'Who Will Be Iraq's Unknown Soldier?'
By James T. Moore (06/22/07)
The absolute worst things about the Iraq War are the same things that happen in any war--- a certain number of military personnel who are KIA (killed in action) can be officially identified and accounted for as dead. This obviously causes an unexpected shock and heart-rending grief for the victim's family.
In every war there are also a much larger number of military personnel who are WIA (wounded in action) where a family’s sadness and grief is no less traumatic; sometimes even more so, since the seriously wounded soldier might require therapy and family support and attention for many years to come.
And then there is the soldier who is MIA (missing in action) which may be the most tragic circumstance of all, because the “unknown” is a unique kind of family heart breaker. Days and nights of waiting and praying never end. Faith is strained to the breaking point. Watching and waiting for news, any news, often becomes an unbearable ritual. A period of “healing” is impossible because a definitive answer is seldom, if ever, forthcoming. Darkness reigns supreme.
The tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery—until his recent identification-- testifies to the sadness and empathy America shared with the family members of this “forgotten” soldier who, in their late years, had been still wondering if the remains of that unknown warrior might have been a member of their own family.
And then, yesterday I received an e-mail with the headline: Soldier Missing in Action from World War II Identified. It gave me the chills.
The Department of Defense announced that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War II, had just been identified and has been returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He was Pvt. Lawrence P. Burkett, U.S. Army, of Jefferson, North Carolina.
Pvt. Burkett was fighting in Germany in December, 1944. In May 2006, U.S. officials were notified that a German citizen had found and dug up the remains of a possible American soldier in a wartime fighting trench in the Dillingen Forest near Saarbruken. The officials traveled to the site and collected Burkett’s remains with his I.D. tags and social security card.
It seems that Pvt. Burkett was in Company A, 357th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division, which had the assignment of breaching the south end of the enemy’s “West Wall” near the city of Saarbruken. Burkett’s regiment was occupying a bridgehead in the Dilligen Forest near the Saar River when the Germans launched a devastating counterattack. The regiment suffered many casualties, and on December 11th, Burkett was among those soldiers listed as missing in action.
There was is no mistaking the identity of Burkett’s remains, because in September 2006, a team of POW/MIA experts excavated the burial site in the Dilligen Forest and recovered additional human remains and material evidence. Furthermore, dental records and DNA further confirmed the identification of Pvt. Burkett’s remains.
And so, I began to think about the trauma and uncertainty that members of the Burkett family have endured for the past 60 years, not knowing whether Lawrence was dead or alive; and how they were affected by finally learning the truth about him.
That got me thinking… beyond Pvt. Burkett.
I wondered about the thousands upon thousands of American families who have waited, and some waiting still, for any news they can get about a loved one who has become just another “unknown soldier” in the terrible wars of the past.
And now, I am thinking about the sorrow and uncertainly being borne by the loved ones of military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan who have been listed as MIA. They live in a kind of surreal limbo, praying that they may soon hear one way or another. But as each day passes, hope weakens, faith is shaken, optimism fades, and life has lost much of its luster.
For them, war is a special kind of hell.
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