News-Info-Alerts

Re: DPMO Family Briefing

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: August 25, 2003

"POW/MIA officials meet with families for updates on those lost

By Pamela Sitt Seattle Times staff reporter

ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE

Marilyn Walters' brother Leland "Mikey" Walters died in a North Korean POW camp 52 years ago. She's reflected in a compact he sent her from boot camp.

The small gold compact with the cracked mirror is a gift from "Mikey," the skinny older brother who shipped out the day after Christmas, 1950, and never came home. Marilyn Walters calls the compact her "pride and joy."

"My sister's came in perfect condition; mine came cracked," she said almost proudly, holding the never-used but long-cherished trinket in a slightly shaking hand.

It is one of the last memories Walters has of her favorite brother, who was born Leland Ralph Walters — but everyone called him Mikey — and who died one day after his 21st birthday as a prisoner in the Korean War on July 31, 1951.

Yesterday, Walters, 68, of Everett, joined about 100 others searching for information about loved ones lost to conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, the Cold War and World War II, at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue. There, in a third-floor ballroom, they were briefed by U.S. government officials on ongoing efforts to locate the remains of soldiers missing in action, tracing back to the start of WWII.

"You can think of it as a massive detective's case in which we have 88,000 who are missing," said Larry Greer of the Pentagon's Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. "Those who did not come home, we find them and bring them home."

Yesterday's daylong meeting was one of the monthly gatherings organized by the POW/MIA Office in cities across the country. It was the third to be held in Washington state. Established in 1993, the government agency has met more than 8,000 family members face-to-face with information about missing servicemen, Greer said.

For Donna Lewallen Atkins, of Clatskanie, Ore., news of her late father yesterday came bound in plastic in the form of an inch-thick government report — complete with pictures, lab reports and investigative notes — documenting the successful search for her father's remains.

"It's overwhelming," said Atkins, 62, whose father, Donald Lewallen, died in a Navy plane crash when she was 2 years old. "I can't wait to get some quiet time to sit down and be able to read it."

Her uncle, Ken Lewallen of Port Orchard, grew up hearing stories from his older brothers about the eldest brother he doesn't remember.

"(Donna's) father brought the family closer together," said Lewallen, 64.

To assist families such as the Lewallens, the federal government employs 600 specialists stationed around the world and spends about $103 million each year, Greer said.


"It's a very rewarding job," he said. "I've begun to see that even in the sorrow, the loss associated with death, there can be some joy that comes from seeing family members get closure."

Walters, the baby sister to Mikey, holds on to a cautious hope that someday she might hear that her brother's remains have been found. Her tangible memories of Mikey — letters, telegrams and black-and-white photographs — she keeps wrapped in plastic in a cedar chest in her bedroom.

This memory she holds close to her heart: He always called her "Queenie," she said, but on the eve of his death, he wrote a letter that started "Dear Marilyn."

"He had never called me Marilyn," said Walters softly, her pale blue eyes watering behind her glasses. "Mikey was letting me know, 'I'm gonna die and you need to grow up now.' "

Pamela Sitt: 206-464-2291 or psitt@seattletimes.com

©2003 The Seattle Times Company "