Web. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
Pilot shot down in 2006 has been buried at Arlington 3 times
Linda Hervieux, Newser 10:02 a.m. EST December 22, 2016
EPA USA ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY WAR WAR USA VA
(Photo: Michael Reynolds, epa)
(NEWSER) – A decade after his plane was shot down over Iraq, Air Force Major Troy Gilbert has been laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery — for the third time.
Time reports pieces of Gilbert's body had been previously buried there in 2006 and 2012. Monday's interment was no less somber as a lone bugle wailed Taps for some 400 mourners gathered in Section 60 of the hallowed cemetery, the final resting place for many soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Country singer Lee Brice performed songs dedicated to Gilbert, who was killed on Nov. 27, 2006. The 34-year-old pilot was protecting US troops not far from Baghdad when his F-16 crashed. Militants seized his body, leaving only bone fragments to bury at his funeral one month later. "He was like a trophy, going from tribal leader to tribal leader," says his father, Ron Gilbert.
When the military balked at recovering the rest of her husband's body, Gilbert's widow, Ginger Gilbert Ravella, began a campaign that reached into the highest echelons of the Pentagon, according to Stars and Stripes. In 2013, Gilbert's toe bones were recovered and there was a second funeral. Ravella puzzled about how to explain the multiple burials to the couple's five children, then ages 7 to 17. "You can imagine what it’s like for children to bury their father three times," she says.
In September, a US special operations team recovered the rest of Gilbert's body, which on Monday found a final resting place amid a sea of white marble graves bedecked with a quarter-million holiday wreaths. Gilbert was a Texas Tech graduate, and bells at the school rang Monday in tribute, reports LubbockOnline. (In a milestone, a female WWII pilot was buried at Arlington this year.)
This story originally appeared on Newser:
Pilot Shot Down in 2006 Buried at Arlington-3 Times
More from Newser:
They Came to the Bronx for a New Life, Found Death
Meet the Man Who's 'The Best at the Worst Job in the World'
Woman Proposes to Her Girlfriends, but a 3rd Woman Steals the Show
Newser is a USA TODAY content partner providing general news, commentary and coverage from around the Web. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
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His story that day merits retelling.
https://www.airforcetimes.com/articles/ ... -from-iraq
https://www.airforcetimes.com/articles/ ... -from-iraq
"When a fifth-generation fighter meets a fourth-generation fighter—the [latter] dies,”
CSAF Gen. Mark Welsh
CSAF Gen. Mark Welsh
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