CLOSURE FINALLY NEAR FOR FAMILY OF DEAD SOLDIER

Closure finally is near for the family of Jerry Bridges, who died when the helicopter he was in went down in Vietnam in 1968.

Until the mid-1990s, Bridges had been listed by the military as missing in action. It was then that the Defense Department identified remains as that of the man his family knew as Bubby.

On May 25 his 11 brothers and sisters will gather for a service for Bridges at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. The family in June will hold a private service in Columbia, Tenn., and the young soldier's remains will be buried in Pulaski, Tenn., in a grave next to his mother.

The family of Bubby Bridges never gave up hope for his return. For nearly three decades, his sister, Doris Isom of Olive Branch, Ill., didn't leave home without putting a note on the door saying where she could be reached in case someone arrived with news about her younger half-brother.

Far too many Americans whose loved ones were killed in Vietnam and earlier wars can relate all too well to what the family of Jerry Bridges is going through.

Perhaps now the family can put at least some of its pain behind it.