Michael Chinberg – Captain, United States Air Force

From a contemporary press report:

July 11, 1995:

CONCORD, New Hampshire – The widow of a Gulf War veteran won the right to have her husband’s body transferred to Arlington National Cemetery, but she failed to get any money from his insurance policy.

In a unanimous decision, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that April Sloane Chinburg, widow of Air Force Captain Michael Chinburg, could move her husband’s remains from the Durham Community Cemetery to Arlington National Cemetery. The justices, in their June 14 decision, said evidence showed April Chinburg did not willingly consent to having her husband buried in the Durham cemetery, but she conceded with the understanding the defendants, his parents, would allow her to be buried with her husband.

“This understanding was vitiated by new and unforeseen events occurring since the burial,” the court said.

Chinburg, 26, of Durham, was the second of five New Hampshire casualties of the Persian Gulf War. His F-16 crashed in Saudi Arabia on January 8, 1991.

April Chinburg also sought $100,000 from a private life insurance policy that was paid to late pilot’s parents, Dale and Ellen Chinburg. He had bought the policy before his marriage. The Supreme Court upheld a Strafford County Superior Court ruling that April Chinburg failed to prove her late husband had instructed his father to change the designated beneficiaries. April and Michael Chinburg met while he was training at McDill Air Force Base in Florida, and his parents have said the marriage was a mistake.

Michael Robert Patterson

Michael Robert Patterson was born in Arlington and is the son of a former officer of the US Army. So it was no wonder that sooner or later his interests drew him to American history and especially to American military history. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia.

Reviewed by: Michael Howard