Betty Muscato of Cassadaga, daughter of Air Force Master Sgt. Calvin C. Glover, holds memorial flag after her father was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.
Jerry Zremski/Buffalo News
Arlington burial of Master Sgt. Calvin Glover ends an almost 42-year wait
by Jerry Zremski
News Washington Bureau Chief
Updated: May 20, 2010
ARLINGTON, Va. — Forty-one years and 362 days after Master Sgt. Calvin C. Glover's family learned that his plane had disappeared in a Cambodian jungle, he came home Wednesday to a resting place in Arlington National Cemetery.
The passage of time did nothing to blunt the emotion of the moment. As airmen in blue dress uniforms stood quietly by Glover's coffin and an Air Force chaplain delivered a long-delayed eulogy, his loved ones wept softly.
"This means there's closure, finally," his daughter, Betty Muscato of Cassadaga, said after the ceremony. "I feel honored that they had full military honors for him."
Glover's widow, Deanna, felt the same way.
"We got to bring him home," said Deanna, who met Glover in Silver Creek, where she lived at the time. "I didn't think it would ever happen because it was so long a time."
Muscato can attest to that.
"I was 11 when his plane went down, so I have a lot of good memories of my dad," said Muscato, who is now 53. "He made me the daredevil. He pushed me to do things — like learning to water ski before I knew how to swim."
But then Glover went off to Vietnam, where he had to be a daredevil himself. His brother, John, recalled him talking about how low his C-130 would fly on its cargo runs, and about how dangerous it was.
On May 22, 1968, while living in Okinawa, where Glover was stationed, the family got the bad news. His plane had gone missing.
And its fate remained a mystery until a year ago, when — 34 years after America's protracted war in Vietnam had come to an end — the wreckage of Glover's plane was found in Cambodia.
After military officials matched the remains they found with the DNA they had extracted from Glover's mother years ago, they contacted the family, and plans for the service at Arlington began to take shape.
So it was that a crowd of about 40 people, many of them too young to have ever known Glover, gathered beneath pewter skies for the very same ceremony that Iraq and Afghanistan war widows know only too well.
"We have five generations here today," said Sharon Montgomery, wife of John Glover. "One thing that struck me about this family when I met them is that they always try to be there for each other."
Deanna agreed, saying: "There's just so much respect. They love him."
Relatives from as far away as Indiana and Texas came to Arlington to pay their last respects — as did Ron Renno of Forsyth, Ga., an Air Force veteran who has been wearing a bracelet honoring Glover for more than 20 years.
Renno said he bought the bracelet from a veterans organization in the late 1980s because he was concerned about prisoners of war and those missing in action years after the end of the Vietnam War.
Renno and Glover never met, but for years now, Renno has been checking the Internet every month or so for any news about the missing airman whose name was on his bracelet.
When he learned that Glover's remains had been found, he knew exactly what he had to do.
"I always said that if they found him, I would come to the services," said Renno, who termed attending Wednesday's ceremony "a very humbling experience."
It certainly was that. As a horse-drawn caisson pulled Glover's casket toward its final resting place, an Air Force jet flew overhead in tribute.
Fresh-faced airmen young enough to be Glover's grandsons then carried his coffin toward his grave, accompanied by the somber strains of a military band.
Once the service began, rifles were fired in salute, a bugler played taps, and Capt. Anthony Wade, an Air Force chaplain, read from Ecclesiastes. "To every thing, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven," he began reading.
America's time to honor Master Sgt. Calvin C. Glover had finally arrived, and no one was more pleased to see the day than his mother, Alice Montgomery, who had vowed "to crawl here on my knuckles if I had to" to be there.
"When you raise somebody from a baby, you get to be real close," said Montgomery, now 90, who navigated the hilly cemetery with the aid of a wheelchair. "I feel relieved because I know where he is now. He's on American soil."
jzremski@buffnews.com
The passage of time did nothing to blunt the emotion of the moment. As airmen in blue dress uniforms stood quietly by Glover's coffin and an Air Force chaplain delivered a long-delayed eulogy, his loved ones wept softly.
"This means there's closure, finally," his daughter, Betty Muscato of Cassadaga, said after the ceremony. "I feel honored that they had full military honors for him."
Glover's widow, Deanna, felt the same way.
"We got to bring him home," said Deanna, who met Glover in Silver Creek, where she lived at the time. "I didn't think it would ever happen because it was so long a time."
Muscato can attest to that.
"I was 11 when his plane went down, so I have a lot of good memories of my dad," said Muscato, who is now 53. "He made me the daredevil. He pushed me to do things — like learning to water ski before I knew how to swim."
But then Glover went off to Vietnam, where he had to be a daredevil himself. His brother, John, recalled him talking about how low his C-130 would fly on its cargo runs, and about how dangerous it was.
On May 22, 1968, while living in Okinawa, where Glover was stationed, the family got the bad news. His plane had gone missing.
And its fate remained a mystery until a year ago, when — 34 years after America's protracted war in Vietnam had come to an end — the wreckage of Glover's plane was found in Cambodia.
After military officials matched the remains they found with the DNA they had extracted from Glover's mother years ago, they contacted the family, and plans for the service at Arlington began to take shape.
So it was that a crowd of about 40 people, many of them too young to have ever known Glover, gathered beneath pewter skies for the very same ceremony that Iraq and Afghanistan war widows know only too well.
"We have five generations here today," said Sharon Montgomery, wife of John Glover. "One thing that struck me about this family when I met them is that they always try to be there for each other."
Deanna agreed, saying: "There's just so much respect. They love him."
Relatives from as far away as Indiana and Texas came to Arlington to pay their last respects — as did Ron Renno of Forsyth, Ga., an Air Force veteran who has been wearing a bracelet honoring Glover for more than 20 years.
Renno said he bought the bracelet from a veterans organization in the late 1980s because he was concerned about prisoners of war and those missing in action years after the end of the Vietnam War.
Renno and Glover never met, but for years now, Renno has been checking the Internet every month or so for any news about the missing airman whose name was on his bracelet.
When he learned that Glover's remains had been found, he knew exactly what he had to do.
"I always said that if they found him, I would come to the services," said Renno, who termed attending Wednesday's ceremony "a very humbling experience."
It certainly was that. As a horse-drawn caisson pulled Glover's casket toward its final resting place, an Air Force jet flew overhead in tribute.
Fresh-faced airmen young enough to be Glover's grandsons then carried his coffin toward his grave, accompanied by the somber strains of a military band.
Once the service began, rifles were fired in salute, a bugler played taps, and Capt. Anthony Wade, an Air Force chaplain, read from Ecclesiastes. "To every thing, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven," he began reading.
America's time to honor Master Sgt. Calvin C. Glover had finally arrived, and no one was more pleased to see the day than his mother, Alice Montgomery, who had vowed "to crawl here on my knuckles if I had to" to be there.
"When you raise somebody from a baby, you get to be real close," said Montgomery, now 90, who navigated the hilly cemetery with the aid of a wheelchair. "I feel relieved because I know where he is now. He's on American soil."
jzremski@buffnews.com
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