Leo S. "Sid" Boston

Marriages

Dorothy Deanna Curtis Boston

Obituaries

Vail Daily page A14 - July 9, 2011

On April 15, the children and family members of Col. Leo S. Boston were informed that his remains had been formally and positively identified by DNA experts working with Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command in Honolulu, Hawaii, at a laboratory called CIL-HI.

Boston, or “Sid" as he was known, was born in Goodwell, Okla., and moved with his family to Canon City in 1948. He graduated from Canon City High School with the Class of 1953 and was an avid sportsman, hunter and fisherman. After graduation, he first attended Panhandle State University Air Force Aviation Cadet Flight training program.

Upon earning his “wings” and a commission as a 2nd lieutenant, he returned to Canon City to marry his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Deanna Curtis. Various assignments of Boston have included O'Hare International Airport flying F-84 and F-86 aircraft, and K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base/Strategic Air Command flying the F-101. Col. Boston next attended Oklahoma State, where he earned his degree in business management in 1965.

He next volunteered for flying with the 602nd Fighter Squadron and went to the Air Commando Group for training in the A-1E Skyraider at Elgin AFB in Florida. He arrived in Vietnam in March of 1966. On April 29, 1966, Boston was flying a search and rescue mission near Hanoi in North Vietnam. His plane became separated from his wing man during hostile air and nothing was known of his fate. An intermittent beeper was heard the next day, but its origin was unknown and searches revealed no sign of Boston or his plane.

Boston's wife joined the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia upon its inception, in 1970, and made public speeches for the cause of the missing in action numerous times in Colorado. She made many trips to Washington to attend meetings in search of her husband until her untimely death Aug. 2, 1988. Boston's daughters and brother continued to attend meetings and follow the case's progress diligently but no leads came for over 30 years. A break came in the late '90s, when a crash site area was discovered through government investigations.

Remains from the village combined with eyewitness accounts led to the repatriation of the remains by the government in 2000, but due to the small amount of remains consisting only of a small kneecap fragment, DNA identification at that time was not possible. In April, the family received the news they had been waiting for nearly 45 years'" that the kneecap fragment had matched DNA samples taken of his mother and brother.

The family would like to thank the National League of Families in Washington for continuing to keep the cause of full accounting of the missing in action in Southeast Asia moving forward. Further, the family would like to thank the U.S. Air Force personnel and friends too numerous to mention who have supported the family through all these difficult years.

Boston is survived by his daughters, Bethany Boston Johnson, of Vail, and Stephanie Boston Danielson (Patrick) of Canon City; son John S. Boston II, of Chicago; his mother, Edythe Marie Hall Boston; his brother Jon R. Boston (Nancy) of Wisconsin and Las Vegas; sisters Gayle Knowles (Ron) of Kiowa and Daria DelDuca (Chuck Caston) of Parker; granddaughter Sydney Ily Danielson of Canon City; and many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. We would also honor his late father, John Sidney Boston, his late wife, Dorothy Deanna Boston, and his late nephew Daniel DelDuca.

A military graveside funeral will be held July 15 at 1 p.m. at the United States Air Force Academy, and all who wish to honor his life are invited to attend. In lieu of flowers ,the Col. Leo S. Boston Memorial Fund has been established at Pueblo Bank and Trust, 1401 Main St., Canon City, CO 81212.

Vail Daily page A7 - July 15, 2011

Boston, missing for decades, to be buried Friday in Colorado Springs.
Col. Leo S. Boston, shot down over North Vietnam in 1966, will receive full military honors, by Randy Wyrick.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — A hero is coming home Friday.

Col. Leo S. Boston's remains will be laid to rest as part of a military funeral at the Air Force Academy. Boston is the father of Vail Valley local Bethany Boston-Johnson.

Boston was piloting an A1 Skyraider aircraft on a search and rescue mission when he was shot down over North Vietnam on April 27, 1966. Bethany was 6 years old and the oldest of three children when her father left for the war. They never saw him again.

A funeral will full military honors is scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday at the U.S. Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs.

“It's been a whirlwind. The amount of respect shown to my father is just overwhelming,” Boston-Johnson said.

They touched down Wednesday morning at Denver International Airport from Honolulu, where scientists at a forensic base had been trying for years to positively identify Boston's remains.

Along the way, Boston-Johnson enjoyed an outpouring of support and respect.

A motorcade of 65 bikers accompanied Boston-Johnson and the hearse carrying her father's remains from Denver to Colorado Springs.

In the Atlanta airport, Delta baggage handlers performed on the tarmac like a color guard when her father's remains were loaded onto the plane. They were accompanied by 20 Atlanta police.

“Watching these baggage handlers with tears streaming down their faces was just amazing,” Boston-Johnson said.

“It's an honor for us to welcome him home after all these years,” said Janet Edwards, mortuary officer with the Air Force Academy.

Edwards says she has been doing this duty for 19 years. Boston is her eighth such case, she said.

Gov. John Hickenlooper ordered flags be lowered to half-staff on all public buildings across Colorado Friday in Boston's honor.

Boston was listed as missing in action after a search failed to find either him or his aircraft. On April 27, 1978, his status was changed to presumed dead.

More than two decades later, his partial remains were later found. They were positively identified in April of this year and the Air Force immediately notified his daughter, who works in the local real estate industry.

On July 10, she flew to Honolulu to a forensic base to escort her father's remains home.

The Air Force has been relentless trying to identify Boston, Bethany said.

“My father signed a bilateral agreement with the Air Force and did everything they asked of him. They're now doing what they promised. They've been very humble about it,” Bethany says. “I'm grateful. Their motto is, 'No man left behind,' even if it takes 45 years.”

Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 or rwyrick@vaildaily.com.

Vail Daily page A10 - July 16, 2011

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — Forty-five years is not too long to wait for a hero.

Col. Leo S. Boston was laid to rest Friday with full military honors in sacred ground on the U.S. Air Force Academy, 45 years after he was shot down on a search and rescue mission in North Vietnam.

His odyssey ended Friday as hundreds gathered to pay their last respects, at last.

“We are here to honor a national hero,” said Capt. Joshua Kim, who conducted the service. “Help us honor Col. Boston well.

The epic journey ends a quest for closure that started when Boston was shot down in April 1966. Searchers spent days trying to find him, but rain, jungle cover and enemy fire finally forced them to abandon their search.

His journey ended as family and friends filed past flags flying at half-staff Friday across Colorado, ordered by Gov. John Hickenlooper in Boston's honor.

“I'm not sure how to feel,” said a younger man to a veteran wearing a VFW cap.

“We should all start by feeling grateful,” the veteran said.

Almost 500 people showed up. If there was a dry eye in the house, they were lying eyes.

Boston's oldest daughter, Bethany Boston-Johnson, a Vail Valley local, rode in a limousine with her younger brother and sister. She was 6 years old when her father answered his country's call and went to war.

Christmas 1965, Boston pulled his three children away from their new presents and helped get them ready for church, even though they didn't want to leave their new toys.

Her father scooped Bethany up in his arms and said, “Bethany, you have to be brave.” She says it's one of the last things she remembers him telling her.

Outpouring of respect
The outpouring of respect and support has been overwhelming, Boston-Johnson says.

Gen. Mike Gould and his wife, Paula, attended. He's a three star general and the Air Force Academy superintendent.

Two huge columns of motorcycles escorted Boston-Johnson, the family and the hearse toward the cemetery Friday. As they roared slowly through the Air Force Academy grounds, hundreds and hundreds of cadets stood at attention, saluting.

A ground crew in the Atlanta airport performed as a color guard as Boston's remains were loaded onto a plane bound for Denver. A motorcycle motorcade escorted Boston-Johnson and the hearse carrying her father from Denver to Colorado Springs.

It all became possible because, several years ago, the U.S. and Vietnam began cooperating in finding and identifying the remains of lost U.S. military personnel. Boston's remains and a piece of his plane were handed over by two elders in a remote village. It had to be him — he was the only one in that area. But technology was still a few years away from being able to make a positive identification.

Finally, last April, Boston-Johnson's phone rang as an Air Force scientist told her they had finally been successful. She flew to Honolulu earlier this month, and back to Colorado with her father's remains earlier this week.

Long way home
“It's been a long time since to bring Col. Boston home,” Kim said.

He read from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:3-8, where it says there is a place under heaven for every purpose, “a time for war and a time for peace.”

Kent Krohlow and some other veterans from the local VFW post made the trip to Colorado Springs for the funeral. When it was over, Krohlow pulled a folded bandana from his pocket that came from his best friend, who also died in Vietnam.

“It has never been out of my possession,” Krohlow said. “Being here and bringing this was my way of honoring him.”

“It honors the military, the nation, and the mission of ‘no man left behind,' even if it takes 45 years,” Krohlow said.

A 21-gun salute was followed by “Taps.”

As the family was handed their commemorative flags, F-16 fighter jets screamed overhead. As they passed, one peeled off and ascended straight up through the high light clouds, toward heaven, toward Col. Leo S. Boston.

Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 or rwyrick@vaildaily.com.

Vail Daily - May 29, 2011

'No man left behind.' Local woman's father's remains finally identified 45 years after he was shot down over North Vietnam by Randy Wyrick.

Col. Leo Boston loved to fly, so on April 29, 1966, his hand shot up to volunteer for a search and rescue mission in North Vietnam. A U.S. pilot had been shot down and Boston was among those going after him.

He put on his flight suit, helmet and sidearm, climbed into the cockpit of an A-1E Skyraider, a turboprop fighter plane loved by pilots — and Boston's Skyraider was packing the most advanced weapons of its time.

Boston roared low into the Vietnam sky, and soon he and another pilot were skimming treetops, searching near Quang Minh village in North Vietnam.

Suddenly their radios crackled with news that North Vietnamese MiG fighter jets were stalking them. A Skyraider is a gutsy, powerful aircraft, but the turboprop was no match for a MiG.

Boston and his wingman banked toward Son la Province, where they could wait safely in a holding pattern.

The kill shot came quickly.

It's unclear whether it was cannon fire below or a MiG above. It is clear that Boston's plane was blown into two pieces, the rear bursting into flames, and the front, where Boston was strapped in, crashing into the jungle.

Neither Boston nor his aircraft were seen again.

Waiting

When his country called, U.S. Air Force pilot Boston left his young wife and three small children behind in the U.S. and went to war.

Dorothy Deanna Boston, his widow, waited for a phone call and any word about her husband.

One of those children, Bethany Boston-Johnson, is a realtor here in the valley. She was 6 years old when her father went to Vietnam. She, too, spent her entire life waiting.

Her call came last month, April 15, from the Air Force mortuary.

Allen Cronin was on the other end. He's chief of the Past Conflicts Branch of the Air Force Mortuary Operations Center.

She picked up the phone in her Prudential real estate office in Edwards. At once, she was a jumble of emotions. The mortuary would only call if there had been a positive identification.

There had been, Cronin said.

On April 4, the Air Force positively identified Col. Boston's remains, Cronin said.

The wait was over.

“My uncle, sister and I have been active with this for the last 45 years,” Bethany said. “We didn't know anything at all for 30 years.”

The find

The Vietnamese and U.S. governments began working together to find and identify those the war had killed. A joint team made several trips to Son La Province and finally caught a break in November 1997.

A few elders from Quang Ming Village said they had seen a U.S. plane crash around 1966, shot down by Vietnamese fighter jets.

There were no parachutes and no one ejected. The pilot was likely killed instantly, the villagers told the team.

One of the elders found a flight helmet, pieces of parachute and part of a kneecap while farming near the plane's wreckage. They showed the team.

The team checked and rechecked Air Force records. Boston's was the only A-1E Skyraider to come within 50 kilometers of the village.

“If a fighter pilot was not going to make it out that day, we didn't want him to suffer,” Bethany said. “Pilots are ready to go in the air.”

“He loved his job and he was happy doing it.”

“I'm grateful”

A search immediately launched for Boston, but the weather was terrible and they couldn't find any evidence, either visually or electronically.

Ironically, the pilot Boston was flying to rescue made it out alive. That's been a help over the years, Bethany said.

For more than four decades they've kept up to date with the Pentagon and Air Force. They're members of a nonprofit, National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.

The kneecap was shipped to laboratories where Air Force scientists tried to match it to DNA they had collected from Boston's family 20 years earlier — just in case something ever turned up.

“Once we had the bone our hopes soared,” Bethany said.

But the kneecap — left kneecap — was too small and decomposed to test accurately with the DNA technology available in 1997.

So they waited years for DNA technology to improve.

And slowly, it did.

On April 4, the results were final. The Air Force put everything in order. On April 15, Cronin called Bethany.

“I feel an increased sense of closure,” Bethany said.

They met at an airport hotel in Denver and signed off on the results. That triggers a chain of remarkable events over the next 60 days.

On July 10, she'll fly to Honolulu with Cronin to a forensic base and escort her father's remains home. There'll be a full military funeral at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

The Air Force has been relentless in trying to identify Boston. When the Air Force contacted her five years ago to tell her about the bone fragment, she knew in her heart of hearts it was him.

She was 6 the last time she saw her father, the oldest of three children. Her sister was 5 and their little brother was 3 — too young to get to know him as well as she wishes they could have, Bethany said.

“My father signed a bi-lateral agreement with the Air Force and did everything they asked of him. They're now doing what they promised. They've been very humble about it,” Bethany said.

“I'm grateful. Their motto is, 'No man left behind,' even if it takes 45 years.”

Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 or rwyrick@vaildaily.com.

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