The Vernon Dahmer family is one of the most patriotic families in America.

Six of his seven sons served a total of 78 years in the armed forces, and on Wednesday we said goodbye to Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Vernon Dahmer Jr., one of the finest men I’ve ever known.

The first time I met him in 1994, I thought I was gazing at a ghost. He had his father’s distinctive features — a barrel-chested frame, closely cropped hair and a narrowly trimmed mustache across his upper lip.

The more we talked, the more I marveled at the similarities we shared. We had both been named after fathers we admired, and we both had family nicknames. His was “Bo,” and mine was “Boo.”

He led me to a table where he showed me a photograph taken by Chris McNair, whose daughter and three other girls had been killed in 1963 when the Ku Klux Klan bombed a Birmingham church.

The picture showed Vernon Jr., and three brothers, George, Martinez and Alvin. They were dressed in their uniforms, staring at the ashes of what had been their family home.

On Jan. 10, 1966, two carloads of Klansmen launched firebombs into the Forrest County home and the family’s grocery store, where Vernon Sr. had volunteered to let Black Mississippians pay their poll taxes so they could vote. (The state had adopted these taxes in its 1890 Constitution in hopes of barring Black Mississippians from voting.)

Another firebomb hit the family’s 1964 Ford Fairlane, setting it ablaze and causing the horn to stick. Dahmer’s wife, Ellie, stirred to the blare of the car horn, smelling smoke. She yelled out, “Vernon, I believe they got us this time.”

He jumped out of bed and grabbed a shotgun, loaded with double-aught buckshot. He fired back at Klansmen so that his family could escape safely out a back window. Unfortunately, the flames of the fire seared his lungs, and he died later that day.

Vernon Jr. was in the Air Force at the time, defending his country. He flew back home to find his father dead and his family home burned to the ground. “To come home and see what happened was totally devastating,” he said.

He had to handle the horrible details, such as the funeral and finding a new place for the family to live while the curious press swarmed around the cinders. “I didn’t have time to cry,” he told me.

He drove me to the Shady Grove Baptist Church, which his ancestors had started before slavery ended, and led me to a rose-tinted headstone that read, “Vernon Dahmer Sr., March 10, 1908—January 10, 1966.”

“If my dad hadn’t been killed by the Klan, he would have had an opportunity to see his grandkids grow up and enjoy the life that those who killed him are still enjoying,” he said. “He was killed for no reason, no valid reason other than hate.”

Despite that hate, the family had endured. Ellie Dahmer served for a dozen years as election commissioner in a mostly white county, and Vernon Jr. helped found the African American Military History Museum.

Not long after our meeting, he began to get calls from a mystery man who wouldn’t identify himself but said he had information on his father’s case. In 1997, we met that man, Bob Stringer, in a motel room on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. 

Vernon Jr. asked what prompted him to come forward, and Stringer replied, “I saw you and your family on TV. You were saying how that you were sure there were some people out there who knew something vital that could help get the case reopened.”

Those words resonated with Stringer, who shared how he had overheard Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers give the order to kill Vernon Dahmer Sr. “It’s been a deep, dark secret for 30 years,” he said. “It took me so long to handle it.”

Stringer began cooperating with the Forrest County District Attorney’s office and the Mississippi attorney general’s office, which managed to get a copy of the unredacted FBI file on the case. The more than 40,000 pages enabled authorities to piece the case back together.

They met with the Dahmer family, whose quiet courage inspired them to work even harder. After then-Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore spent the day with the Dahmer family, he tucked a photograph of the family in his car visor, a reminder that justice had yet to be done.

In spring 1998, authorities arrested Bowers, who went on trial before summer ended. In previous trials, all-white juries refused to convict, but this time would be different. Vernon Jr. was sitting in the balcony, watching the trial unfold when he finally heard the words he longed to hear: “Guilty.”

He covered his face with his fingers, tears streaming behind his calloused hands. He finally had time to cry.

Back at their home, the family gathered on the front lawn beneath the shade of the towering oaks. Friends drove by. They honked their horns and yelled out in victory.

Before darkness fell, he drove to a quiet cemetery and stared at a familiar rose-tinted headstone that read, “Vernon Dahmer Sr. Husband, Father, Community Leader, Voting Rights Activist.” He fell to his knees, telling his daddy that he could rest in peace now because justice had finally come.

On Wednesday, the man I admired and loved so much was buried in the same cemetery with his father.