Celebration of Life Service for Col. Joe M. Jackson set for Jan. 26 in Tukwila

A Celebration of Life service is set for retired Col. Joe M. Jackson at 4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 26, in the William Allen Theater at the Museum of Flight in Tukwila.

Jackson, an Air Force legend, Medal of Honor recipient and longtime Kent resident, died on Jan. 13 at age 95.

A coffee reception in the Personal Courage Wing will follow the service. The service is open to the public, but there is limited seating in the theater. The Museum of Flight is at 9404 E. Marginal Way S.

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 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.

He was born March 14, 1923, in Heard County, Ga., the youngest of seven sons. His father was a farmer and teacher, according to his obituary in the Washington Post.

Jackson enlisted in the Army Air Corps after high school. During World War II, Jackson served mostly as a gunnery instructor in the United States. He flew 107 missions as an F-84 fighter pilot in the Korean War and later became one of the first pilots of the Air Force’s U-2 spy planes. During the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, he helped direct aerial reconnaissance over the island, according to the obituary.

He graduated from what is now the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and then he received a master’s degree in political science in 1963 from George Washington University. After 298 combat missions in Vietnam, Col. Jackson served at the Pentagon and at the Air Force’s Air War College in Alabama. He retired in 1974 as a full colonel. While at Boeing, Jackson helped train members of the Iranian air force.

Survivors include his wife of 74 years, the former Rosamund Parmentier of Kent; two children, Bonnie Jackson of Kent and David Jackson of Dallas; a granddaughter; and a great-granddaughter.