On the night of Sept. 5, 1967, two U.S. Air Force F-4C Phantom II jets flew a reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam. Suddenly, one of the two-man crews saw a fireball light up the night’s sky. At that moment, the crew lost contact with the jet flown by Capt. Donald “Donny” William Downing. At sunrise the next morning, search and rescue efforts attempted to find Downing and his radar operator, but the searchers found nothing.
Soon after, back home in Bedford, Massachusetts, Downing’s wife, Marion, saw an Air Force vehicle pull into her driveway and two Air Force officers come to her door. She had just put her children to bed; her oldest daughter would be starting her first day of school the next day. The two officers told Marion that her husband had been listed as missing in action. One presented her with paperwork on the search for her husband. “I was numb,” she recalled. “I couldn't say anything else. I couldn't do anything. I was just in my living room with my kids upstairs in bed.”
A day or two later, Marion took her children to Hanscom Air Force Base, where the casualty officer, overwhelmed with grief, simply handed her a flag. “It was the Vietnam War,” she recalled, referencing the increasing number of American service members killed in Vietnam during the late 1960s.
But the U.S. military never forgot Downing. In 1978, his status was changed to killed in action, and the Air Force posthumously promoted him to lieutenant colonel. More than four decades later, in the summer of 2024, a recovery team discovered his crash site and his remains, which were sent to a Department of Defense POW/MIA Agency (DPAA) laboratory. Later that year, DPAA positively identified Downing.
On a warm June 30, 2025, Marion came to Arlington National Cemetery with family and friends to say a final goodbye to her husband. During the funeral service, Priest Luis Quinones quoted the Bible: “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.” Then, he emphasized, “Commitment to our nation is an act of love and dedication.”
After a bugler sounded Taps, one of Downing’s family members called out, “Donny, welcome home, brother!” U.S. Air Force Deputy Chief of Chaplains, Chaplain (Brig. Gen.) David W. Kelley presented four flags to the family: one for Marion and three for her children.
After the service, Marion recalled that DPAA personnel had told her they had identified her husband. “I just couldn't believe that they had actually found his remains,” she said, “and I’m glad we finally put him to rest.”
Marion was honored to inurn Donny at Arlington National Cemetery. “It's the place for him,” she said. She considered the funeral with military funeral honors beautiful. “God bless all those airmen who were out there in this hot sun,” she added. “They did themselves proud.”
As Chaplain Kelley presented her the tightly folded American flag, it brought Marion back to that day in 1967 when she received her husband’s flag from the Air Force officer. “What a wonderful difference,” she said, “and what a contrast to today.”
