Re: DNA Tests ID Remains 30 Years Later

Date: January 07, 2004

"DNA tests identify remains of Vietnam pilot after 30 years

STRATFORD — The remains of an officer who died in Vietnam in 1972 have been identified after a three-decade wait.

Maj. Irwin Stuart Lerner died in Hanoi on Dec. 20, 1972, when his B-52 was shot down with a surface-to-air missile, Air Force officials said.

Military officials believed they had his remains in 1985. But it took two decades to confirm them through DNA testing, said Kathy Shemeley, president of the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action CT Forget-Me-Nots Inc.

"It’s important for a family to have closure. A family always wonders what happened to a loved one," Shemeley said.

Lerner will be buried this month at Arlington National Cemetery. He was 31 when he died, leaving behind a wife and three children.

His wife, Roberta Reilly Lerner, died in 1995. His three children, Mark, 38, David, 36 and Jennifer, 33, live in Georgia, where they moved with their mother once she found out Lerner was missing.

"I don’t know what it’s going to do for me," said Jim Simon, a childhood friend who pushed a plan for a Stratford monument built in Lerner’s honor. "When I went to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington and saw his name among the missing, I cried."

Simon, 63, said Lerner’s father, Eli Lerner, kept him informed about Lerner’s tour when they worked together as machinists.

Simon said Eli Lerner, who died years ago, never gave up on seeing his son again.

"He’d say to me: ‘I expect Irwin to walk through that door,"’ Simon said.

©New Haven Register 2004 "