Technically, Memorial Day was yesterday, but I woke up today thinking that it was time to share this piece again. It's from my book Honoring Our Ancestors and I wrote it about half a dozen years ago shortly after I started working on the U.S. Army's Repatriation Project. I continue to work on that project, and I suppose it's only appropriate that I received a fresh batch of cases yesterday.
I think this story came to mind because we had my mother interred at Arlington National Cemetery two weeks ago. There's some comfort in knowing that the resting place of your loved one will always be well maintained, and I like to think there's some comfort in this piece, too. To all those vets out there, a million thanks!
Arlington National Cemetery is a blustery place in November. Hundreds of rows of neatly aligned, memorial markers sprinkle the landscape as far as one can see, but there is little to prevent the wind from having its way with the living who venture among this ocean of white stones. Forewarned, I had donned long underwear under my black suit and winter coat, but I still found myself shivering as I attended the funeral of a man I had never known.
He wasn’t my ancestor. In fact, I’m not related to him in any way. But as a so-called “Army brat,” I felt privileged to have the unexpected honor of accepting the flag on behalf of his family. The head of the honor guard, usually so stoic, allowed a trace of emotion to pass across his face as he handed me the flag, and I knew that he was relieved someone was there to receive it.
How did I find myself in this peculiar situation? I’m a researcher for the U.S. Army’s Korean Repatriation project. In the years 1950-1953, thousands of American men died or went missing in Korea. Now, half a century later, U.S.-Korean relations are warming up. One consequence has been the return or “repatriation” of the remains of some of our anonymous soldiers.
Over the last five decades the Army has lost track of the families of many of these soldiers. In most instances, the next of kin were parents who have since passed away. In other cases, they were siblings or wives who have moved, changed names, or are now deceased. Two generations have intervened and little has remained stagnant in our mobile, churning world. It is my job to find these families again.
When I succeed, the Army contacts the family and conducts mitochondrial DNA tests to positively identify the remains of the soldiers. When a match is made, the soldier can be laid to rest and his family can release itself from a fifty-year limbo of not knowing. Siblings, wives, children, cousins, and ever-so-rarely, an aged parent finally have a place to go to pay their respects to the loved one who gave his life for his country.
When I make the first contact with a soldier’s family, the initial reaction is generally one of quiet disbelief. This is almost always followed by questions, cooperation and even gratitude. It gives me tremendous pleasure to have some small role in bringing these soldiers home to their families. My father served in Vietnam and I had a dear cousin who was killed there. I can’t say that I can put myself in the shoes of these startled family members when I cold call my way into their lives, but I’m familiar enough with their world to know that most of them are pleased to be found.
So I was rather surprised when I learned that the family of one of “my” soldiers was not coming to his funeral. The ceremony was scheduled, but only the priest and the honor guard would be there. Today’s sophisticated technology was rendering the “unknown soldier” an antiquated concept, but in so doing, was revealing the almost sadder notion of the occasional “forgotten soldier.”
It is understandable to some extent. In many cases, these soldiers have already been grieved twice – first, when they were listed as missing in action and again, when they were officially declared deceased. Perhaps it is just too painful to enter the mourning process a third time, half a century later. Preserved in their survivors’ memories as heroic, young men, the very mention of these soldiers’ names may well return people to a time of young widows and untapped potential. Maybe this explained the absence of this particular soldier’s family on that gusty November day.
I suppose it was easier for me, a stranger who knew him only through documents and the voices of his relatives on the telephone, to attend his funeral. I only knew that his sacrifice needed to be acknowledged by someone, and so it was in that strange way that life has, that I found myself receiving the flag from the coffin of a man who had died ten years before I was born.
He is no longer unknown, and at least as long as I live, this soldier will not be forgotten.