TN soldier lost in Vietnam to be laid to rest at Arlington

TN soldier lost in Vietnam to be laid to rest at Arlington
WBIR Staff
March 13, 2014

A Tennessee soldier who was killed in a plane crash almost fifty years ago will finally be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

According to the State Department of Veterans Affairs, Staff Sergeant Lawrence Woods of Clarksville was among eight service members killed in a plane crash in Vietnam on October 24, 1964. He was the first Tennessean to be declared missing in action leading up to the Vietnam War.

Woods was a member of the 5th Special Forces Group based out of Fort Campbell. He lived there with his wife, Francis, and three children when he was killed.

U.S. Forces were able to recover the bodies of everyone on the plane except for Staff Sergeant Woods, until recently. Crews from the U.S., Cambodia, and Vietnam coordinated a series of searches from 1997 to 2010, and were finally able to excavate the wreckage of the plane and find Woods' remains.

Woods will be buried during a group burial at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. on March 21. Governor Bill Haslam has declared that a day of mourning and ordered flags at half-staff from sunrise to sunset in honor of Staff Sergeant Woods' ultimate sacrifice.
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