Lingering questions hardest on survivors
by
Alison Walker-Baird
News-Post Staff
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Catherine Smith still pauses when she sees an older man with jet black hair and deep brown eyes. More than 55 years after her brother left for the Korean War and never came home, Smith struggles to keep from looking for him.
U.S. Army Master Sgt. Ira Miss Jr., a Frederick native who would have turned 80 this year, was 23 when the military declared him missing in action in 1951. His remains have never been identified.
Since World War II, more than 88,000 troops have been declared missing in action or prisoners of war, their remains never returned to loved ones. These family members, living for decades with no body, often with no answers, battle with the loss - and the pain may never end.
Difficulty in grieving this type of death, known as ambiguous loss, is normal, experts in death and bereavement say.
"In the majority of cases, sadly, not having a body, not even being sure a person is dead, is going to result in a lifetime of complicated grief and mourning," said Terry Martin, a Hood College professor and expert in death, dying and bereavement.
U.S. Army Sgt. Brendon Bowen, a guard relief commander for the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, said families still waiting for a loved one to be recovered and identified sometimes watch over the service members whose remains rest in the tomb.
"They sort of have peace inside after coming down here," he said. "It's really, for that moment that they're down here, they're interacting with their son again or their grandfather again."
Roadblock to healing
The Miss family plot in Frederick's Mount Olivet Cemetery holds Ira's still-empty grave. On a flat, gray marble stone, his name and Army rank are engraved above his date of birth - Dec. 18, 1927 - and the date he's believed to have died in a North Korean prison camp - June 1, 1951.
At 81, Catherine has clung to her brother's promise he would come home alive, she said while sitting at her kitchen table in Martinsburg, W.Va.
To truly accept a person has died, loved ones often must see a body, cremated remains or personal items - such as a wedding ring or watch - with their own eyes, said Dana Cable, a Hood College professor and expert on death, dying and bereavement.
Families may continue to hold out hope their loved one is alive for years after the death, he said, often with the fear that giving up would betray the service member's memory.
"No one wants to admit someone's gone permanently," he said. "As long as I hold out hope, he's alive somewhere."
Stephanie Frogge directs survivor services for the Washington-based Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a non-profit organization that provides support to families of deceased service members.
"There's a point at which this is not head stuff," she said. "The head knows, but the heart takes a lot longer to convince."
Frogge said families may naturally speculate about what happened, imagining that perhaps their missing loved one was called to a secret government mission, rather than believe that person is dead.
"You can't cope with something if you can't comprehend what happened," she said. "How do you offset that magical thinking many people have? In the absence of a body, who's to say that's really weird thinking?"
Closure difficult, not impossible
The possibility, however unlikely, the service member is alive means survivors often struggle between their desire to move on and accept the loss, and their hope the person could still be alive or that remains will be found, Martin said.
Family and friends of troops missing in action are not the only mourners to face this battle: Other cases in which bodies aren't recovered, such as plane crashes or the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, have left countless loved ones without closure.
"I'd like to be more optimistic for these families and these individuals, and I think that many of them can, in fact, move on and have meaningful lives," Martin said. "But there's always going to be an aching emptiness that can't be filled."
When a body is present, loved ones attend funerals or memorial services and burials. In the absence of remains or confirmation of death, experts recommend other strategies to find peace and resolution.
Many families choose to visit or fly over the location of the death to feel close to the deceased, Frogge said.
Survivors may find comfort in erecting a grave marker or other site to visit or pray near, or they might choose to bury pictures or belongings in place of a body.
"Whether they want to believe they're alive or not, it's something that they can acknowledge, that part of reality you can go to and then come home and deny it again," Cable said.
On a steamy June morning at the Arlington cemetery, Sgt. Bowen reflected on the Tomb of the Unknown's lone inscription, "Here Rests In Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God."
Like the thousands of troops still unaccounted for, those interred at the tomb sacrificed not only their lives but their identities - the ultimate sacrifice, he said.
Bowen believes visiting the tomb has helped families of unrecovered service members find closure.
"Everyone that comes down, it's their son or their father," he said. "I think it's good they're unknown, in that."
