Funeral held for Vietnam soldier

The Vindicator

Photo

SOMBER SERVICE: Bill Cross, left, brother of Air Force Capt. James Cross, speaks at his brother's funeral with full military honors at Crown Burial Park in Vienna. The remains of the Warren man were buried there Friday. Cross show down over Laos in April 1970.

By Ed Runyan

One solider who served with Cross said the Warren man could have been president.

VIENNA — Capt. James Cross has been dead more than 38 years, having been shot down over Laos on April 24, 1970, while serving as a Air Force pilot during the Vietnam War.

But scrapbooks full of letters he wrote to government officials and to newspapers after graduating from Warren G. Harding High School in 1962 testify to his keen interest in conservative politics and writing.

There also is a photograph of him with future President Ronald Reagan and letters to him from Ohio Gov. James Rhodes, a Republican, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

There is a letter saying Cross worked for 17th District U.S. Rep. John Ashbrook after graduating from Ohio University in 1966.

But along with the yellowing photographs and papers are the people who knew Cross and who knew that he had bold plans for a future in politics.

They came Friday to Crown Hill Burial Park here, where a funeral service with full military honors was held for him, and he was buried near his mother.

The funeral was possible because a government body called the Joint Personnel Accounting Command Central Identification Lab in Hawaii determined last July that it had positively identified remains found in Laos as being those of Cross.

In the spring of 1970, the U.S. military told the Cross family of Warren, operators of Cross Office Supply, that there was no way James and soldier fellow pilot Capt. Gomer Reese could have survived being shot down in their U17-B light aircraft.

Other pilots flying by saw no movement in the wreckage, and the government declared the men killed in action a couple weeks later.

But Craig Duehring, assistant secretary of the Air Force, was a forward air controller just like Cross and lived with him in Laos during the last month of Cross’ life. A forward air controller flies a small plane to provide information to ground troops.

Duehring, who ran for Congress himself 10 years ago, had breakfast with Cross the morning he died.

Cross left for a training mission with Reese at about 11:30 a.m. Reese was learning the terrain from Cross because Cross was flying his final mission and then coming home, Duehring said.

Their plane went down just before 1 p.m.

“He was a very sharp guy,” Duehring said of Cross, adding that he was aware Cross had really good writing and speaking skills and was known as a guy with a bright future.

“The word on the street was hang on to this guy’s coat tails. He’s going places,” Duehring said. “He was real focused, very mature. He had his whole life mapped out. He’d be a real player ... a real mover and shaker.”

Duehring, 63, about a year older than Cross, said he wouldn’t have been surprised if Cross would have someday been president.

During his funeral, many speakers stressed that it doesn’t do any good to wonder what might have been if Cross would have made it home from Vietnam.

Larry Warren, a close friend to Cross while they attended Ohio University, said he and Cross learned one day in 1964 that Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was making a stop in Athens.

The two decided to skip a class that day — probably the only class he skipped his entire college career, Warren said.

The two spent many hours talking about politics. It showed Warren what potential Cross had as a political leader.

“We need to focus on what is, not what could have been,” however, Warren said.

Bill Cross of Canfield, one of Cross’ two brothers, who now runs the family office supply business in Boardman, said when the family learned that the government had found his brother’s remains and would provide the family with a funeral, he had no idea it would be a big event.

“We thought it would be a small, private ceremony,” he told the hundreds of people who turned out. “We didn’t know there would be so much interest.”

In addition to family members, there were many soldiers in attendance who served with him and many members of veteran organizations.

“It’s a big deal for our family because we have him home today,” Bill Cross said, standing near the casket attended to by the Base Honor Guard from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton.

The funeral included a fly-over from four aircraft from the Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Okla., while a soldier played taps.

A stone will be placed at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., for Cross and Reese. A ceremony is likely to take place in April on the anniversary of their deaths, a military official said.

runyan@vindy.com