Mike Klingner's Memorial Service
McCook, Nebraska
July 3, 2000

Jane Klingner Adams (left) holds the flag she received during Monday's memorial service for her late husband, Mike, who was shot down inVietnam. (Gazette photo/Pam Geihsler) July 3, 2000.


Missing airman honored

By PAM GEIHSLER/Gazette Writer

Thirty years is a long time to wait for a memorial service and closure for a loved one killed in action.

But that is exactly how long the family and friends of Michael Klingner have waited to be able to finally say goodbye to Michael, whose F-100 fighter plane crashed April 6, 1970 when his Air Force squadron was flying over Laos during a Vietnam War mission.

Mayor Flora Lundberg proclaimed July 3, 2000, "Michael Klingner Memorial Day," at a memorial service to honor his death and service to his country. The official proclamation reads, "due to the delay between his MIA and KIA there was never a memorial service for him" and this has prompted "a public memorial service for Mike during this year's All-Class reunion."

Klingner's MIA bracelet was recently returned to a former classmate and childhood friend of Klingner's, Steve Batty, following an e-mail received by the editor of the McCook Daily Gazette requesting family or friends of Mike to respond to a woman in Lincoln who had a bracelet with Klingner's name on it.

Batty followed up with the woman, Ann White, who had worn the bracelet faithfully for more than 20 years because, "the enormity of the enemy capturing so many young Americans, and their families having no finality, weighed on me."

After Batty received the bracelet, he and his father, Dr. John Batty, put together several items for a display honoring Mike to be permanently displayed in the basement of the McCook City Library in the Michael Klingner Memorial Room.

"To see just his name above the door was not enough," Dr. Batty said.

Also to be included in the display will be the American flag which was presented at the memorial service to Jane Klingner Adams, Mike's wife at the time of his tour of duty in Vietnam.

Mike was born in McCook in 1945 and went on to graduate from McCook High School in 1963 and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1967 with a political science degree. While at the University he participated in the AFROTC program and eventually graduated from the USAF pilot training program at Williams AFB in Phoenix, AZ. Jane and Mike were married in August 1968 after having met and falling in love during college.

In December, 1968, as a top graduate of his Air Force pilot training class, he was given first choice for duty and chose the F-100 Super Saber fighter air craft, even though it meant an automatic tour of duty in Vietnam, he left soon after completing F-100 school.

Jane has since remarried, has three sons and lives in Greeley, Colo., but the memorial service and display still are very important to her to bring closure to Mike's life and death.

"I've been blessed to go on and have a good life and family, but you don't know how good it feels to come back here and be with you who were close to Mike and how important it was to have Mike in my life, even just for a short time," Adams said.

Adams read excerpts from several of Mike's letters he wrote to her from Vietnam before his crash. Several letters made reference to missions over "Litter Land," an area in which no Americans were fighting and over which very few pilots were flying. In one dated November 1969, Mike described a pass his flight made in which he had one last bomb he had to drop, and he "did it and got the hell out of there."

After Mike's plane crash, when Jane was informed of his MIA status, "the details that the officers gave me were incredibly brief for such a life-changing event," Jane said.

The original reports of the crash were very sketchy. The basics were: Lt. Klingner was the first in his flight to be cleared in on the designated target in a mission over southeast Asia, and immediately thereafter, his plane crashed in a ball of flame with no sight of a parachute and no sounds of the beeper that goes off automatically when a pilot ejects.

Several years later, Jane found out the crash site had been excavated once in 1995 and again in 1997. Although wreckage of an F-100 was found that was thought to have been Klingner's in the area of the crash, there was reportedly no sign of life support equipment or a burial site.

From more recent information gathered in the past few years, it has been determined that there is a possibility that Mike might have tried to eject before or on impact, but because no parachute was sighted, he quite likely died at the crash site.

Also, because the possibility of a Vietnamese eye-witness ever coming forward is quite unlikely, it will probably never be known exactly what happened to his remains. At the time of the crash, it was the habit of the Vietnamese to bury bodies at the crash sites, but the acidity of the soil in that area increases the decomposition of bodies, so it is unlikely that any remains will ever be found.

Jane has worked with the National League of Families for several years to try to learn more specific information about the cause of the crash and exactly what might have happened afterward, but still has not received much more specific information.

The memorial service and proclamation of "Michael Klingner Memorial Day" has finally brought about closure to the life and death of "a gallant soldier who gave his life for his country and community," according to the Mayor's proclamation.

Mayor Lundberg also said that hopefully Mike is watching from above, and "perhaps he needs the same kind of closure we need. Now it's time to say farewell to Capt. Mike Klingner, and say well done."

"I've done a lot of talking on far less worthy subjects," former governor Frank Morrison, said of his relationship with Klingner. "There are few people I've ever known in my life that possessed the qualities of leadership... to the extent that Mike embodied."

Batty described Mike as a surrogate brother and "hero" because his own brother had died in 1951. Batty said Mike inspired him to go on and follow in his footsteps as an Air Force pilot.

Several other classmates and friends of Klingner's recounted their relationships with him during his short life. Descriptions of him included a "big brother" and "everyone's best friend."
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