LAKEWAY, Texas — Connection is what Karoni Forrester felt with her father, U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Ron Forrester, despite not fully knowing him.
"I just know we had a special bond or I wouldn't have missed him so much," Forrester said.
In the winter of 1972 during the Vietnam War, Forrester was navigating a plane with his pilot during a nighttime combat mission over North Vietnam. After entering the target area, his aircraft did not return to base, and search and rescue teams were unable to locate any trace of the aircraft or the crew.
Karoni was only 2-years-old at the time.
"People say my grandfather aged ten years overnight after getting the news and when my grandma would hear anybody talking about my dad, she would just get a faraway, distant look. And they never recovered from that. And I had really hoped to get an answer for them while they were still alive," Forrester said.
That search for an answer took more than 50 years, with Karoni's father being considered "missing in action."
"It was many years before we could even get into Vietnam to really start doing investigations, talking with witnesses, those types of things and try and put any of the pieces together," Forrester said. "It's a lot of disappointment and you hear they're going and you try not to get your hopes too high and this time, it worked out for us."
This year, two different excavations took place at the crash site in North Vietnam yielding two teeth that were identified as the pilots and 12 bone fragments.
"And one of those bone fragments had a positive DNA match to my dad," Forrester said. "We lost my dad two days after Christmas and so to get the news that he's coming home right around Christmas really does bring it full circle."
It's a connection that was broken up by war, and is now rekindled by a daughter's love.
"It doesn't make me miss him any less to have the answer, it's just good to know how it happened," Forrester said. "I'm just very proud of him, and he knows that."
Forrester said she has never been more excited to plan a funeral, and hopes to lay her father to rest at Arlington National Cemetery since he already had a headstone there. In the meantime, she and her uncles will plan a Celebration of Life early in the New Year for their Texas family.