Guard pilot killed in Val. crash mourned in Mass.

LONGMEADOW, Mass. (AP) — The widow of an Air National Guard pilot who died in an F-15 jet crash in Virginia says members of his Massachusetts wing unit planted 40 rose bushes in her yard to mark her birthday.

Kara Fontenot said at memorial gathering at the Longmeadow Town Green Saturday evening she was overwhelmed by the hundreds of friends and neighbors who came to pay their respects to her husband, Lt. Col. Morris “Moose” Fontenot Jr. of Longmeadow.

She said her husband promised to plant the bushes and his fellow airmen landscaped their yard to carry out his promise.

He died last Wednesday when the F-15 fighter jet he was flying crashed in Virginia.

Fontenot was a member of the 104th Fighter Wing in Westfield and was a career military pilot.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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