Milo Coghill was born on June 18, 1930, in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force on October 17, 1950, and after completing basic training he was trained as an aircraft mechanic. Amn Coghill next completed B-36 Peacemaker aircraft and engine mechanic training, and then served as a B-36 mechanic from 1951 to 1956. After completing aircrew familiarization training, Sgt Coghill served as a C-123 Provider crew chief with the 377th Troop Carrier Squadron at Dreux-Louvilliers AB, France, from July 1956 to September 1958, and then as a C-119 Flying Boxcar flight mechanic with the 10th Troop Carrier Squadron at Dreux-Louvillier from October 1958 to June 1959. His next assignment was as an aircraft maintenance technician with the 4500th Operations Squadron at Langley AFB, Virginia, from August 1959 to January 1962, when he deployed to Southeast Asia as part of Operation Ranch Hand attached to the 464th Troop Carrier Wing at Tan Son Nhut AB, South Vietnam. SSgt Coghill became the first Air Force enlisted person to die in South Vietnam when the C-123 he was flying aboard crashed in South Vietnam on February 2, 1962. Milo Coghill is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.