News-Info-Alerts

Re: Families Seek Answers

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: November 11, 2002

"Families of missing seek answers
By George Merritt
Special to The Denver Post

Monday, November 11, 2002 - John Lopez refuses to bury an empty box.

Post / Brian Brainerd

"There is nothing left of him," said Lopez, a 65-year-old retired postal worker from Lakewood. "If I could just have something of his - his pack, some personal pictures, even his boots. But nothing has ever come."

And while the nation carries out the solemn rituals of Veterans Day - visiting cemeteries, watching parades, attending memorial services - the families of soldiers whose remains have never been recovered find themselves revisiting unanswered questions.

Today's holiday also brings added poignancy for Lopez and others like him as they remain mindful of the troops still stationed in Afghanistan and of the thousands more who may soon be heading to Iraq.

Dozens of Colorado families live without knowing what happened to their loved ones. From the Vietnam War alone, the remains of 31 Colorado men - and 1,947 nationwide - have not been returned home. The despair over never knowing leaves families frustrated, confused and even angry.

Rod Utech, president of the Colorado POW/MIA Coalition, said lives can be destroyed when answers about family members never come.

"They are looking for closure," Utech said. "These were friends and brothers and family members. It's hard because they could go to their grave not knowing."

For 57-year-old Littleton resident Leo Hrdlicka, the search for closure has become a struggle for truth.

Col. David Hrdlicka, Leo's brother, was a pilot in the Air Force in Vietnam. He was listed as missing after his plane was shot down on a mission in 1965.

A year after the crash, Leo, also a pilot in the war, was stationed in China when he saw a picture of his brother on the front page of a Russian propaganda newspaper.

David was still in his flight suit, walking in front of an armed man. The story bragged that he was a prisoner. It was the last time David was known to be alive.

When American prisoners were released from Vietnam in 1973, David was not among them and the military declared him dead. His family still can't understand why.

"There is nothing to say that my brother is dead," Leo Hrdlicka said, "but we have proof that he was alive."

The Hrdlicka family has been fighting for a resolution for more than 30 years. Leo said the struggle has been gut-wrenching. He remains deeply patriotic, but said he doesn't believe the government has done enough to make sure there are no more prisoners.

John Lopez and his family have learned little about Joseph Lopez's fate since 1950.

Joe was 20 and fighting near Chochiwon, South Korea, when his unit was overrun by enemy forces.

John Lopez, who was 13 at the time his brother disappeared, said the military has offered the family a burial plot near the family's home for years, but his mother always refused.

"She didn't want to bury a box," Lopez said. "It would not really be him."

Lopez has sent letters to countless soldiers, senators and then-President Clinton, but his search for information has turned up nothing.

"He would be old now," Lopez said. "But he could still be alive. Or maybe not. It is just the not knowing that is so hard."

Not knowing has been a frustration for the better part of Lopez's life. He clips newspaper articles about prisoners of war, and after five decades his eyes still tear when he thinks about never getting answers.

"I could die like my parents did," Lopez said. "I could die without ever knowing what happened to him."

Copyright 2002 The Denver Post "