Return of warriors' remains may be just a couple of swabs away

Kansas City Star

September 08, 2007

At 73, he still aches for his twin brother. He remembers him every time he hears about another military death.

Missing in action. Possibly drowned in Vietnam. That's all Warren Patton really knows. His brother's body was never found.

But Sept. 1 as he read The Kansas City Star in Greeley, Kan., he saw a name -- Ward K. Patton -- on a list of MIAs. The military was looking for the next of kin of 28 missing service members from Kansas and Missouri.

His hands started shaking. Could it be?

In Lee's Summit, Lois Wright and her husband, Eldon, were reading the paper as part of their breakfast ritual when a relative called. Had she seen the list of MIAs?

There it was. Korea ... Sgt. Robert L. Wright. Goosebumps. Then she screamed: 'Eldon! They've found Bob! They think they've found him!'

Her husband was sobbing. More than she'd seen him cry in their 55 years together.

A military unit based in Hawaii is bringing hope for families like the Pattons and Wrights whose loved ones never came home from war.

'My blood pressure is up 20 points,' said Warren Patton. 'I try not to think about it, but I can't. ... I have disbelief, then relief.

'It's quite a thing if it's confirmed.'

A cheek swab with a lick of DNA will answer the question.

** ** **

Patton recalls everything the military told his family.

His brother was a petty officer first class. His boat was docked in the My Tho River in South Vietnam. Around 10:30 the night of July 27, 1968, Ward Patton lost his footing on a ramp and slipped under the swift current. Although the Navy looked for days, he never was found.

Warren thinks a lot about Ward. What would he have done with his life? What were his brother's last thoughts? And what if Ward didn't drown but was captured and killed by the Viet Cong?

Warren even had to stop seeing his brother's children. The two had looked so much alike that just his appearance gave Ward's then-6-year-old son, Eric, nightmares.

The boy grew up to become a police officer in Kansas City, Kan. For years, Eric Patton said, he struggled with the loss, fantasizing that his father was still alive, a victim of amnesia, a prisoner-of-war survivor.

'I remember this all so well. I was little, but I was furious when the Navy told my family that they were going to stop looking for him,' he said. 'But now, the idea that maybe we might have possession of my father's remains, that he'd be here with his family ... that would be awesome!

'Thirty-nine years. ... We'll have to wait a little longer.'

** ** **

The military teams face many challenges, not the least of which is time.

The elderly witnesses of these wars, the native Koreans and Laotians and Vietnamese and Cambodians, are dying, said Lt. Col. Mark Brown, public information officer for the military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii.

The experts investigate possible battle sites and places where witnesses remember crashes or graves. Construction in these areas is changing the landscape, sometimes ensuring that the dead will remain lost forever.

At least 1,200 sets of remains wait at Hickam Air Force Base for DNA confirmation, with a smaller number all but identified.

Confirming an identification is labor-intensive. But the families deserve certainty, Brown said.

The accounting command does what it can to find relatives -- and welcomes the help of volunteers -- but most of its efforts are focused on finding and identifying remains.

More than anything, the teams want to connect families with their loved ones.

** ** **

For the Wrights, the likelihood that Bob's remains have been recovered opens up pain decades old.

Eldon sobbed not only because of his grief, but because he remembered an experience he'd never told anyone about, not even his wife.

It was 1951. He was in the Navy, serving on a ship in Japan. His brother was in the Army. Eldon knew Bob had been captured and was in a Korean POW camp. His family back home in Platte City agonized.

But then Eldon's captain summoned him to his quarters, telling Eldon that Bob had died of malnutrition.

Eldon asked permission to leave the ship. He walked to a Shinto temple and sat on its steps. He cried, trying to empty himself of a grief that seemed unending.

That's when he felt a presence. And a peace. He knew it was his brother. He heard his voice, too: Don't worry about me. I'll be all right.

He looked around but saw nothing. Just a temple. Some steps. The world pressing on. He told no one, afraid of what people might think. Instead, he buried it deep.

The name in the paper brought everything back, like yesterday.

Lois listened to her husband. She hugged him. She didn't say a word.

They want the world to know this: Even if the DNA they send in is not a match, their family is moved by what the military is doing.

'To know that somebody out there is still looking, and that it matters to them ... that's pretty great,' Lois said.

The couple dusted off Bob's photograph. And since Sept. 1, they've been looking into the face of someone they've lost.

And maybe now, someone they've found.

Seeking family members

The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command encourages anyone who is a family member of an MIA or POW to go to www.jpac.pacom.mil to see whether a DNA swab is needed.

The accounting command has 28 active cases from Missouri and Kansas, including Ward K. Patton and Robert L. Wright. In active cases, the command thinks it has identified remains but needs DNA confirmation.

Here are the other active MIA/POW cases in the two states, and the year the service members were born:

MISSOURI

** World War II: Herbert J. Hoard, 1905.

** Korea: William M. Barnard, 1932; Wardell A. Bell, 1925; Lee R. Cawley, 1933; Wilbert S. Ford, 1930; Danny J. Handley, 1931; Elton T. Henry, 1925; Roy L. Howell, 1931; James N. Larkin, 1917; Albert L. Price, 1931; Vivian W. Rhoads, 1930; Leonard Scott Jr., 1931; James N. Wilson, 1928; and James H. Yeley, 1931.

** Southeast Asia: Floyd D. Caldwell, 1934.

KANSAS

** World War II: Verne L. Gibb, birth date unknown.

** Korea: Earl B. Boyle, 1925; Charles R. Busch, 1932; Percy C. Carroll, 1925; Roy E. Elliott, 1920; John O. Gibson, 1914; Melvin L. Johnson, 1931; Edward D. Kuhn, 1928; William M. Kunkel, 1921; Vernon G. Schieffer, 1924; and Richard E. Smith, 1930.

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