CIA Officer's Body Returned to U.S.
Sunday, December 02, 2001
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ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. — A military transport plane returned the body of CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann, the first known U.S. combat casualty in Afghanistan, to the United States on Sunday.
Family, friends and CIA colleagues attended a brief ceremony in which a Marine honor guard carried the coffin, draped in an American flag, to a hearse. Funeral arrangements were not immediately known, a CIA spokesman said.
Spann was in the Marines before joining the CIA.
CIA Director George Tenet, who had been attending meetings overseas, accompanied Spann's body on the flight from Germany. He gave Spann's widow, Shannon, a big hug after the plane landed.
Relatives and friends boarded the plane to pay their respects to Spann before the wooden coffin was lowered from the aircraft.
Spann was killed Nov. 25 while interrogating foreign, pro-Taliban prisoners who staged an uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan.
Spann, 32, who lived in Virginia, was survived by his wife, Shannon, and two daughters and a son -- Alison, 9, Emily, 4, and six-month-old Jake.
He grew up in Winfield, Ala.
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