The remains of an Air Force colonel from Canon City who disappeared about 45 years ago during the Vietnam War will be put to rest this month.

Col. Leo Boston, 30, will be buried July 15 at the Air Force Academy Cemetery.

Now, decades after their father’s disappearance from northern Vietnam, Boston’s three children are able to finally find some amount of closure.

“My family truly expected to never have an answer. They had nothing,” said Boston’s daughter, Bethany Boston-Johnson, of Vail, who was 6 years old when her father died.

Boston-Johnson knew her father mostly from family stories and photos. He was remembered as a natural-born leader and a risk taker who had an undeniable love for flying planes — it was his destiny, she said.

In April 1966, Boston was conducting a search mission as part of an elite rescue team in Vietnam in an A-1E Skyraider aircraft. He and another pilot were flying over the remote area of Son La Province, when Boston’s plane disappeared.

Enemy activity and poor weather conditions hampered search efforts for years. It wasn’t until 1996 that teams from the United States and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam began searching the village for clues from the crash.

Through civilian interviews, investigators found remains of the crash — a burned helmet, parts of the plane, pistols and even a fragment of Boston’s bone — saved in residents’ huts.

Civilians had kept the items as war relics and initially refused to give them up.

Though the crash site was never found, teams eventually acquired Boston’s remains and aircraft equipment and sent them to laboratories in Hawaii and Germany, where they sat unidentified for 15 years. Scientists first conducted DNA tests in 2000, but got inconclusive results. Years and advancements in technology later, scientists identified Boston this year using a bone sample the size of a fingernail, Boston-Johnson said. His DNA matched that of his mother and brother.

For Boston’s children, their father’s story is an example of the Air Force motto, “No Man Left Behind.” Seeing Boston receive a proper burial will close a chapter of their lives that was long unfinished, Boston-Johnson said.

“In an unspoken fashion, this has been my life’s mission. I have to pinch myself to think that as of July 15, that mission will be over,” Boston-Johnson said.

She and her brother will travel to Honolulu to escort their father’s remains home prior to the burial alongside his wife at the Air Force Academy. Having never said goodbye, Boston-Johnson doesn’t anticipate the ceremony will provide complete closure but is grateful and excited for a sense of peace.

“Our hearts go out to the 88,000 families from WWII and forward that don’t have an answer,” Boston-Johnson said of the families of those Missing in Action. “We will never, ever stop praying for these families.”

Col. Leo Boston poses with one of the Air Force planes he flew. Photo by Photo courtesy of Bethany Boston-Johnson

The Boston family of Canon City before Col. Leo Boston went missing in Vietnam in 1966. Photo by Photo courtesy of Bethany Boston-Johnson

Bethany Boston-Johnson shakes hands with veterans after speaking at a Memorial Day service in Vail. Photo by Photo courtesy of Bethany Boston-Johnson