When Frank Hand, 26, took off on April 1, 1968, with three other officers and eight sailors in a P-3 Orion from an air base in Thailand, the biggest news in Vietnam centered on the military's efforts to break through the siege at Khe Sanh.

Hand's crew was on a routine mission, though, scanning the waters off Vietnam for Viet Cong.

His airplane -- he served as the co-pilot -- was hit by anti-aircraft fire from a Cambodian gunboat, according to news accounts. The pilots attempted to fly to land to improve their chances for rescue, but the four-engine aircraft didn't make it. No one survived.

Search and rescue crews recovered something from every man on board, so none were ever listed as missing in action. All searchers found of him, according to the Defense Department, was a boot bearing his name.

[...] Thirty-eight years after Hand died, an official with the Department of the Navy called Bruce and requested a blood sample.

[...] The Navy followed up a few months later, at the beginning of the summer, to tell Bruce the story of the Vietnamese villagers and the successful DNA match with several bones of Frank's. No other crewman's remains were found.

[...] The Department of Veterans Affairs gave Bruce permission to place Frank's remains in a columbarium at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery, ordinarily not allowed because he already has a spot at a national cemetery.

"While this has presented a unique situation, for reasons of compassion, we decided to honor the Hand family's request," said Ron Pemberton, director of D-FW National Cemetery.

The Navy agreed to provide four F/A-18 Hornets to perform the "missing man" formation over the cemetery on Monday, a particularly special gesture for Bruce. The executive officer of Patrol Squadron 26 is coming to Texas for the service.