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• ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) -- It was Christmas Eve 1965 when the Air Force plane nicknamed "Spooky" took off from Vietnam for a combat mission. The crew sent out a "mayday" signal while flying over Laos, and after that, all contact was lost. Two days of searches turned up nothing.
• For years, that was all the families knew about what happened to the six servicemen aboard the plane. Now, nearly 50 years after the AC-47D went down, a meas

ure of finality comes Monday: Remains from the six men will be buried with full military honors in a single casket at Arlington National Cemetery.
• The burial comes after the recovery of remains in 2010 and 2011 by joint U.S.-Laotian search teams. Examiners relied on dental records, personal items recovered from the site and circumstantial evidence to conclude that the recovered remains are representative of all six Air Force servicemen: Col. Joseph Christiano of Rochester, N.Y.; Col. Derrell B. Jeffords of Florence, S.C.; Lt. Col. Dennis L. Eilers of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Chief Master Sgt. William K. Colwell of Glen Cove, N.Y.; Chief Master Sgt. Arden K. Hassenger of Lebanon, Ore.; and Chief Master Sgt. Larry C. Thornton of Idaho Falls, Idaho.
• The Air Force gave all six posthumous promotions, a military spokeswoman said.
• Dribs and drabs of information came in over the years, and some family members heard rumors that loved ones had been seen alive. But mostly it was the passage of time that led relatives to conclude their loved ones had perished.
• ___

• BAY SHORE, N.Y. (AP) -- It just keeps going, and going, and going. No, it's not a battery. It's Irvin Gordon's 1966 Volvo P1800S.
• Gordon's small, red two-door has well more than 2 million miles on the odometer, the equivalent of nearly 1,176 times across the globe.
• The retired schoolteacher from Long Island hopes to reach the 3 million mile mark by next year. He only has 34,000 miles to go.
• The 72-year-old Gordon drives his Volvo everywhere. He has held the Guinness

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