A2C John Matthew Cole
Jun 18, 1946 - Dec 04, 1966
Panel 13E, Line 011

Photo and article were taken from the Philadelphia Daily News of October 26, 1987. The special supplement entitled, 'SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY,' was published in conjunction with the dedication of the Philadelphia Viet Nam Memorial.

Teachers at Roxborough High School remember Cole as sweet-natured and quiet.  He was selected to attend the General Motors training school in Moorestown, NJ, but instead chose to enlist in the Air Force two months after his graduation in June 1964.  The airman second class, a security guard, was sent to Viet Nam in July 1965 and assigned to the 377th Air Police Squadron.  Cole died at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, near Saigon, on February 4, 1966, at the age of 19.  He was awarded the Silver Star posthumously.  The flag that draped his coffin hangs in a triangular case made especially for it at Roxborough High School, which his mother said he had loved dearly.  Cole was survived by his parents and three sisters.

Buried in Fayetteville, NC.   A dormitory at Pope Air Force Base was named after him in 2002.