Retired Col. Joe M. Jackson, an Air Force legend, Medal of Honor recipient and longtime Kent resident, died on Sunday at age 95.
Jackson’s death was announced on Monday by Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein, according to airforcetimes.com.
The city of Kent in 2006 named its new bridge over the Green River along South 231st Way (now Veterans Drive to honor all veterans) after Jackson. He is a native of Georgia who retired in 1974 from the Air Force and moved to Kent, where took a job with Boeing to develop maintenance training programs, according to historylink.org. Jackson retired from Boeing in 1985 but remained in Kent.
Jackson, a veteran of three wars, was moved into hospice care at the Seattle Veterans Hospital, according to a Jan. 8 Facebook post by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6785 of Kent.
Jackson was famous within the aviation and special operations community for his daring rescue of a team of Air Force combat controllers who were stranded at the besieged airfield of an abandoned Army Special Forces camp during the Tet Offensive on May 12, 1968 in Vietnam, according to an article on airforcetimes.com.
“His exploits saved the lives of three men, but risked his own, as the airfield had been the site of multiple U.S. aircraft shoot downs and aircrew fatalities over the past 24 hours,” according to the article.
Jackson enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II and rose through the ranks from crew chief to pilot through an aviation cadet commissioning program. He flew the P-40 Warhawk and the P-63 Kingcobra during the war. He stayed in the service as it transitioned into the Air Force and flew the F-84 Thunderjet on 107 combat missions during the Korean War.
When the Vietnam War began, Jackson received orders to pilot a C-123 Provider with the 311th Air Commando Squadron. Although the C-130 was quickly becoming the premier airlift provider by this time, the C-123 proved useful for landing in the remote jungles and on the short airstrips dotting the country.
President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Jackson the Medal of Honor on Jan. 16, 1969.
Jackson served at the Pentagon and in the Department of Military Strategy at the Air War College after the Vietnam War and before his retirement.
A Boeing-produced C-17A Globemaster III was named after him in 2006, as the “The Spirit Of Col. Joe M. Jackson.” A section of highway in Georgia also was named after him as well as the main boulevard at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, where Jackson gave an inspirational talk in 2013 at the age of 90, according to historylink.org.
Services have yet to be announced.
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