Johnny is coming home.

When Pat Graybill heard her 91-year-old father speak those words through the telephone, she allowed herself to imagine — if only for a split second.

“To me, I still picture him as my older brother,” Graybill said.

But after 41 years of waiting, Graybill knew exactly what her father meant. “You’re talking about his remains,” she said to him.

Johnny Adam was a skinny, blue-eyed 20-year-old when he disappeared on May 22, 1968, during the Vietnam War. His remains were returned July 24 to his father and two sisters, now in their 50s.

The military allowed his nephew, Air Force Staff Sgt. Adam Blankenship, to leave Afghanistan to accompany his uncle’s remains back to Kansas.

It was a moment that his family had thought about, dreamed about and prayed about since 1968.

Air Force documents show that Adam’s plane was near the border of Laos on a nighttime flare mission when it disappeared. Another U.S. aircraft saw what appeared to be a ground fire near the plane’s last known location. But anti-aircraft fire made a search impossible.

By daylight, photos showed no evidence of wreckage.

All nine crew members on the C-130A Hercules were designated as missing in action.

Hopes finally fade

A chaplain and Air Force officials came to the home of Adam’s parents on Longwood Avenue in Kansas City, Kan., to notify the family. Yet his mother, father and sisters had reason to hope.

Days turned into months. Eventually the Air Force sent his belongings, including a partially finished model airplane, home to Kansas. It was a reminder that Adam volunteered for service partly because he had dreamed of flying.

His family reluctantly sold the horses that Adam had prized. Years went by. Presidents began sending holiday letters with their respects.

When the war ended, the family waited to see whether Adam was among the survivors.

“We got a call. It was actually fairly late at night and they said his name wasn’t on the list,” Graybill said.

It was a crushing blow.

The sisters thought about him daily. Katherine Mills served in the honor guard during her 21-year career in the Air Force.

“I would be there thinking, ‘Gosh, I wish I could do this for Johnny,’ ” she said.

By 1978, the military had declared Adam dead. A memorial service was held, and a marker was erected at one of three burial plots his parents had purchased. In 1999 his mother, Esther Adam, died and was buried next to his empty plot.

The Air Force kept the family informed about its efforts to find Adam, who was an airman first class at the time of the crash. “For all this time they’ve been searching. They just don’t give up,” his father, Ken Adam, said. “They keep looking.”

He knows because the Air Force sent letter after letter to the house on Longwood, detailing the search.

Identifications made

In 2002, the military excavated a site and found identification for at least one crew member. Slowly the pieces came together.

Eventually, Adam was identified through dental records and DNA. He was one of only five crew members positively identified.

Military officials recovered hundreds of bone fragments and other items that took years to process, said Larry Greer, spokesman for the Pentagon’s POW/MIA office. Forensic scientists went to great lengths to identify even the smallest pieces.

In May, the military called the same house on Longwood to share the latest news: Their son was identified. He was headed home.

It was cause for celebration and tears.

“I come and go,” Graybill said, wiping away tears last week. She’ll never stop wondering what her big brother might have been.

“I thought about it a lot,” she said.

But now she at least has closure. Her brother was buried last week.