Air Force: Sequester Prevents Flyover for Long-Lost Vietnam Vets

Air Force: Sequester Prevents Flyover for Long-Lost Vietnam Vets

Major James Sizemore and his navigator Major Howard Andre were lost over Laos in 1969; their remains were discovered a year ago, still in the plane they were flying when shot down by the enemy. When they were buried in Arlington National Cemetery on September 23, the Air Force said “the U.S. government could not afford to honor the men with a traditional flyover due to budget cuts.”

Sizemore and Andre were bombing enemy convoys that supplied the Viet Cong when their plane was hit. Fox News reports they were laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on September 23 “the same way they flew–side by side.”

Taps was played as family members watched “two horse drawn caissons [make] their way through the cemetery.”

Then civilian volunteers from “the non-profit Warrior Flight Team…[flew] in formation above Arlington National Cemetery in their own planes, on their own dime.” 

President Obama signed sequester cuts into law on August 2, 2011, and “threatened to veto any law that [would not] replace sequestration with alternative budget reduction.” As a result, Sizemore and Andre were denied the official flyover they secured with their very lives.

Breitbart News salutes the volunteers from the Warrior Flight Team who stepped up to fill the gap, and we will never forget that men like Sizemore and Andre make this the home of the brave. 

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.

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