For years, the Vietnam crypt at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier stood as a symbol of loss with no name. But buried beneath that marble was someone real. His name was Michael Joseph Blassie, a 24-year-old Air Force pilot whose remains were misclassified after his A-37 Dragonfly went down in Vietnam.
The path to identifying Michael’s remains was long, painful, and full of bureaucratic missteps. But through DNA testing and years of quiet persistence, his family uncovered the truth. The soldier known only to God now has a name, and his story forced a reckoning with how we remember the missing. What began as a tribute to the unknown became something far more personal—for one family and for the country.