Welcome Home Donald.
OKLAHOMA – It was a war that killed more than three million people, including more than 58,000 Americans.
One of those was Donald J. Hall, a Stroud native.
He enlisted in the Air Force in 1955 and became a helicopter flight engineer with a dream to serve the country.
“That’s what he always wanted to do,” Louise Morgan, Hall’s sister said.
He was eventually sent to the Vietnam War. He would never see his family again.
After an air rescue in February of 1967, Hall and three crew members were shot down. Their remains were never found during the war.
“I knew all along that he was missing and I knew that he would not be back alive,” Morgan said.
But Morgan and her family never stopped searching for their loved one.
A memorial at Tinker Air Force Base serves as a reminder of a man who sacrificed it all for his country.
For Hall’s grandson, it was his life’s mission.
“I hit a lot of roadblocks for many many years. It was just in the last couple of years I made some really good progress, and once I met the right person it snowballed from there,” Aaron McGee said.
Last year, one of the crew members remains were found.
Then in August, a phone call to tell the family that skeletal remains were found and a DNA match to Donald Hall. This, 50 years after he went missing.
“It’s one of those things that it was closure for me,” Morgan said.
But a surprise reaction from Aaron and his wife.
“The first question we asked was what about the other two who are still missing?”
Aaron says they’ll continue to push until the last two crew members from that fateful flight are found.
As for his…