A Life Remembered - U.S. Navy Lt. Patrick Kelly Connor and the Persian Gulf War

Lt. Patrick Kelly Connor, a Columbia, Missouri, native and U.S. Navy naval flight officer, was 25 years old when he was killed during Operation Desert Storm on Feb. 2, 1991. Connor served with Attack Squadron 36 (VA-36) aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Courtesy of the Museum of Missouri Military History.

On Feb. 2, 1991, the Persian Gulf War was less than three weeks old when a U.S. Navy A-6 Intruder launched from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt on a combat mission near Kuwait. The two men aboard were Lt. Cmdr. Barry T. Cook, the pilot, and Lt. Patrick Kelly Connor, a 25-year-old naval flight officer from Columbia, Missouri.

They did not return.

The Navy's official command history for the Theodore Roosevelt records the loss. The A-6, using the call sign Heartless 531, belonged to Attack Squadron 36 and was lost during a combat mission over Faylaka Island. Cook and Connor were eventually declared killed in action. The two became the first combat casualties suffered by the Theodore Roosevelt and Carrier Air Wing Eight during the war. A memorial service aboard the carrier followed on Feb. 6.

Behind those few lines in a military record was a young man whose death reverberated through his family, his former classmates and the community where he had grown up. Decades later, Connor's name remains visible along one of the busiest highways through Columbia.

But before he became a name on a memorial, Patrick Kelly Connor was a young man who dreamed of flying.

Born in Columbia in 1965, Connor was the son of William and Marsha Connor. He attended Hickman High School, graduating in 1983. There he participated in the National Honor Society and played varsity soccer.

Those who knew him remembered considerably more than a résumé of school activities. Hank Landry, one of Connor's teachers at Hickman, later remembered a good student who talked about joining the Navy and becoming a pilot. The recollection, published years after Connor's death, suggests that military aviation was part of his early aspirations.

Friends remembered his personality. Jeff Harris, a friend from Hickman High School, recalled Connor as a man with “a unique sense of humor and an infectious smile.” Around two years before Connor’s death, the two had discussed the treatment Vietnam veterans received when they returned home.

In a Feb. 2, 1992, article in the Columbia Missourian, Harris reflected on the considerably different reception afforded veterans of the Persian Gulf War. “I think that he would be pleased that this time around, regardless of how people feel about the war, he has been treated with respect for his part in the war,” Harris said.

After Hickman, Connor attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned a bachelor's degree in business with honors and participated in Naval ROTC. The UNC Naval ROTC Alumni Association identifies him with the Class of 1987 and today maintains a memorial to him.

His path eventually took him into the specialized world of naval aviation. Connor became a naval flight officer and bombardier-navigator aboard the A-6 Intruder. The two-seat A-6 was designed as an all-weather attack aircraft, and the bombardier-navigator was an integral member of its combat crew, working with the aircraft's navigation and attack systems to help bring the aircraft to its target. It was demanding work, and in early 1991 it took Connor to war.

Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, prompting an enormous international military buildup in the Persian Gulf. Operation Desert Shield eventually gave way to Operation Desert Storm, with coalition air operations beginning Jan. 17, 1991.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt entered the fight shortly afterward. Its official command history states that the carrier launched its first combat strike of the war on Jan. 19. Between then and Feb. 27, the ship and Carrier Air Wing Eight launched 3,897 sorties in support of Desert Storm.
Connor served with VA-36, the Roadrunners, flying aboard the squadron's A-6 Intruders. On Feb. 2, he and Cook took Heartless 531 into combat.

The aircraft was lost during a mission over Faylaka Island, off the Kuwaiti coast. Contemporary reports initially described Connor as missing in action.

The uncertainty created an agonizing period in which hope and grief existed simultaneously. Marsha Connor later recalled that the family's Christian faith helped them cope. Before leaving, Patrick had told his father that whatever God's will might be, he was ready.

For weeks, however, there was no definitive answer. Then came the news the family had feared.
Connor's remains were recovered from the Persian Gulf on March 31, Easter Sunday. His death was confirmed, bringing an end to the uncertainty but beginning a very different kind of loss. He was 25.

Graveside military services followed at Arlington National Cemetery in April 1991. The young man who had left Columbia, attended Chapel Hill and gone to sea as a naval officer was buried among generations of American service members. Yet Connor's story did not end at Arlington.
         
Efforts to preserve Connor's memory began quickly. Hickman High School established the Lt. Patrick Kelly Connor Leadership Award, ensuring that future students at his old school would encounter his name and learn something of the former Hickman student who had died in service.

In November 1991, the Syracuse Herald-Journal reported that William and Marsha Connor donated a light in Patrick's memory as part of Community-General Hospital's Light-A-Light festival in New York. Marsha spoke of the gesture as another means of extending Patrick's service to the community. The family also donated a light in memory of Cook, the pilot who died with their son.

In 1992, another memorial effort was taking shape in Boone County. Organizers sought to establish a Desert Storm memorial honoring Connor, Army Specialist Steven Paul Farnen and others who had served. The monument was erected at the Boone County Courthouse.

Years later, that memorial would unexpectedly become the center of a public controversy. The monument incorporated an ichthus, commonly called the Christian or Jesus fish. More than two decades after it was erected, objections were raised about displaying the religious symbol on government property. In 2014, Boone County officials covered the symbol, and the controversy eventually resulted in the original monument being moved from the courthouse grounds to Columbia Cemetery.

A new, broader veterans memorial replaced it at the courthouse. Despite varying opinions on the matter, the controversy had a deeply personal dimension for the families whose sons' names appeared on the original stone. The memorial, for them, represented Patrick Connor and Steven Farnen.

The original monument's relocation did not, however, remove Connor's name from the public landscape. Instead, another memorial was coming. In 2016, Missouri lawmakers considered legislation establishing memorial highways for Connor and Farnen. The measure ultimately enacted into Missouri law designated the portion of U.S. Highway 63 extending from the Discovery Parkway interchange to Interstate 70 in Boone County as the U.S. Navy Lieutenant Patrick Kelly Connor Memorial Highway.

The statute also directed the Missouri Department of Transportation to erect and maintain appropriate signs, with the costs paid through private donations. The designation became effective in 2016.

The sign’s location was geographically fitting since Highway 63 carries thousands of motorists through Columbia, the community where Connor had attended school and where his dreams of naval service began. A dedication ceremony was scheduled for Nov. 5, 2016, at Battle High School in Columbia. The Connor and Farnen families publicly expressed their appreciation to those who supported the effort.

A traveler does not have to visit Arlington National Cemetery to encounter Patrick Connor's name. Nor does someone have to know where the original Desert Storm monument was relocated. His name became part of the landscape of Boone County.

Patrick's death also transformed his mother's life. Marsha Connor became active with the American Gold Star Mothers about a year after her son's death. Her involvement eventually grew beyond simply attending remembrance ceremonies. She served as president and treasurer of American Gold Star Mothers Chapter 15 and became the organization's Americanism chairman in New York. She also worked extensively with hospitalized veterans. In 2015, the New York State Senate honored her as a Woman of Distinction for her work on behalf of veterans, active-duty military personnel and Gold Star families.

Years after the Gulf War faded from newspaper front pages, she was still visiting veterans, participating in patriotic observances and helping ensure that families who had experienced losses like hers were not forgotten.

A 2005 Memorial Day observance in Syracuse provided a particularly poignant image. A newspaper photograph showed Marsha Connor alongside another Gold Star mother during a Memorial Day concert in Clinton Square. As taps played, the women stood with their hands over their hearts.

And the work to honor her son continued. In 2019, William and Marsha Connor attended a Wreaths Across America ceremony in Auburn, New York. Nearly three decades had passed since their son's aircraft disappeared during a combat mission over Kuwait.

By then, Patrick Connor belonged to several communities. He was the son remembered by William and Marsha and a graduate of Hickman in Columbia. He was the UNC alumnus remembered by the university's Naval ROTC community. He was a Navy officer remembered alongside those who flew from the Theodore Roosevelt, and he was one of the Americans whose lives were lost in a war.

A monument and a highway may record a name but often fail to adequately explain the person. Military histories necessarily reduce enormous human events to concise entries.

Patrick Kelly Connor was only 25 when Heartless 531 disappeared on Feb. 2, 1991. He never had the opportunity to grow old, pursue another career, raise a family or look back upon his wartime service from the distance of decades. Instead, others had to carry his story forward.

Patrick Connor lived for a quarter of a century. The effort to remember him has lasted longer than his lifetime, more than three decades after his final mission. Now, travelers passing through Columbia can still see his name and be reminded that behind it was a young Missourian who once dreamed of joining the Navy and flying.

And he accomplished both. 

Jeremy P. Ämick is author of the historical compendium “Voices of the Moreau.”  

The U.S. Navy Lieutenant Patrick Kelly Connor Memorial Highway along U.S. Highway 63 near Columbia honors the Hickman High School graduate who was killed during Operation Desert Storm. The memorial highway was dedicated in November 2016, more than 25 years after Connor's death. Photo by Jeremy P. Ämick.