News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: POW/MIA poster special to McConnell family

Date: October 03, 2001

"POW/MIA poster special to McConnell family
by Tech. Sgt. Gene Lappe
22nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs

10/03/01 - MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. (AFPN) -- For one family here National Prisoner of War-Missing in Action Recognition Day had an added significance.

Maureen Kozak, wife of Lt. Col. Ray Kozak, 18th Air Refueling Squadron operations officer with the 931st Air Refueling Group, is the daughter of Air Force Col. Kelly Cook, who is MIA and whose picture appears on this years POW-MIA poster.

Maureen found out about her father’s picture on the poster almost by accident. Her brother-in-law, who is serving with the 89th Regional Support Command here, was the first to notice the poster. He then realized that he had seen one of the pictures on the poster hanging in Kozak’s home.

Maureen said she was shocked to learn that one of her favorite pictures of her father had been included on the poster.

“I thought, 'Wow!, of all those missing men,' I am honored for him to be chosen,” she said. “I cried not from sorrow, but from the honor of my father being on the poster.”

The picture used on the poster was taken of then-Captain Cook during the Korean War.

She said her children, Andrew, 7, and Caroline, 4, were excited to see grandpa Kelly on the poster.

Cook entered the Army Air Corps in 1942 and was a B-24 Liberator co-pilot in Italy during World War II. He also served in Korea. He transitioned to fighters and flew them over Vietnam.

Cook became an MIA after his F-4C Phantom was shot down on a night-strike mission in October 1967 near the village of Nuang Binh, North Vietnam. He was initially thought to have died in the crash, but it was later learned that he and the other crewmember ejected. He was presumed to have been captured and later died in captivity.

Maureen was 7 years old when her father was shot down. She remembers the day after her father was lost; the Air Force chaplain and another man came to her home. Her mother was not home at the time so they waited in the car.

She said after the chaplain told her mother what had happened, the very sorrowful look on her mother’s face told her that the news was bad.

After the loss of her father the Air Force continued to assist the family with an outpouring of support and information.

She said she took the loss of her father the hardest during her preteens.

“It was hard when the POWs returned home, because I thought for sure my father was going to be one of them,” Maureen said. “I sat and watched the television for hours on end hoping he would step off the plane, so that was a much harder time for me.”

Throughout the entire time, Maureen said she and her family never gave up hope her father would return home. Her mother continued to send letters and packages to him.

Cook’s status not only affects his widow and children, but his son-in-law Ray as well.

"Since we have had children, the connection is stronger,” he said. “Since they are (Cook’s) grandchildren, it makes the loss seem more pointed because my children will never know grandpa.”

Both Maureen and Ray said that the one constant through the years was the continued dedication to the families by the military to bring their loved ones home.

“The Air force has taken good care of the families of those missing,” Maureen said. “It is an honor to know that our country does that for the families.” "