A Rosette, A Movie: A Finale in Two Parts
Part one: The Rosette

The train from Bruges, Belgium with a quick change in Brussels, took us to Mastricht, Holland, on Friday, 25 May 2007. It was the start of the Memorial Day weekend at The American Cemetery in nearby Margraten. Two ceremonies were planned – one, the traditional Memorial Day honoring of American war dead; the other, a fulfillment of a promise made on a still-winter day in March 2001 when I saw my father’s name on the Wall of the Missing for the first time. Hans-Guenther Ploes and I were about to embark on our journey across three countries in search of my father’s long-missing crash site. A bit over six years later on a somewhat warmer spring day, and after countless subsequent journeys, Hans-Guenther and I were meeting again at my father’s name on the wall.

In 2001 I knew only that I wanted to find my father and to bring him home. It remained unclear how (but not IF) that would happen. I was on the cusp of shattering the long-held belief that he would never be found or his fate determined. As I stood by the Wall, witness to the engraved evidence of my father’s life and death, I noticed a curious thing. A tiny bronze flower was set into the wall to the left of a few names. I inquired about this occasional deviation from the pristine symmetry of the wall and the cemetery beyond to learn that the tiny flower, a rosette, meant the person named was no longer missing.

That tiny indicator became my mission talisman. I ran my hand over the sturdy deep letters of my father’s name, carved at the very bottom of the row, and traced each letter on borrowed typing paper - like a museum rubbing of a precious artifact. Hans-Guenther helped me hold the paper in place and, despite the elements, we made a perfect tracing of my father’s name. As we stepped back from the wall, I told him we would come back one day to put a rosette by my father’s name. He had only just met me and had miraculously been convinced to be my guide on this quest for illumination. He warned me that this was a mission of time, patience, and deduction and that if (I always thought “when”) the crash site was found, the excavation was another challenge altogether. Because I believe that you don’t have to see the whole staircase to climb the stairs, I calculated the probability of success and I knew that I had miraculously and circuitously found exactly the right person with whom to transit this unknown terrain.

Hans-Guenther’s cautionary tale about the difficulty of finding the crash site of a lone fighter pilot and his plane shot down at the end of the war, was no exaggeration. Indeed, it took time to unravel the twisted myths and facts of a decades old event. But on that day at the Wall, we took hopeful pictures of us standing by my father’s name, got into the rental car, and headed back into Germany to accomplish the improbable.

During the subsequent search, discovery, excavation, repatriation, and burial of my father in Arlington last October, I met countless people along the way. Among those who shine the brightest is Mike Yasenchak, the Superintendent of the American Cemetery at Margraten. Before the Elsnig excavation in August and September 2005, I emailed Mike to tell him we were expecting to bring my father home and when that happened, I would like to know what documentation was required to order a rosette. Mike followed the excavation via this blog and email, and looked forward to placing that rosette order as much as I did to seeing it next to my father’s name. Five years and nine months after countless miles traveled, obstacles overcome, magic acknowledged, discussions held, plans hatched, negotiations navigated, films produced, and friendships forged, that tiny bronze flower was finally ordered for Lt. Estill. It was 61 years 11 months from Friday, April 13, 1945.

By the time we arrived in Margraten this time, the upcoming ceremonies were planned and in rehearsal. Mike and I had weighed options and finalized details over the last year plus a few months. Ernst Eberle, of the original German search team and extraordinary friend, guide, and translator, would be driving from his home in the German Eifel Mountains to take us to the American Cemetery on Saturday afternoon. The formal military ceremony to place the rosette by my father’s name was scheduled to follow the dress rehearsal for Memorial Day celebration, attended by thousands of visitors. Hans-Günther, Wally Busch, and Traudl Thiel, my dear German friends and charter members of Team Estill, came from Aachen, and Elsnig, Germany.

It was an overcast rainy day with dim skies that were the antithesis of the brilliant austere clear day in Arlington seven months earlier. The occasion was auspicious and solemn in that ceremonious way I have learned to expect; the cemetery in full bloom and gorgeous even in the drizzle was energized by anticipation of Memorial Day.

Our smaller but no less significant ceremony had become a press event and I was scheduled to speak to the media - television, newspaper, and radio -about my missing pilot father. I agreed in advance that the press and any members of the public visiting the cemetery would be welcome to witness the ceremony. Also in attendance were the Honorable Mayor of Margraten and Mrs. H.J.G. Van Beers, and Ambassador and Mrs. Roland Arnall, the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands. Among several of my fellow war-orphan siblings and representative of the American World War II Orphans Network, was Gerry Conway Morenski, who traveled from Massachusetts, to honor her father, Cpl. David L. Conway, KIA 4/14/45 in Weissenfels, Germany and buried in this American Cemetery at Margraten.

Press interviews are always revelatory and those arranged that day were no exception. I am, even after all these years of similar interviews, amazed by the historical knowledge and deep awareness of the reporters who tell my father’s story. His story, told and retold in many languages, has become a microcosm of hope – a quest with a discovery; an ancient saga with a new ending; someone lost and found again; answers closing a questioning circle; dreams realized; honor paid in full.

The backdrop for the interviews were the 8302 cross-market graves of American WWII dead, plus 1722 names
on the Wall of the Missing, of whom 48 listed have been recovered and identified. Tiny U.S. and Holland flags had been placed at each grave. It occured to me that 62 years of history may separate us from WWII but Holland remains
grateful for our liberation efforts on their behalf.

Our little rosette ceremony for the 48th person recovered and identified, began at 4:00. In exquisite detail and exact sequence, Mike recounted the story of my father’s last flight and the subsequent search and recovery leading to that day’s events. Though I was nearly speechless, I managed to respond by telling the story of the promise made in 2001 to give my father a rosette. But mostly, I wanted to acknowledge that we wouldn’t be gathered on behalf of my father that day if it weren’t for the brilliance and persistence of Hans-Guenther Ploes, Air Historian, my excellent friend, and a man of patience, generosity, and mysterious deductions.

Hans-Guenther is not a man who seeks or welcomes attention though all of that changes if he’s discussing WWII aircraft parts. At my request, he came from the crowd to stand with me as the long-awaited and envisioned rosette was tapped into the wall next to my father’s name. We knew how far we’d traveled.

Then, in his glorious voice, Mike sang the Star Spangled Banner for my father but also for those who came to Margraten from all over the world to honor the American WW II war dead resting in this American Cemetery. My father was indeed honored, as was his grateful daughter. I realized how like at Arlington I was unable to express the depth of my gratitude for such exhaustive and exquisite planning on my father’s behalf. As if all of this wasn’t enough, at the end of the ceremony Mike presented me with another rosette which I will keep in the tri-cornered box that holds the flag from my father’s casket.

To look out into the crowd that day knowing that what remains, after all, are those who walk with you on such a quest. Each are my father’s gifts to me. “See,” he seems to say, “I am always here.” He surrounds me with people willing to take me into their lives and to watch after me when I forgot to breathe. This was perilously close to one of those days. There we were - gathered again on my father’s behalf – old and new members of Lt. Estill’s team.

When I imagined finding my father, I could not have envisioned the scope of what else I would discover. The day of our ceremony was also the German television premier of our Der Spiegel documentary. We planned to leave for Aachen with my German friends right after the ceremony to have dinner together, and then watch the film. We were all curious to see what Der Speigel made of our adventure.

Aachen, Germany is historic, fascinating, beautifully restored, artfully preserved, and full of good restaurants. Hans-Guenther wanted to return to the restaurant where we had dinner on the evening before we embarked on the search for my father. In the end, I don’t know if we found it but we were in the same neighborhood and it was Italian, our favorite during our travels. With the exception of a sub-basement-level Russian restaurant in Weimar, we knew how to find pasta and pizza throughout Germany.

We laughed as we remembered the people and events that defined our journey; we took silly and serious pictures; and, at Hans-Guenther’s insistence, had gelato for desert. The film was showing at 22:30 after which Ernst would take us back to Margraten, swearing that he liked driving enough to navigate mountain roads in the middle of the night. This generous declaration from a friend who always goes way beyond what is expected or deserved.

The film was, in a word, surreal, and also in German. To sit with the people who helped make this story a reality and to comment on our intermittent appearances on the very screen we were watching was something out of my ordinary. It was apparent that producer, Kay Siering had done an stunning job of showing and telling my father’s story and we pronounced it moving and powerful. It had been a long day, indescribably wide with emotion and action, but much remained in the days ahead. It’s always sad for me to say good-bye to Hans-Guenther but I do so with certainty that we will meet again for anther adventure.


Part two: The Movie

Hamburg is a full day’s train ride from Margraten via Liege and Koln. We arrived at the historic Fairmont vier Jahreszeiten Hotel, which was under heavy guard as the official hotel of the EU Counsel of Ministers meeting prior to the G8 Summit. I figured it was either the safest or the most dangerous hotel in Hamburg. Kay Siering came by the next morning to take us to the Der Spiegel offices for a private showing of the film. We walked from the hotel to his office in the rain which did little to mar the beauty of Hamburg along the way.

I was privileged to meet Hauke Ketelsen, editor of the film which is entitled, Love in Times of War: The Last Flight of Lt. Shannon Estill. Throughout the film, excerpts from my father’s letters are read along with reenactments of scenes pertinent to his life and death. The film will be translated into English sometime this summer.

Watching the film at Der Speigel minus the German narration and dialogue but with Kay Siering telling me the story in English, gave me a good idea of its impact. It goes far beyond what I could have imagined and is a visible link to my father unlike any other. With continued good fortune, it will be shown in the U.S. market and at film festivals worldwide.

Kay had arranged a celebratory dinner for the last evening in Hamburg with the incomparable Theo, our enthusiastic cameraman, who was involved with every scene and event along the way, and who always managed to put things into perfect historical context for me; and Christopher Gerisch. who competently and skillfully filled in for Kay while he awaited the birth of his second child. Over five years of filming, this group of creative souls became my friends, fellow-travelers, and collaborators in placing the pieces of the emotional puzzle I was solving.

So, is this the end of the story? Probably not and here’s why: I am working with artist, Jim Hartel, on a project for children based on my story of father-loss in war. The impact of the translated film released in the U.S. market sometime this year is anyone’s guess. There’s another larger writing project that will be adapted from this blog and contain the fine details that are the rest of this story. As always, and what has served me well, I remain active in the creation of my own present and future and in the belief my father’s sweet memory should be honored along with the memories of all those who died, as he did, in service to our country. I never forget that this story can be told only after paying the highest possible price for the rights to do so.

Thank you for joining me on this trek and check in once in a while because
I still don’t believe in “closure” in any traditional sense.

My handsome Uncle Wes


(Photos by Dennis Kan)

With Paul at Library of Congress

Emma and her Mannie, Jonathan Wes, Wes, & John Estill

Filming in Rock Creek Park & Emma
Justin & Jonathan



Andrea, S., Pat's Mom, & Pat/Delaney, Alexis, & Noah/ Raymond & Laura


Shannon, Kathi & Shayne Estill / Bud Holcheck/ Paul Hissey & Ben Schick



Jonathan, Neecy, Sharon & Pat
Nick and Laura
My father's cenataph/memorial marker and permanent gravesite with temporary marker
Der Spiegel crew: Kay, Theo, Bastian

November 10, 2006. What follows is the story of an event that was never supposed to happen. Considering my geographically divided life and the range of people, surprises, ceremony, and magic I needed to include, it has taken me a month to get it from my head to your eyes. For those of you who were there, I hope I have done it justice. For those of you who were there in spirit, no matter what I write, it will be insignificant compared to what happened…………
On Tuesday, October 10, 2006 we celebrated my father’s life by honoring him with a full military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery and the Old Post Chapel at Ft. Meyer, Virginia. When I arrived in Washington before the start of my father’s WW II fighter group reunion and his funeral scheduled for the end of the reunion, it was amidst driving rain and dark skies. We were meeting the Der Spiegel TV crew, Kay and Theo, and sound engineer, Bastian, the next morning at the Library of Congress for the first filming of the weekend. We gathered under the portico at the downstairs entrance to the Library before it opened for the day to meet with our host, Sheryl Cannaday.
The Library of Congress is architecturally and historically majestic. In order to film in the main reading room, Der Spiegel gained advance permission along with a strict timeframe. We had an exactly an hour to make it look like I was doing historical research about my father’s squadron’s activity in WW II Belgium and Germany. This is years after I actually did that research but nonetheless, there I was at one of the reading stations, illuminated by soft reading lights and the brighter television camera lights and lenses – “reading” the 428th Squadron history. We shot for our allotted time and then the crew was permitted to film from one of the ornate balconies above the reading room, usually off-limits.
Rain precluded the possibility of any outside filming, so we drove to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland where we were met by our guide, Laura Diachenko. By prior arrangement, Der Spiegel was permitted to film me researching my father’s service records. We filmed first in the room where microfilm records are stored including the original Missing Air Crew Report (MACR), written after my father’s plane was shot down. I was supposed to be seeing it for the first time. Early in my search for my father, the MACR was one of the first documents I received so it was familiar to me, but it was as meaningful to me that day at the National Archives a decade later as it was years before. It is a pivotal document that contained the information that identified my father’s plane in the field in Elsnig. I didn’t know how important it was until I stood above the excavated imprint of my father’s crashed plane the day we found the first engine data plate.
Our work at The National Archives included reviewing movies taken in January of 1945 of my father’s squadron at the airfield in Euiskirchen, Germany - the airfield from which my father took his last flight. As the first reel wound onto the spool, silent black and white images filled the tiny screen. I was seeing living, breathing, walking, and working images of young pilots I now knew well as men in their eighties. On the screen, as a P-38 belly landed on the snow packed airstrip, a pilot crawled out of his crumpled plane. As they towed away the wreckage, it symbolized what I might have hoped was the case in my father’s crash. Of course, I have become a full realist when it comes to knowing the end of that story, but up until I participated in the excavation of my father’s crash site, it was an improbability I dared to consider.
There wasn’t time to watch the films, but in one brief frame, a pilot emerged from his plane and joined another pilot walking toward a waiting jeep. They were both wearing fur-lined leather flight jackets and they were walking against a brutal winter wind. The airstrip was covered with snow and the tents, where the pilots and crew lived, were visible. As some of my father’s friends tell me, their home prior the tents at Chateau Beauchein in Belgium, was at least a solid roof overhead. No heat or running water there either but some protection against the harsh last winter of the war. As I watched the two pilots cross the landing strip, either I wished it were so or there was something familiar about the tallest pilot. I could have been seeing my son, Justin. This familiar face was surprisingly serious but I knew it was possible that, for the first time ever, I was seeing my father in life. My father coming home from work, I thought. I don’t know if what I saw was what I wanted to see or if, indeed, I have seen my father in life and in death. The good news is that the film is always there in the National Archives when I want to be sure.
We filmed scenes of me driving to and walking into the main archives building and then we headed to Ft. Meyer and Arlington Cemetery to meet with Leah Rubalcaba, from the Ft. Meyer Public Relations office. Leah arranged for us to drive the route to my father’s gravesite that the funeral procession would take on Tuesday and to visit the actual gravesite. The rain was less persistent but it had turned colder and the grass, across which we walked among the endless white markers, was sodden. My father’s place there would put him amongst 250,000 brave souls, many of whom had died as he did, in battle while defending our freedom. I didn’t like the muddy track of road that ran along the end of that row but Leah assured me (as she would about a million other things), that it provided only temporary access to new gravesites and it would eventually be seamlessly connected to the surrounding landscape. This graves section was, in fact, becoming an historic site where a WW I solder had only recently been repatriated and buried.
After a final logistical planning session for Tuesday’s funeral in the Ft. Meyer Public Relations office with the Der Spiegel crew, and a visit to the Old Post Chapel where we would have the funeral, Leah drove us back to the hotel. It was impossible to walk through the hotel lobby (also the site of the 474th FG reunion) without seeing plenty of relatives, friends, or my father’s squadron mates. Among them was my former student, teaching and research assistant, and incomparable friend, Jonathan Mackey, who arrived early Saturday. I love and admire and am somewhat dependent upon Jonathan’s capability and humor when he accompanies me to speaking engagements and keeps me on track in class. We are a great team and I am certain after this weekend, that I can never possibly repay him for his kindness, truth, ability to see all sides of an issue, loyalty, and insight. Also, I learned that he had hidden talents that would not be revealed until Monday morning while filming at Rock Creek Park.
On Saturday afternoon, Der Spiegel conducted an interview with my father’s friend, Paul Meier who told a story I’d never heard about my father. Apparently seven pilots, including my father, arrived in Paris to await their squadron assignments. They learned they had been assigned to the 474th Fighter Group and the 428th Fighter Squadron in Belgium but that they had been reassigned as ferry pilots. Determined to fly the P-38, they decided to show up, with their original orders, at their squadron anyway. Paul Meier said none of them wanted to be ferry pilots but he also speculated that if my father had taken the ferrying job, he might be alive. In the end, nothing could stand between these pilots and their airplanes – even orders to the contrary. Paul said they figured that good ferry pilots were easier to find than great P-38 pilots.
Sunday morning arrived with the sun and it was time to do the outside establishing shots at the Library of Congress, postponed due to Friday’s rain. A major marathon nearly prevented us from getting there for shooting during the allotted and assigned time. In the end, I was mostly filmed walking up or down the steps a few hundred times. We drove from there to Reagan Airport where we found a road lined with old growth trees along a picturesque sailing lake, where I was filmed driving while being interviewed by Kay. Somehow, I managed to drive, answer questions about my father, and navigate through Old Alexandria traffic on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. All that remained was to await Tuesday and the funeral. By the time Der Spiegel dropped me back at the hotel, Laura, Nick, Emma, and Justin had arrived.
Filming in Rock Creek Park was scheduled for Monday. Paul, Laura, Justin, and Nick headed for the Holocaust Museum and I took Emma to the park. The endlessly talented Jonathan volunteered to accompany us as Emma’s temporary “manny.” Emma adored him from the start and he never flinched at her constant and perceptive questions. He observed that Emma is indeed, four going on 24.
By the time we returned from Rock Creek Park, it was afternoon and my college friend (circa 1964 and beyond), Moreen, had arrived from Manhattan, as had my other dear pal (circa 1970), Denise, from Chicago, and my mermaid sistah, Dr. Pat Weyer from Seattle, and her mother, Patricia Leigh from Connecticut. I am blessed with enviable girlfriendships.
By Monday night, Andrea was there along with my son, Raymond, daughter-in-law, Evelyn, and their spectacular kids, Delaney, Alexis, and Noah from Kansas City. Having all my kids in one place is my favorite thing in the world. Some of us attended the official reunion banquet that night where Congressman Ike Skelton spoke about the bravery and patriotism of the squadron members present in and absent from that room. We’ve lost many of them this year – two who were special to me: Bill Capron, in January, and Jack ‘Radar’ Zaverl, on my birthday in March. Incomparable men, incredible friends, and brave pilots to the end. They are primary players in the cast of people who joined with me in this quest to bring my father home. Jack was the first one from the squadron to call me after I tracked down my father’s crew chief, Henry Ham. Jack always called me “daughter.” The first time I met Bill Capron it was because he had arranged a private visit for us at the Champlain Air Museum in Mesa, Arizona where I was allowed to sit in a P-38. I have been blessed with precious and extraordinary friends among my “adopted dads” of the 474th Fighter Group.
The guest I most anticipated seeing was my Uncle Wes Estill, my father’s brother. In his sweet demeanor, I always see my grandparents and this time, my Nana’s hands. Son, Tom, who was about to start his lifelong dream job at NASA, was his father’s escort.

The day of my father’s funeral was sunny from the start. I didn’t sleep much that night so I watched the sun rise over the city and the new Air Force Memorial just outside my hotel window. I knew it was a magical day and that whatever happened would be exactly right. My friend Pat and I were, however, still awaiting the arrival of the tribute bowl she made and carved for me in Seattle. It had, in some quirk of Fed Ex fate, been erroneously routed to Jacksonville, Florida. Pat demanded and received a do-over and it arrived in time to be taken in the limo to the funeral. We unwound layers of bubble wrap and sifted through white peanuts within more boxes that held a glorious
22- pound glass bowl created and hand-etched with my father’s wings and a tiny P-38 chasing clouds. On the larger section below, Pat engraved an excerpt from one of my favorite letters written by my father on Easter Sunday, 1945, just weeks before his death. What a loving and magnificent friend and artist Pat is! From the first time she heard me speak of my father in our doctoral colloquium in early
2000, she completely understood why I needed to find him. We relate as our father’s daughters and women who have survived great father-loss.
The plan was to display Pat’s bowl at the post-funeral luncheon at the Ft. Meyer Officer’s Club. Inside the bowl would be a dozen smooth green river rocks engraved with the names of the people in my father’s family – his parents, his brother and sister, my family, and, of course, Pat. Unfortunately, the stones didn’t arrive on time but everyone who attended the funeral had a chance to sign a card with their name if they wished to have stone for them placed in the tribute bowl.
Despite all my worrying in advance, everyone found their way to the Old Post Chapel at Ft. Meyer which is just outside one of the Arlington National Cemetery gates. At the foot of the chapel altar, was a small table upon which my cousin, Shannon, had placed the portrait of my father that always hung in our grandparents’ home. As a little girl, a teenager, and later as an adult and mother, I would stand in front of that photo and feel my father’s presence. It was my grandmother’s favorite and she never passed it without running her fingers over the glass in a gesture of complete love and grief. Now that same portrait hangs in Shannon and his wife, Kathi’s home. Their darling 7- year old daughter, Shayne, has been raised, as I was, under the watchful eyes of my father.
I wondered, as I looked at that familiar picture of my father, if I would have the courage to stand up before this gathering crowd to tell them how much I loved this smiling, devastatingly handsome young pilot who was my father, my mother’s only true love, and the lost crown prince of my grandparent’s family.
The weekend rain was replaced by a day resplendent and representative of my father’s brief, shining life. My immediate family gathered in the waiting room adjacent to the altar. Those who were there to remember my father with me, were seated in the chapel – his squadron mates, their family and friends, my oldest and dearest friends from around the country, my dear local girlfriends, Deb and Lizbeth, and the nearly-dozen Estills, including my father’s brother. Also there were the special people who had literally made this funeral possible. Among them, Leah Rubacabala, (I swear the woman has wings) who saved me from certain meltdown many times in this process; Paul Bethke, the former boss of JPAC and now the Army Casualty Office’s gain and the person who scored an amazing fly-by of two A-10 Thunderbolt II war planes; our dear musicians, Dan and Jerry who don’t normally attend the funerals they play music for at the receptions, but made an exception in this case; and Alan and Gloria Layne, the former AWON president and my ally in the war against unfounded beliefs and illogical rumors – who also lost her father in WW II.
Also present and very busy was the ever-efficient and amazing Der Spiegel crew – the three of them performing their intricate dance of camera work and timing while being in at least six places at once. They were truly a moveable feast and the very picture of German efficiency and elegance.
Dennis Kan, the extraordinary artist who photographed every second of the funeral provided incomparable photographs that captured each moment of the pageantry and precision of the day. Dennis’ generosity was one of the sweetest moments of my life. A sample of Dennis’ excellent work on my father’s behalf can be admired at: http://www.mbkshowcase.com/show/estill//. In all, he gave me nearly 300 photos.
At precisely 11:00 a.m., I was escorted to my seat by the same soldier who would later carry my father’s urn into the chapel. (F0ur-going-on-24 Emma asked who was getting married.) It was while walking with the soldier, that surrealism intersected with pure joy and sorrow. I realized the enormity of what had been accomplished with the support of the mortal and ethereal, and how this day, in reality, far exceeded my vision of it. I knew beyond a doubt that my father was truly present in that chapel.
We stood as my father’s urn was brought to the front of the chapel. Though I’d spent countless hours in the presence of that lovely wooden box, it had taken on a new energy in the hands of the soldier who held it. He placed it on the little table next to the portrait of my smiling father, and Chaplain Creamer took his place at the podium. The funeral, long awaited and planned, had begun. He welcomed everyone and then introduced Rev. Brad Collins, the chaplain of the 474th Fighter Group and one of my father’s squadron mates in Belgium and Germany.
Rev. Brad is the sparkling spiritual inspiration for the dwindling troops of the 474th and has attended every reunion I’ve attended and more before that. He has always inspired me with his carefully chosen words of inspiration at our banquets and ceremonies. His presence exemplifies the phrase, “man of God.” So, when asked, without hesitation, Rev. Brad graciously agreed to speak at my father’s funeral. Everyone present and in his worship community in California knows he is our national treasure. He spoke lovingly of Lt. Shannon Estill and of his place in the squadron and how the loss of one of them was the irreparable loss of family.
Because their correspondence illuminated my parents’ life together, I decided to write my father a letter and read it at his funeral. It wasn’t the first, nor will it be the last letter I’ve written him. I’ve found comfort and answers to hard questions in this practice for years and I wanted to tell him a few things on this day of days.
It was difficult only at first when I read the names of those who are already with him - his parents and grandparents, my mother, my sister, Chris Waters and our son-in-law, Brian Olson, among others. The next names I read were of those I love most dearly and to whom I owe the success and realization of the day. Thereafter I entered a zone of certainty that what I’d written was incidental to what I felt. I hoped my feelings would carry me through to the poem I included at the end. Kisses, written by Thomas Lynch is included here because it captures the essence of what I feel about my parents. It’s as if the poet wrote it with them in mind.

My father turns up in a dream
Sometimes on roller skates
Sometimes in wing-tip shoes

He’s smiling
Impeccably dressed

Himself again

I am delighted to see him

Maybe I was only dreaming is what I tell myself inside the dream

No, he assures me wordlessly
The facts are still the facts

He’s dead

He and my mother have been to the movies
She’s gone ahead of him to make the coffee

He lets me hold him
Hug him
Weep some
Awake repaired again

He says he’ll take my kisses home to her.

As I returned to my seat after reading my letter, I felt intense pride and unequivocal relief. At my request, Paul sang ‘Let There Be Peace on Earth,’ a song we chose for our wedding in 1977. As I heard it again, I had renewed admiration for and awareness of Paul's musical gifts and for his "voice of an angel.” He makes it sound effortless and elegant, the way people with innate gifts often do.
Justin followed his father to the altar to read Gillespie Magee’s poem, High Flight. My grandmother read it to me as a child, and I was later given a framed copy by Jack Zaverl. To hear it spoken by my son at the funeral of his grandfather, gave it even deeper meaning. I will always associate “touching the face of God” with my father and the pilots before and since who have “slipped the surly bonds of earth.”
At exactly 11:30, my father’s urn was taken from the chapel and into the brilliant day. A flag draped casket on a caisson with six black horses waited for him. The urn was placed in the casket and the final walk to the gravesite began. It was the last full mile of this long and loving journey for me and the last moments my father would spend suspended in time and place. I was, finally and proudly, walking him home.
I knew then as I know now that my father’s spirit may always be divided between the field Germany and Arlington Cemetery. But, this last walk behind his casket represented the integration of those two realities. It would never have been enough to leave him in Germany even though the people of that sweet village now know the name of the American pilot who rested in their field for nearly 62 years. My dear sister in father-loss, Traudl Theil, will always bring flowers to my father’s crash site for her father and mine. In the end, I knew that my father should be among his courageous comrades here at home, where his family could always find him.
My grandchildren walked with me in the funeral procession as did my kids, my husband, my friends from near and far, all my dear Estill cousins, and everyone else who was able and knew, as I did, that we walked with purpose and in honor of my father. In reflecting upon the scene, illuminated so perfectly in Dennis Kan’s photographs, I see my cousin, Wes, carrying the framed photograph of my father. It reminds me of the families of the disappeared walking to protest the unknown fate of their loved ones. I thought of how long my father was among the disappeared, and how far this day went toward making him visible to us!
A fly-by of the A-10 “Warthogs” was what a long held wish and dream. I envisioned military planes flying over the gravesite in tribute to my father, to his squadron, and to my father’s greatest love after my mother and his family – flying. As we arrived at the gravesite, flying above us, in perfect tribute to my father, were two magnificent U.S. war planes. I wondered who the pilots were and if I could ever tell them how much it meant to us to see them in all their splendid glory. My father could never have envisioned such a progress in flight.
We gathered at the gravesite where my father’s urn had been placed on a small draped table. Behind the table were white crosses far into the distance. All that remained was to watch the precise ritual of folding and presenting the flag. My Uncle Wes sat next to me holding my father’s photograph and my hand. Occasionally he leaned over and whispered that he loved me. I told him that I loved him too, and that my father was finally home. He and my Aunt Margie, who couldn’t travel from Boulder, knew my father in a way I never could and they are where his spirit resides for me in real time. To have my Uncle Wes next to me at that moment was the representation of everything I love about my family of birth. Many people expended tremendous effort to bring my uncle to be with us at Arlington that day and they did it with the certainty that his presence would add immeasurably to our sense of family. He is our patriarch. His presence was the expression of love by his seven children who, in the time-honored Estill tradition, take care of each other forever.
Rev. Brad read his final blessing which far exceeded my expectations. In fact, the entire day was more than everything I imagined and from a far higher order of existence. After the flag that had been on top of the casket was opened over my father’s urn and gravesite, it was folded by two lines of decorated soldiers, presented to me by Chaplain Creamer. It will be preserved in the flag case I received from Lt. Col. Roxanne Austin, the D.C. Casualty Assistance Officer. It reminds me of my father’s urn – smooth polished wood with the U.S. Army seal on the outside above a plaque with my father’s name. His medals and a replica of his silver wings are affixed to the inside lid.
I stayed at the gravesite until my father’s remains were in the ground. I was privileged to participate in taking him out of the ground in Germany and I intended to witness his long-awaited transition into American soil. I took a single rose from the massive bouquet at the gravesite and placed it in his American grave along with the urn. I sent him my love and my wish that he is with my mother and he finds spiritual peace in this sacred place. Only then could I leave him.
By the time I arrived at the luncheon reception at Ft. Meyer Officer’s Club, everyone was enjoying lunch, great music, and the bittersweet euphoria we all relish at the culmination of historical events. Dr. Pat Weyer’s Tribute Bowl was displayed at the entrance and I asked people to fill out a card if they wanted to have a stone engraved with their names, which would later be placed in the bowl. An unusual guest register, to be sure, but far more meaningful because of my dear mermaid sister’s gift. I am so proud to be her friend and to benefit from not only her artistic offerings but from her wisdom. Last year as I was heading to Hawaii for my father’s repatriation at Hickam Air Force Base, she gave me a Greek coin with the image of an ancient dolphin. She said it was a ‘psychopomp,’ and, if placed with the dead, it would ease their passage to the next world. My father’s urn contains the little dolphin psychopomp assuring his swift passage.
The reception, I hear, was great – for me it was mostly a blur. I showed the revised memorial video which is the second version of the video I made with James Horine in Kansas City more than a decade ago. As always, it moves people to tears, and my Uncle Wes who again sat next to me, identified each person in the old photographs we put on film. He saw his parents his little sister, himself as a young boy, and he and his brother careening wildly around a corner on one bike. He said my father was married to a “very sweet gal and we love her.” I didn’t watch the video as much I watched my Uncle Wes travel through time.
My work as a Der Spiegel diva wasn’t finished so when everyone else left Ft. Meyer, Kay, Theo, and Bastian, waited for me to return to my father’s gravesite for final filming. This would be the last of my involvement in more than 6o hours filmed over the past three years. I stood at my father’s grave alone. By putting the camera on a massive crane they brought from Germany and constructed on-site, they could pan over the cemetery in a final sweeping scene.
Pat, Paul, and Leah were there and, as if awakening from a complex but lovely dream, it was over. One final photo with the Der Spiegel team and we were off to visit my father’s cenotaph/memorial headstone one last time. It was still there – in the section reserved for the missing in action – two rows up from the memorial marker of my parents favorite 1940’s bandleader, Glen Miller. I placed a rose against my father’s cenotaph. Arlington destroys these markers after burial because those whom they represent are no longer missing. Arlington Cemetery always needs room for more who have not yet been, or never will be, found.
I’m sorry that I didn’t get to talk long enough or with any depth with the people who were there for my father. My dear pal, Paul Hissey, reminded me to “throttle back,” as all good pilots know. That didn’t happen until I stepped, once again, on the deck of my houseboat a week later. Actually, until I stood in front of my Marriage and Family class, I didn’t realize that I had just lived the full meaning of family. I also regret that I worried at all that this wouldn’t be as magnificent a celebration as it was. I should know by now that at some point, everything is out of my hands.
What remains are splendid memories which support my belief that much of life seems like an illusion anyway. Reporters like to ask if this is the end of my father-quest. I was told once never to say never and I wont’ say “never” now. What I will say is that I can’t imagine a life with my father actually present except that I believe he is present in a way no mortal father could ever be. That’s my reward, my grief, and my blessing. As for my mother, I would love to know what she thinks about all of this and if she has somehow been restored and healed wherever she is with my father. I believe they are together and have been, as they vowed, for all time.
The relief of completion is sweet. I continue to be blessed by the company of my family, good friends, new opportunity, I job I love, and the possibilities of each new day. I don’t doubt divine inspiration and the protection of my personal army of angels. I know these things and I know if my life ended suddenly, as my father’s did, I would have had it all!
What lies ahead is a trip to Germany and Margraaten, Holland where I will witness the placement of a rosette in front of my father’s name on the Wall of the Missing because he has been officially declared, “found.” This would not have happened without the work and intuition of Hans Guenther Ploes. It goes without saying that my life is richer for knowing him and my father is resting now in American soil because of him. I will forever hold each member of the Elsnig Team Estill (and all of JPAC) in my heart. Above all, I am grateful for the architects of this inspiration – my parents – who gave me wings and then taught me how to fly.

April 7, 2006 - 1st Lt. Estill comes home

Top left: Staff Sgt. Williams

Top right: Art and the urn

Bottom left: Major Heigard, Justin, Sharon, SSG Williams

Bottom right: Thomas Humphrey

Friday, 07 April, 2006: Celebrate him home!

For the first time – ever – my father is home with me. I stood in line with patience, persistence, tireless investigation, suspension of disbelief, and the passage of 60 years plus 358 days to write those words.
When the repatriation ceremony was held at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii last October, only the definitive DNA analysis remained unreported. Those of us involved in the discovery of the crash site in Elsnig, knew from the first moments of finding the aileron stabilizer in 2003 that my father was the pilot of the plane we knew rested in that German field.
In deference to the system that assures serious attention to claims such as the one we were about to make, JPAC (Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command) was immediately notified of our discovery. To JPAC’s credit, though it seemed a two year exercise in extreme patience, my father’s plane and what remained of my father, were returned to Hawaii last fall.
At last writing, I reported receiving the official ID Packet which officially determined in precise detail, my father’s identity. This is a copious report with color photographs, charts, graphs, measurements, descriptions, and baffling DNA analysis but does not include a single a photograph of my father in life. A curious oversight but perhaps a bit unscientific?
What we “knew” when we found the crash site years before was based then on hopeful evidence – numbered plane parts, eyewitnesses accounts of a crash that coincided with what was reported at the time, a growing collection of plane parts, an obvious connection between hope and of the coveted facts of discovery. “Mom, you know what you know when you know what you know.” (Justin Rocca wisdom, age 11)
In the realm of fanciful thinking, it was possible that my father’s plane crashed without him in it or perhaps he escaped the crash with miraculous movie matinee flair. What we chose to believe instead was that if he died with his plane, we had found him.
As I worked at the excavation site two years later, I watched the ACS buckets fill each day. I especially watched the buckets where we put materials that were possibly osseous material – human remains. Each day brought another discovery – some astonishing, others mundane but all precious and certain as they led us to the recovery of 1Lt. Shannon Eugene Estill.
I am often asked how I “did that” – I presume “that” means working in the dirt where my father died. The short answer is that I “did that” because it was my legacy and responsibility and because it wasn’t worse than living a life wondering what happened at 1:40 pm on Friday, April 13, 1945. It was a bit like the old band-aid theory my mother used on me countless times – “it’ll hurt less if I just pull it off really fast.” (Sure, Mom) I held only the slimmest romantic notion that my father had somehow eluded his certain fate. I’d spent too much time and energy with aircraft recovery experts by that time to believe he had been rescued or now lived in anonymity with soap-opera amnesia somewhere in Tuscany. That was my favorite fantasy but one easily relinquished after visiting a few unrelated crash sites where it became evident that we were searching for evidence of a catastrophic plane disaster. My father’s escape, no matter how I wanted it to be true, was the folly of my romantic wish. Who can truly blame the daughter of a classic romantic for being romantic?
My mother, of ripped rather than gradual band-aid fame, always told me with absolute conviction that if my father was alive somewhere in the world that he would find a way to come back to us. She even debunked the odd periodic rumor that he had been captured as a spy. Even then, she said, he would have found a way to tell her he was alive. I had no choice but to believe her thus fueling this passionate mission to find out what actually happened to my father, no matter how grim the details.
In the end, those exact details, though enlightening but sobering, were about what we expected in my mother Mary’s Heartbreaking School of Reality.' What remained of my father was a small collection of osseous material – modest and somber – a life ended tragically and in opposition to the sweet beautiful and vibrant way he lived his mortal life. All of this is now enclosed in a lovely wooden box, an urn they tell me but not in the way I envisioned an urn. This one has a brass plate on the front inscribed with the raised seal of the U.S. Army. The smaller plaque beneath reads:

Shannon Eugene Estill
June 26, 1922
April 13, 1945
1st Lieutenant U.S. Army Air Corps*

* Actually this line says U.S. Army, but I’ve respectfully reminded the U.S. Army that my father flew for the U.S. Army Air Corps.

For my father’s last official homecoming ceremony, I asked JPAC to appoint a member of the German excavation team as the courier for this mission. The first and most insistent person to volunteer was SSG Glendale Williams with whom I shared many hours sifting the soil of that Elsnig field and learning to appreciate rap music.
SSG Williams is exactly my father’s last age and carries with him, as my father did, the brilliant light of possible heroism, humor, military dignity, and high capability. He is a young man of generous soul and spirit with the bearing of a proud soldier with a truly incomparable magic smile. Also, he looks gorgeous in his uniform. When you meet for weeks in the dirt of a field in an uncharacteristic hot October in Germany, nobody wears medals or starched shirts. SSG Williams will forever be connected in my mind and memory to this glorious homecoming. My father saluted him on that day, as did legions of fallen soldiers before him.
As luck and fortuitous timing had it, my friend, Thomas Humphrey was also with me that day. He was on his way to Los Angeles to complete two months of training as a Bikrahm Yoga instructor. He and I survived graduate school a mere 13 years ago and then together managed an adolescent addiction recovery unit in a Kansas City hospital. I realized recently that Thomas has been with me at every major family event since.
Justin took time from his primary weekend task of supporting his girlfriend Christina’s preparation for an Ironman competition the following Sunday to be there for me. (She finished victorious in 15 hours. Justin ran the last 10 miles with her. It’s apparent that he’s cut from the same adventurous and creative cloth as his grandfather and he excels in the fabulous boyfriend department, as did his grandfather before him.
Those who were with me from an immortal plane were crowded in the entryway watching the transfer of my father’s remains. Among them was my mother, of course, smiling and telling me she was proud of me; his parents, my Nana and Banka Estill, his ancestors, the others who died in the wars before and since who held the same certainty of purpose; and countless others who have missed him dearly for six decades. But, nearest and dearest to me on that day from the ethereal realm, was my sister, Chris Waters, who somehow arranged for my father to be returned to me on nearly the exact anniversary of her death a year ago. Thanks, Chrissy. You always knew how to get things done. Good one, my sistah.
Many things occurred to me the morning my father came home. One of them was the awareness gained while working with JPAC in the field and on the Army base in Geissen, Germany that U.S. military is impressive in many ways, but not the least of which in how they memorialize and create ceremony. Where the repatriation in Hawaii was powerful with symbolism and meaning, it was a public occasion. Having my father’s remains brought to me by a member of the team who helped find him, having one of my dearest friends and youngest son standing with me, and to receive my father into my home, was intimate, bittersweet, and a vision in military excellence.
Earlier that morning I decided that I would keep the urn until it is time to deliver it to Arlington National Cemetery, on the top shelf of my desk credenza. It is the place where I’ve always kept my father’s original art; two of Justin’s drawings: one of his pilot-grandfather with a little red monkey smoking a cigarette on his shoulder, and a pen and ink drawing of a P-38 suspended by marionette strings; and a precious recent addition, the painting of me with my father done by my friend of 35-years, artist, Jim Hartel. My father’s urn is surrounded by the art of three generations of important artists. This is a fitting placement about which I hadn’t decided or determined until my father’s arrival home was imminent.
Trained well and over time in the ways of Der Spiegel TV, I hired a film crew to be there, freeing me to simply manage the event from my heart rather than from my head. Cameras were rolling as Major Tony Heigard, a local Army Casualty officer, and SSG Williams marched to my front door with flawless military precision, with SSG Williams carrying the urn, Major Heigard, the folded flag. Such bearing and dignity engenders the grief of the world over time and defines but doesn’t contain the quiet insistent power of loss. Nothing manages loss better than, and less than, the passage of time.
SSG Williams presented me with the urn and a statement of respect and acknowledgement for my father’s ultimate sacrifice for his country. I received the flag from Major Hiegard. I handed Justin his grandfather’s urn so that I could hold my father’s flag and feel the energy that I knew it held along with the price paid for both. Then, we did it all over again for the film crew from every possible combination of angles and nuance of light. It will always be the first best and unfilmed take that remains true – receiving the remains of my father that I sought and fought to hold from the hands of a friend.
My father rests in a new place today. His uncertain fate is known, the German earth has reclaimed what couldn’t be salvaged. A part of him, as Dr. Fox said at the last hour of the excavation, will always remain in Germany. What stays constant is the certainty that he deserved to be brought home if not as the smiling victorious pilot at the end of the war in 1945, as the hero he always was to me.
On October 10, 2006 at 11:00 am, my father will receive his final tribute in a full military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. The funeral will coincide with his squadron’s reunion weekend in Washington, DC. We will host a luncheon reception at Ft. Meyer’s Officer’s Club adjacent to ANC that afternoon. The benefit of being connected to my father’s squadron is that there are many high-ranking retired Air Force officers among them. Among them is Lloyd Wenzel who made it possible for us to entertain in this manner after the funeral. In the ranks of adopted dads, Lloyd is one of the best and I love him dearly.
That’s the latest in my journey reported over these lingering months since the excavation in Germany last fall. As I write, Hans Guenther Ploes (still the god of aircraft parts) is visiting the field in Elsnig to determine whether the crater located near the fence line of the field and discovered in an aerial surveillance photo taken the week after the crash, contains anything significant. As definitive as the ID packet may be and as certain as we are that my father is headed to his final resting place, there will always be an footnote of lingering wonder attached where so much remains unknown. This is where acceptance steps up to take her place among the feelings called upon to bridge the final gap between speculation and knowing.

My father has been returned to us. Celebrate him home!

January, 2006
Updates, ID packets, choices, and revelations:

By popular demand – or should I say demanding readers, I can report that the saga of Team Estill continues. Early this month, I was visited by two Army Casualty officers who delivered my father’s official identification packet.

The packet was a review of the entire process of discovery and recovery, comprehensively prepared by JPAC. I’ve often marveled at how huge stories and events laden with emotion and drama, eventually evolve into flat facts. My father’s identification packet is a stellar example of this evolution. Between two black covers and an ordinary spiral binding (the Army could use me as a creative presentation consultant), is the story I helped create and lived to tell. Though most of the information was familiar to me, some of it was revelatory. I hadn’t realized that we found a piece of his uniform, for instance, and that the maps I watched the archeologist draw in the field would become stunning computer versions of themselves.

My current task is determining a date for my father’s funeral in Arlington National Cemetery. In October, the squadrons gather there during for their next reunion. I want to have the funeral during that time so the guys my father flew with can have the option of attending. A reception/gathering/Irish wake will be held at Arlington the night before the funeral with the full military service scheduled for the next day. Dates are yet to be determined but I’ve requested a Friday night and Saturday morning in early October.

The actual service will include, with proper advance planning, a casket brought to the burial site on a caisson (remember JFK?), escorted by an Army band and an honor guard. We will have a Catholic funeral mass and possibly the thing I’d love most: a fly-by of military jets in the missing man formation.

My friend, former member of the U.S. Navy band, and now-famous jazz trumpet player, Tracey Hooker, has offered to come from Olympia to play taps as he does every summer night at our marina. This is the stuff I love. Especially, when I’m told not to expect to have it all. The only thing I left off the list is the fly-over of a lone P-38 Lightning. THAT would be having it all! There are many small details, decisions, and organizational choices to be made. I could leave it all to the Army Casualty office, but this is understandably difficult to relinquish even into expert hands. In the end, this is simple compared to what it took to get here. The sound you will hear at Arlington in October is that of the circle closing.

Along the way, I always hoped, and on some level knew, this day of planning would arrive. In fact, I counted on it without knowing what would be expected of me or what would be provided. As it turns out, everything is provided by the government, and my remaining task on behalf of my father is to choose dates, invite guests, design programs, and determine the mode of burial. I think I’ve written about my vision of collecting my father from the field in Germany and bringing him home. When the vision becomes reality it involves the practicality of caskets and urns – bronze or wood, caisson or hearse. Now or later?

I realized when I returned from Germany, according to protocol, without my father’s remains that I wanted him here with me before his final burial in Arlington. Therein lies the symbolic sense of completion and restoration – for him and for me. There’s also a proprietary feeling associated with this accomplishment. I am, in essence, claiming my father and assuming my role as his daughter by expressing these wishes and having them granted. I learned that daughters attend to these things when I made similar arrangements in 1991 for my adopted dad. I had the same daughterly inclinations and protective feelings. This is the stuff of eventual flat facts that define my experience of father-loss.

In the months since my return from Germany, I’ve been writing an article (among other things) about the search for and recovery of my father’s crash site. Literary editor, John Parsley has created an appropriate and interesting on-line publication, The LOST Magazine: Where Loss is Found. LOST can also be found at http://www.lostmag.com/ and I am excited to report that my article will appear in the March issue.

Work continues on the Der Spiegel documentary. The crew who filmed my father’s repatriation ceremony in Hawaii in October was so moved by the experience that the length of the film has been increased and actors will be used in re-creation scenes. We will meet again at Arlington Cemetery in October. Release of the film to the German and U.S. markets is scheduled for after the funeral and final edits. All preliminary reports from the Der Spiegel group indicate that they are very pleased and enthusiastic about what they have filmed so far.

What remains for me to decide is whether I will return to Hawaii and escort my father’s remains home or if he will return with a military escort. If I escort his remains, we are limited to a wooden urn because of airport security and concerns about civilians with impenetrable metal containers. If a military escort is involved, a metal container isn’t a problem. I’ve decided that a military escort makes sense but that I’d like him or her to be a member of the excavation team from Germany. Hopefully, one of them is just hanging around Hawaii with a few spare days to bring my father to me. Put that possibility squarely in the symbolism column.

Life continues post-Germany and is directed toward writing the end of this father-story chapter but not the end of the story. As long as someone wants to hear it, read it, or paint it, it remains a viable part of me. I hear the word closure these days as in presuming I will soon have it. Usually I am polite and agree that closure is eminent. The truth is my educated and instinctive guess is that closure is elusive and probably non-existent. New stories, like connected memories, are already appearing. I learned, for instance, that I may be able to buy the house where my father and his siblings were born and raised – the house my great grandparents built in 1910 - my Nana’s house. It would, if nothing else, be preserved and would provide a comforting place for Estill family visits. All 12 cousins and their innumerable cousin-kids could make new memories in that sweet old house.

In my experience, closure gives way to new interconnected versions of the same theme. As for this daughter’s story, my father’s return to me and then to Arlington, will write the final chapter of his life. Nothing could be written without knowing what happened in Germany in 1945. The rest is symbolism and ceremony. My father deserves those things and more and so do I.

As things progress, I will post them here.

Heather & Chris Johnie Webb & Brig. General Flowers

Jp
JPAC photos 10/20 & 21, 2005

A marching general, an honor guard, and a transport plane for a hero’s return – October 20 & 21, 2005: Just when I think I’ve done all the work a daughter can do on behalf of her father, (consider the field in Elsnig and what it took to get me there), the next astonishing thing happens. A few weeks ago, I unexpectedly learned that JPAC/CILHI (Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and Central Identification Lab Hawaii) was repatriating the remains of European WW II missing retrieved this summer. Just as suddenly, I planned a trip to Hawaii that I didn't exepct to take until sometime next year.

When my father’s plane was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire five months after he arrived in Europe, our family was told that we would never know what happened on that day, much less expect to have him returned to us. This summer in Elsnig, I gathered fewer actual remains as precious pieces of information about my father’s last flight. Last week in Hawaii at Hickam Air Force Base, I waited on the runway for my father to be placed reverently on American soil once again.

It was a beautiful Honolulu morning, not yet as humid as it would become but Hickam is stunning with history and pristine beauty regardless of the weather. I had received the fully escorted tour of JPAC the day before which included a visit to the famous Central Identification Lab. Among the people I met again who have been essential to the success of my search and recovery efforts, was my dear patient friend and lifeline to JPAC, Johnie Webb. For me, he is to JPAC what Hans-Guenther is to aircraft parts. After being welcomed by him with a big Texas hug, the first thing he told me that my father’s name would soon be added to the Homecoming Commemoration wall behind us. It was filled with tiny brass name plates of the 1300 formerly-missing that JPAC has identified and returned home. Each tiny plaque represented a life story and my father’s is now one of them.

I have always been fascinated by forensics and I suppose that is why I find the study of people so endlessly fascinating. We are not so different in death, I noticed as I observed the bones in the lab, only more quiet. There is definitely an energy emanating from them in their perfect state of protection under JPAC's watchful eye. 1100 active and inactive cases are catalogued and stored there, many of them, unsolvable. The table holding the familiar results of our work in the Elsnig field was the second from the front on the far right. The bones and small things we found appeared as a shimmering mirage through the glass. I saw them first in the sifted dirt in Elsnig. I knew them intimately,and I recognized them as my legacy and responsibility. The other tables were heavy with nearly whole skeletons. Bones are the honored guests here and attention to detail and security for these precious remains is an obvious and serious part of JPAC’s work.

The ever-present and devoted Der Spiegel crew, Christopher, Theo, and Phillip, had braved a 30-hour nightmare in flying and lost luggage to join me in Hawaii and were already filming and setting up interviews. I tried to string together cohesive answers to Christopher’s question. but the experience of being at JPAC, seeing the famous lab and being with my father’s remains again, was overriding any logic or continuity. I had been warned by the team in Elsnig that this place, representing the reclamation of the indescribable results of death in war, would be humbling. It was that and more. I’ve seen many of the world’s wonders, but the Central Identification Lab is the most wonderful. Tender exacting work is done there with highest respect and consideration. Their business is to name the long-dead and lost and connect them, if possible, to those who wait. Hope and joy coexists with death and loss. These are the seekers of the messages in the bones and identifiers of the artifacts of a life. Everyone should visit there at least once to examine their own mortality, if nothing else.

After visiting the lab, I saw my friend, Chris McDermott, JPAC historian, with whom I’d been corresponding for several years and finally met in Germany last summer. He is also a good friend of Hans-Guenther’s and is to history what Hans-Guenther is to aircraft parts. In the JPAC archives he introduced me to his wife, Heather Harris, who is the goddess of all saved things. (To describe them otherwise would be inadequate in light of the work they do and why) Heather told me that the archival boxes of files represented each case and would I like to see my father’s file?

His now-familiar Deceased File was in the beige box identified by his Missing Air Crew Report (MACR). As always, these collections of obscure information tend to include something new just when I think I’ve found it all. What was news to me this time was that my father wore a size 10 ½ shoe, had his appendix and three wisdom teeth removed, and was 5’11”. Those things are precious to know but I also saw the original typed correspondence written by my mother and my grandfather begging the government for information about my father. Each of their letters was attached to the same vague response: “We regret that no further information is available about your husband/son. and if/when we learn something new, you will be informed. No grave/body has been found and he is considered missing/killed in action.” My family couldn’t call that reassurance but it was how they finally accepted their loss. Reluctantly, they closed the door but not their hearts to the possibility that he would be found. Still wondering why I did this?

The Repatriation Ceremony was to begin at 9:00 the next morning, Friday, October 21. The Der Speigel crew drove us to Hickam so they could get a “how are you feeling today?” interview while I was a captive audience. I realized that I was at a loss to name what I was feeling except to offer up: happy, sad, proud, delighted, excited, anticipatory, joyous, near tears, in tears, hopeful, and all emotions connected to what some people like to call closure. (Tom Humphrey and I had a poster with drawings representing feelings on the wall in a hospital where we worked with teenagers - where was that damn poster when I needed it?) Mostly, I realized that my father’s bravery and my love for him brought us all to this place in time. I was grateful to whatever forces made this possible – genetic, angelic, magical, ethereal, or governmental.

We navigated the full parking lot near the runway where the ceremony would happen. Awaiting us in the first parking space, reserved for Dr. Sharon Estill Taylor (daughters have privilege), was a JPAC contingent including Johnie Webb and Major Nelson-Green, the PR officer. The airfield was full of uniformed people including two veterans groups representing Viet Nam and Korea, everyone who works at JPAC who weren’t in the field, and a couple hundred others. I was delighted and surprised to see Rodney Acasio and Shane Bellis, the only two from the Elsnig excavation team who weren’t away on the next mission. They had a major part in the reason we were there. They knew it and so did I. Another gift to me from JPAC.

An enormous C-130 transport plane was parked on the runway. Johnie Webb asked me if I wanted to go aboard to spend a few minutes with my father’s casket before the ceremony. As we walked up the metal ramps into the open bay, I saw a wash of red, silver, and blue. The red harnesses and seats attached to the walls of the plane exactly matched the stripes on the flags fitted around three silver transport cases, holding the remains of the repatriated. My father was in the middle. The scene before me defied description except as colors, stillness, and finality. The Der Spiegel crew remained at the back of the bay as I cautiously approached this long-awaited hard evidence that my mother and my father’s family never had.

As I touched the silver box holding my father’s remains, I felt only deep sadness at the injustice of his death. All the patriotic logic we’ve attached to why he died and for what cause, momentarily disappeared. Yet, I knew, despite my sadness, that my father’s flag draped presence represented all war losses and that it was what informed my life and shaped my destiny. I was reminded that those of us who experience losing a loved one in war share a fragile bond made of pride and certainty, despite our pain. It’s always nice to know something of your life’s purpose.

As we took our places under the VIP canopy for the ceremony, the transport plane was to our left, and a blue Medivac bus waiting to take the precious silver boxes back to the lab, was on the right. JPAC’s Commanding General and five other commanding officers marched into the space between, following the uniformed honor guard. We stood at attention three times while my father’s military brothers and sisters saluted each flag- draped life as it was carried from plane to bus. My job was to keep breathing and remain present in the moment.

The men who would bear my father’s remains entered the open bay for the second time and reappeared carrying the second silver box between them. Though all the flag draped cases were identical, this one was definitely mine. I stood with my hand on my heart and welcomed my father home.

The last one took its place in the bus and the doors were ceremoniously closed. A soldier stood at attention in front of the closed doors and very slowly raised his arm into a perfect salute. A long-awaited moment stopped time. Then I remembered to breathe.

Photographs of that morning fall short of the sense of honor present in the event. The same reverence and attention to detail is customary with JPAC and has been present in all of my dealings with them. When I met General Flowers (a fellow KU grad), I said that he could be very proud of the people who are JPAC. His reply was, “I am, and thank you for letting us help you bring your father home.”

When I brought JPAC this crash site a few years ago. I had no illusion that my discovery would supersede any of the other JPAC cases. But, what I received as I awaited my turn (sometimes not patiently) was copious information, support when I needed it, and the friendship of people who fully understood my mission because it was their mission, too.
This ceremony that JPAC gave my father in Hawaii last week was a dress rehearsal for Arlington in 2006. I should have my father’s remains returned to me by the end of the year.

I have always been a fortunate girl. The dad who stepped in to raise me used to say that I would fall into shit and come out smelling like a rose. There have been a few time when things weren’t always rosy but this wasn’t one of them. I believe that next to the wound is the lesson and opportunity. That’s all I did here – look beyond the obvious, disbelieve what I was told to accept as truth, and create the reality that I would bring my father home. Thanks for traveling with me this far. I’ll write as things get interesting and believe me when I say, they always do.

1. Paul & Wes Estill at Sundance/2. Sharon with Raynor Roberts/ 3. Marilyn Hickock /
4. Gene Hickock & Roy Easterwood/ 5. Lloyd Wenzel & S.
6. Gene Hickock, S., Disney Logo, Gary Koch/7. Justin & DS crew/8. S & Howard Darnell