Arlington, Va. - As the single, flag-draped casket containing the remains of Army Capt. Arnold E. Holm Jr. and two crewmates left the post chapel, Holm's sister began to cry.

Two men tried to comfort her - one, Bill Smoot, was the last person Holm spoke to almost 40 years ago before his helicopter was shot down in Vietnam. The other, Tom Martin, was flying on Holm's wing and witnessed the crash. He tried to get to the crash site that day in June 1972, but he could not.

On Wednesday, honor guard soldiers outside the chapel placed the casket on a caisson drawn by a team of black horses. They led the procession into Arlington National Cemetery, past the rows of thousands of white headstones spreading in every direction.

More than a mile into the cemetery, the casket reached the site of its final resting place amid the rolling green hills. Leaves of all colors fluttered to the ground in a light breeze.

At the grave site, Chaplain Scott Kennaugh said the three men about to be buried "certainly earned their place among the patriots."

Holm, a Waterford native, was flying reconnaissance in a small scout helicopter over Thua Thien-Hue province in South Vietnam on June 11, 1972. Spc. Robin R. Yeakley of South Bend, Ind., was on board as the observer and Pfc. Wayne Bibbs of Chicago was the door gunner that day, when the helicopter was hit by heavy enemy ground fire, exploded, and crashed through the dense jungle canopy.

It took years to rule out the helicopter's possible crash sites and to locate the correct one. Remains, helicopter wreckage and identification tags bearing Yeakley's name were found during an excavation in 2008, and scientists identified the crew as a group earlier this year.

The remains of all three were in the one casket - in a bag wrapped in an Army blanket. The uniform of Holm, as the senior officer, was also inside. It bore no name plate in order to represent all three men.

"They are finally home to be buried alongside the nation's fallen heroes," Thomas E. White, former secretary of the Army, said in the eulogy. He, too, served with Holm, Yeakley and Bibbs as the operations officer for their unit - F Troop, 8th Calvary, known as the Blue Ghosts.

Never forgotten

As the three veterans take their place in the hallowed military cemetery and the nation honors all of its veterans Friday on Veterans Day, more than 83,000 Americans who served in combat remain missing.

They are veterans like Air Force Maj. Peter D. Hesford of Mystic, the commander of a plane that was shot down over Laos on March 21, 1968. He hasn't joined the more than 300,000 veterans and their immediate family members buried in Arlington because his remains were never found.

Service members, when they don the uniform and go into harm's way, are promised they will never be left behind. "Keeping the promise" is the motto of the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, the office charged with bringing them home.

Air Force Maj. Carie Parker, spokeswoman for the office, said they "will do everything possible" to find as many of the 83,000 - missing from World War II, the Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War and Gulf War- as they can. About $100 million is spent annually and 600 people in various offices are dedicated to the search effort, Parker said.

So far this year, the office has brought 77 veterans home, including Holm and his crewmates. Eighty-eight were accounted for last year and 67 the year prior, Parker said. But the passage of time complicates things.

Aging witnesses forget what happened and eventually die. Mudslides and floods move evidence from crash sites, then pile layers upon layers of sediment over them. The overgrowth in the jungles of Southeast Asia only gets thicker, and the acidic soil erodes whatever remains it comes across. Remains will decay over time, to the point where DNA can no longer be extracted.

And, maybe most importantly, the relatives of the missing service members are getting older and passing away.

Hesford's father, Arthur, clung for years to the hope that his son was still alive. He died in 1999.

The year prior, Peter Hesford's crash site in Savannakhet Province, Laos, was excavated but neither remains nor wreckage from the aircraft were found. John Hesford, Arthur's other son, said his father knew every effort had been made to find Peter.

"I guess it was closure," he said this month.

But their mother, Sarah, died in 1976 without coming to terms with what had happened, said John Hesford, who is now 74 and lives in Charlottesville, Va.

Presentation of flags

Robin Yeakley's mother, Pauline, went to Vietnam with other mothers whose sons were never brought home. She placed an American flag near the site where her son disappeared with Holm and Bibbs.

At the cemetery Wednesday, Pauline Yeakley watched as eight soldiers wearing white gloves carefully folded the American flag they were holding over the casket.

"In life they honored the flag," Chaplain Kennaugh said. "Now, in death, the flag will honor them."

All eyes turned to the sky as an Army helicopter passed overhead.

Pauline Yeakley was the only mother alive to receive an interment flag. The chaplain also presented flags to Holm's widow, Margarete, and daughter, Jennifer, who was 4 when her father went missing. The brother of Wayne Bibbs, Homer Bibbs Jr., accepted a flag on behalf of his family.

Wayne Bibbs was one of only a dozen 17-year-olds killed in the Vietnam War. He died three days before his 18th birthday. Homer Bibbs said their mother agreed to sign the enlistment paperwork, thinking Wayne would train to be a helicopter mechanic and never leave the country.

"She went to her grave crying, hoping they'd find her son," he said in an interview.

The youngest brother, Andrei, said he believed for years that Wayne could still be alive. "This is not the closure I wanted, but at least I know," he said. "I'd rather he be here in Arlington where the other heroes are."

After the ceremony, Tom Martin placed his hand on the casket and cried.

Martin himself was shot down the day after Holm and his crew crashed near Hue. Three helicopters with seven men crashed in two days; he is the only survivor.

Two dozen veterans from F Troop, ranging in age from their late 50s to 70, traveled from across the country to attend the service Wednesday. Many said that leaving their friends behind in Vietnam weighed heavily on them all these years.

"They will be in our hearts forever," said White, the former Army secretary.

And, he added, "each of us now can be at peace."

j.mcdermott@theday.com