Remember the Unknowns

I have only been to one American cemetary-Luxembourg in 1976.  I had wanted to go to Normandy where my father went in facing hells fire on Omaha Beach in the first wave of D-Day.  But only if I could get him to come over to Germany and go with me.  For me it would have been a bonding of parent and son, and for him, a healing.  He and the hundreds of thousands of other GI's not only freed a continent, but through the American spirit, they also set Europe on a course to become a vibrant, and peaceful member of the community of man.  But he didn't want to come.  The memories born on that cold, foggy morning in June were too much for him to overcome, so neither of us went. 

Luxemburg American Cemetary is the final resting place of George S. Patton, a cross placed above his grave, no bigger, no grander than the over 5,000 grave stones that glisten in the sunlight, laid row on row, symbolizing the loss of just some of America's youth of the Depression.  It's a beautiful place until you realize that every one of those service members died in the most horrific way imaginable. 

Among those stones of white, I stumbled across one that said "Here rests in honored glory, a comrade in arms known but to God," He was an Unknown..One of 389 unknowns resting in eternal peace.  Their parents are long gone..Wives and girlfriends may give a fleeting thought if a flicker of a memory still remains..Fatherless daughters and fatherless sons.  I checked the Unknowns at several other American cemetaries in Europe and found 389 in Florence, Italy..Actually there are 390..Two bodies were entwined together and unidentifiable.  'The number I came up with was nearly a thousand Unknowns, just in those three cemetaries I knew of.  The saying "no man left behind" is a myth.  To date there are over 78,000 Missing in Action from WWII alone.  It's said that 35,000 of those are recoverable but most are not.  2005 service member are still Missing in Action from Vietnam.  Slowly some are being recovered.  Our relationship with Vietnam is fairly good since they discovered American clothing can be made cheaply there.  They are working with recovery teams to bring them home but it is a slow process and it's doubtful many more will be found,  It is the true legacy of war.

It's hard to say how many Unknowns there are total from all sides.  But even the families of our enemies need to know the fate of their loved ones.  The cost of war is unimaginable, as one soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who perishes at war sends ripples through the lives of those left behind.  Scars that will never heal.

We will never not have war.  The threats from others are multiplying and we will continue to lose future presidents, Nobel prize winners, or sons working their father's farm in Iowa.  Those of us who wore the uniform went in eyes wide open, knowing that we might have to give, as Abraham Lincoln put so perfectly, "The last full measure of devotion".  But with DNA testing, one thing we can be sure of, there will never be another Unknown lying on a battlefield in some foreign land.