|
|
|
By Allison Williams Staff writer LILLINGTON -- James E. "Jimmy" Butler is home from the Vietnam War.
It has been a long trip -- 30 years and thousands of miles. Brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews have since graduated from high school and college, married, had children. They wondered what happened to Chief Warrant Officer Jimmy Butler after his reconnaissance plane disappeared from the sky on March 20, 1970. They waited for him to return from South Vietnam.
On Sunday afternoon -- the 25th anniversary of the end of the war -- they lowered Butler’s casket in the ground next to his father, Raymond Butler.
"It’s going to be closure," said Patricia Butler, Jimmy Butler’s sister-in-law, before Sunday’s funeral. "His remains will be at home. Before, you just didn’t know."
Butler’s friends and family members came from North Carolina, South Carolina and California to bury Butler and put years of unanswered questions to rest.
They held a service in Spring Hill United Methodist Church, Butler’s home church in the countryside about eight miles from Lillington.
At the funeral, Donald Spence recalled the 11,000 days without his cousin, a man he called a hero.
Spence compared him to another hero, David, from the Bible. Gun salute
Ethylene Shannon, Butler’s aunt, read a poem found with his belongings in Vietnam. "When tomorrow starts without me," she read, "don’t think we’re far apart. For every time you think of me, I’m right here in your heart."
Mourners moved to a graveside service where soldiers saluted a casket draped in an American flag, fired three shots in the air and presented Myrtie Butler Norris, Jimmy Butler’s mother, with a flag.
Several people gave Norris bracelets they have worn in her son’s honor.
Wayne Paterson did not know Jimmy Butler, but he has worn a MIA bracelet with his name on it for the past 15 years.
When he found out Butler’s remains were being returned to North Carolina, "I just broke down," he said. "He’s home. Home is important to everybody."
Paterson is a member of Fayetteville’s chapter of the Rolling Thunder, a group dedicated to helping prisoners of war, servicemen missing in action and their families. About 50 members from the Fayetteville, Wilmington and Salisbury chapters rode motorcycles to Butler’s funeral.
"It’s a good day," said Darryl Schraeder, president of the Fayetteville chapter. "It’s a tough day, but it’s a good day." Repatriating remains
Since 1992, 501 probable sets of remains of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have been returned to the United States from Southeast Asia. Of those 501 sets of remains, 239 have been confirmed to be those of missing American servicemen.
Those remains have been returned to their families, said Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffrey McDowell, who works for the task force that is responsible for repatriation of American remains from Vietnam.
Before 1992, another program repatriated 553 "boxes of human remains" from Vietnam. But there is no hard data on the number of repatriated American remains from that group that were returned to their families, McDowell said.
McDowell said scientific technology is advancing so the identification process is much more reliable. But it is still "a slow and tedious process," he said. Loved flying
Jimmy Butler grew up picking cotton and tobacco in the fields of Harnett County. Before he could finish Buies Creek School, he joined the Army to fight in the Korean War. When he came home after a parachute accident, Butler went right back to high school even though he was much older than any of the other students.
He was 6 feet 4 inches tall and had an air of command even when he did not wear his military uniform, family and friends remembered. He was handsome. He loved a good joke, fishing and fast cars.
"The best thing he enjoyed, though, was his flying," said Patricia Butler.
He earned a pilot’s license and dusted crops in a small plane over the same cotton and tobacco fields where he had once worked. One time, the herbicides and pesticides he sprayed seeped into his skin. He almost died from poisoning before doctors at Duke University Medical Center treated him.
Another time, a thunderstorm forced Butler to land on a rural highway. An older couple later remembered the smiling man who waved at them as he taxied from their field.
Jumping out of airplanes during the Korean War, the close calls as a pilot: none of it scared him off flying. He dreamed of one day flying commercial planes, his family said. Butler knew he could earn more flying experience in the military.
He re-enlisted in the Army in 1968. He knew the chances of going to the Vietnam War were good.
Carolyn Brown and Lillian Ennis ate dinner with Butler the night before he left North Carolina for Vietnam. They were friends from school and from working in the fields together.
"We sat up talking most of the night," Ennis said.
From Vietnam, Butler wrote letters to family and friends. He sent pictures and tapes to his mother.
On the day his friends and family heard the news about Butler’s missing plane, Brown received a letter Butler had written days before he disappeared. He was flying and happy, the letter reported. Sacrifices made
After hearing the news, Ennis wore a MIA bracelet in honor of Butler.
"Because he was a friend and in support of what he was willing to do for this country," she said. "He didn’t have to go. It was something he believed in."
In 1978, his family learned that Butler was presumed dead. In 1997, the Army identified his remains. This week, his brothers escorted Butler’s coffin from a military base in Hawaii.
On Sunday, he came home.
At the funeral, the Rev. Bobby Tyson stood behind Butler’s casket and said, "There’s no place like home, and I know Jimmy is not in that box. He is with God."
|
Butler
Staff photo by Tracy Wilcox
Staff photo by Tracy Wilcox
Staff photo by Tracy Wilcox