Gulf War Pilot

Nearly 19 years after Navy Capt. Michael Scott Speicher became the first casualty of the 1991 Gulf War when his F/A-18 Hornet did not return from a combat mission, military pathologists have identified positively as his the remains found by Marines in a remote area of Iraq’s Anbar province in July. Until Iraqi civilians directed the Marines to the crash site, Speicher had been classified as missing in action. Speicher died in the early hours of Jan. 17, 1991, when his plane was shot down.  Technicians at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology DNA Lab in Rockville, Md., made the initial determination after examining bone fragments and comparing teeth found in a jawbone with Speicher’s dental records.