NEWS/OBIT: Clayborn W. Ashby Jr., d. 1968, Bullitt Co., KY ********************************************************************** USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net Transcribed by: kybrenda@aol.com Date: 8 Sept 2000 *********************************************************************** DEATHS; MILITARY; WARFARE; FAMILY; AVIATION; MANNERS AND CUSTOMS; WOMEN Region: Kentucky Obituary: "I think it was awful slow," Myrtle Martin said of the 26 years it has taken to bring her oldest child, Clayborn W. Ashby Jr., back from the Vietnam War to be buried. Petty Officer 2nd Class Ashby died on Feb. 17, 1968, one of nine servicemen killed when their OP-2E observation plane was struck by small-arms fire and crashed into a hill in Laos. On Friday, he and seven of the others who were aboard the plane will be buried in a common grave at Arlington National Cemetery. Martin wanted to bring her son home to Kentucky to be buried near his father at Highland Memorial Garden in Mount Washington. But military officials told the family that they could not tell which of the more than 300 bone fragments found at the crash site belonged to which American serviceman, with one exception -- a man who had a bridge in his teeth. So the eight whose bones were strewn together on the hill will be laid to rest together Friday, with 28 of Ashby's family present -- including his 64-year-old mother; his sister, Patricia Koerner; his five brothers, Mitchell Ashby, Eddie Swift, Marty Swift, Don Swift and Warren Swift; and his fiancee at the time, Avie Davisson, now Avie Eadens. In 1992, Ashby was identified when searchers found an Ahrens High School class ring at the crash site. Davisson had given Ashby the ring, which he wore on his pinky, his mother said. But it has taken two more years for the military to finish identifying the remains and arrange for the funeral. "It's kind of sad, but then it's putting an ending to it," Koerner said yesterday. "We finally know that he did die 26 years ago." Martin described her son as a small man, thin, with light brown hair who graduated from Shawnee High School in western Louisville. "I called him Clayborn; he liked to be called Clay," she said. "I'm not saying this because he was mine, but he was a very good boy. He was very mature for his age." And he enlisted in the Navy, she said. "He wanted to go" to Vietnam. This is the second time Martin has attended a memorial service for her son, who was born Nov. 16, 1946, and was 21 when he died. The first time, on March 6, 1968, at Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville, was just a few weeks after his plane was shot down and he was only presumed to be dead. "There was no body; there was nothing," Koerner said. "Did he die, or didn't he die? He was listed as missing; we didn't know. Now we know." The government is paying part of the travel costs for Ashby's family to attend the funeral, and $1,100 was collected through local fund raising -- $800 through a raffle by the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 454 and $300 from American Postal Workers Union Local No. 4. Robert Keller, a Marine Vietnam veteran who now is a postal clerk and secretary of Chapter 454, also will attend the funeral and will go with the family to visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. "We've had a running battle with the Defense Department" trying to get Ashby's remains returned to Kentucky, Keller said. "They just said the bones were beyond identification" and that "they couldn't do a DNA test, that the bone fragments would be destroyed if they did it." Chapter 454 also will honor Ashby during a memorial service at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 29, at Highland Memory Gardens. The fallen flier's nephew -- Michael Ashby, a Marine -- will escort his uncle's remains from California to Arlington National Cemetery. After all the years of waiting, she is looking forward to the service, Martin said. "If they couldn't bring him home, I'm glad he can be buried there."