Empty chairs, missing soldiers
By DARRYL R. ISHERWOOD Staff Writer
For many families, Christmas is a time of homecomings, a time to reconnect with family and friends and celebrate the season of giving.
But others sitting down for Christmas dinner today will be faced with the empty chairs left by loved ones - soldiers who have never returned home.
Cynthia Lathrop remembers vividly the last time she saw her little brother, Steven Rusch. It was just weeks before Christmas in 1969, and Rusch met with his family to give them early Christmas presents before shipping out to Vietnam.
The mahjong set he gave her that day was the last gift she received from her younger brother, who is still missing, 32 years after his plane was shot down during a combat mission.
"We got the phone call that his plane had been shot down," said Lathrop, who was 33 when she learned of her then-30-year-old brother's fate. "But the information was very oblique. There was nothing detailed about it. It was sort of like it just ended."
Lathrop, who now lives outside San Diego, is one of thousands of family members of U.S. soldiers across the country who have received that dreaded call that their loved ones are missing.
According to Department of Defense statistics, more than 88,000 soldiers remain missing from all of the country's conflicts, 1,845 from the Vietnam War alone.
Nearly all, like Rusch, are presumed dead, but still their families are forced to wonder, having never gotten the closure that comes with receiving a loved one's remains.
Without a grave to visit or a confirmation of death, survivors are forced to remember in their own ways - some with rituals and some just in their everyday actions.
Around the holidays, Lathrop said, she particularly appreciates the efforts of the government, as well as communities and private groups, in remembering soldiers like Rusch and their families.
Even small remembrances help, she said.-- -- --
Four years ago, the Hamilton Township Council created its own way to honor the missing when it designated a chair in the council chamber to remain unoccupied. The chair is draped in black and bears a patch showing the now-famous POW/MIA insignia - a man with his head bowed standing in front of a guard tower over the words, "You Are Not Forgotten." It was designed by the National League of POW/MIA Families in 1971.
Attached to the chair is a placard, which reads: "This Seat Reserved in Honor of Our American Prisoners of War and Missing in Action."
The eternally empty chair sits by the wall at the front of the room to signify the empty places left by veterans who have never returned home. It was a joint effort between Councilman Dan Benson and a resident, Bill Opferman, who is a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Opferman has worked with national POW/MIA groups since the late 1970s and said he has met several families who have loved ones that never came home. It was to honor those people that he and Benson placed the chair in the council chamber.
"The chair stays empty to represent the missing," Opferman said. "It is in the council chamber in their place."
Opferman made the black shroud that covers the chair and donated it to the council.-- -- -- Several area veterans' groups also have solemn ceremonies to honor the missing.
According to Bill Bongard, a Vietnam veteran and former commander of VFW Post 3525 in Hamilton, his group honors the missing with an elaborate ceremony centered around an empty table and chairs.
The "missing-man table" is surrounded by six empty chairs to signify the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and civilians. During a moment of silence, an honor guard places the hats, known as "covers" in the military, of each branch at a spot on the table, along with a civilian hat.
The table is also adorned with an inverted glass to signify that the missing cannot share in a toast, a slice of lemon to signify the bitter fate of the captured and missing, a pinch of salt to symbolize the tears of the family and loved ones, a red rose in a vase to remind people of the missing and the loved ones who wait for answers, and a Bible to represent the strength gained through faith to sustain the lost.
"It's a moving ceremony that we try to do a few times a year," Bongard said. "We try to figure it in with a few functions so that new people that are at the post can get some insight into how we honor the missing."
Though Steven Rusch, a 1961 graduate of the Hun School in Princeton Township, has been missing since March 7, 1972, his sister has never received much information about his demise. His body was never recovered, and the Department of Defense still has him listed as missing, but presumed dead.
Cynthia Lathrop knows only the bits of information about his last days that she has been able to gather in 32 years. But it is not enough.
"I know only that a navigator scheduled for a flight was sick, and Steve volunteered for the flight," she remembers. "He was due to go on R&R, but he volunteered and he never came back. It's horrendous because we never got any closure. He was listed as missing for eight years and then he was just listed as presumed dead."
Even the official records are sketchy. The Department of Defense lists Rusch's "country of casualty" as Laos, but Lathrop is sure she was told he was shot down over Cambodia. His official "date of incident" is given as March 7, 1972, but Lathrop said the date on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., says something different.
"I have tried to get it changed, but I have never gotten anywhere," she said.-- -- -- According to Larry Greer, director of public affairs for the Department of Defense's POW and MIA office, missing soldiers are largely a phenomenon of the past.
During the 30 years since the end of the Vietnam War, only one soldier - Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, who was shot down over Iraq during Desert Storm - has been listed as missing in action, though the United States has been involved in several military conflicts since, Greer said.
Greer attributed the decline to better training and technology.
"What it means is we are smarter than we used to be about keeping track of our people," Greer said. "With each conflict we learn lessons about how to better account for our people that are in harm's way."
Greer said pilots and rescue teams go through extensive training to ensure that men are not left behind when their planes go down behind enemy lines.
The U.S. government remembers the missing each September on National POW/MIA recognition day, which takes place on the third Friday in September. It is one of six days when the black commemorative flag is required by law to fly over federal buildings.
But Greer said while honoring the missing in ceremonies is important, bringing them home is what really matters.
"To me, the most important way to remember who these people are and what they did is by what we are doing here," he said, referring to the government's efforts to locate and identify remains of missing soldiers.
"The nation has told the government to go out and bring these guys back. They gave up their lives, so the least we can do is bring them home with honor."