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Escort mission of downed Air Force pilot brings perspective
Posted 8/31/2011
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Commentary by Maj. Todd Ladd
Pacific Air Forces Sustainment Services Branch
8/31/2011 - JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii (AFNS) -- On March 26, 1970, Maj. Richard Elzinga was flying in an O-1 Birddog on one of his first missions in the Vietnam War, when the plane lost contact and presumably went down in Laos. Until just recently, Elzinga was classified as missing in action.
In early July 2011, I had the solemn honor to escort home the identified remains of Elzinga to his family for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, Va. This mission provided me with an amazing amount of perspective, and I wanted to take the opportunity to pass along some of my observations and reflections.
Prior to departing Hawaii for Arlington National Ceremony, I met with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command to begin my duty as escort for Elzinga. They gave me a brief history of Elzinga's case and talked to me about how the identification was resolved. They also outlined the dedicated and painstaking process of how they continue to investigate the thousands of Airmen, Soldiers, Marines and Sailors still unaccounted for from past conflicts.
As I learned from them, the men and women of JPAC go out every year on countless investigative missions across the world to identify service members still unaccounted for. Their mission doesn't stop once they find remains, as they then work with the branches of service, the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, as well as families of the missing in an attempt to gain iron-clad identification.
During my travels from Honolulu to Washington, D.C., I was thanked by countless citizens for my service. While most did not know that I was escorting a fallen Airman home, I accepted their "thank you" and appreciation on behalf of Elzinga.
Once I arrived in our nation's capital, I met with one of the Air Force Mortuary Affairs representatives from the past conflicts branch at Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations at Dover Air Force Base, Del. Similar to JPAC, the AFMAO Past Conflicts Branch tirelessly works with families of our unaccounted Airmen. In a situation such as the one with Elzinga, they coordinate all of the funeral and burial plans with cemetery officials and the family, arrange for the family's travel and ultimately provide the closure that these families so deserve.
Elzinga's mother and father passed away in the 1990s, never having received the closure of knowing that their son gave the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our country. However, he did have two cousins who were close to him. They attended a ceremony at Arlington in 1978, in which a headstone was placed in the MIA section of the cemetery. At that time, Elzinga's mother still held out hope that her son was alive, and she continued to advocate for research and investigation.
That legacy lived on with these two cousins. When they were contacted in 2010 by JPAC officials and told that some remains of their cousin might have been found, they combed through their family tree to find possible relatives on the mother's side of the family who could provide DNA samples to confirm the identification of their cousin. They found two relatives in Michigan whom they had never met before, and the DNA samples proved conclusive.
The small contingent of Elzinga's remaining family traveled to Arlington and witnessed a full military funeral with a horse-drawn carriage, Air Force band, 21-gun salute, and presentation of a flag and shadow box. The sense of closure they felt was magnified by the memories they held of Elzinga's mother and father. Their spirits were lifted, and they passed along to me their appreciation to the Department of Defense, JPAC, Air Force and past conflict branch at AFMAO. My role in this paled in comparison to those organizations. They are unsung heroes who live by the ideal that our unaccounted for service members will "never be forgotten."
It is sometimes easy to become bogged down by the day-to-day tasks we face in both our work lives and our personal lives. Too often, we get stuck in a narrow focus, and we lose the insight and perspective of how the small pieces fit into the big picture.
In my career, I have attended countless military functions and ceremonies in which we take time to honor prisoners of war and missing in action. Every one of these has been powerful, but it was still something of an abstract concept for me. I understood that our military goes to heroic lengths to leave no Airmen, Marine, Soldier or Sailor behind, but it didn't truly sink in for me prior to this duty.
Having now been part of the return of an American hero who had been in MIA status, met with the family that now had closure, and seen the ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, I have a whole new perspective of exactly what our military does to bring home our fallen heroes. |
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