Jack D. Punches

Captain, United States Navy, retired - a naval aviator with more than seven thousand flying hours and fifty carrier landings.

He took a degree in civil engineering at Missouri and later master's degrees at the Naval War College and at Salve Regina. He was designated a naval aviator in 1975 and flew P-3Cs with Patrol Squadron 16 at Jacksonville, completing three deployments before instructing at the fleet replacement squadron.

He went back to sea in 1982 with VPU-1 at Brunswick on intelligence collection, and after the War College served as maintenance officer of Patrol Squadron 49. In October 1989 he joined the Lifting Eagles of Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 24 at Sigonella as executive officer, took command in January 1991, and deployed to Jeddah for Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

He was chief of airborne operations at United States Strategic Command from 1992, and came to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in August 1995 as head of Navy counterdrug and special assistant to the Under Secretary for counterdrug matters. He retired in July 2000, consulted for a few months, and came back to the Navy in December 2000 as a senior civilian - deputy head of the Navy Interagency Support Branch.

Since retiring his favourite pastime had been golfing with his son, and helping his daughter set up her first flat.

Killed at the Pentagon on the morning of 11 September 2001, when American Airlines flight 77 struck the western face of the building at 9:37. A hundred and twenty-five people inside and fifty-nine aboard the aircraft were killed.

His wife Janice, his children Jennifer and Jeremy, his mother Ruth, and his sisters Shirley, Janet, Ilena and Debbie.