When Capt. Donald ”Butch” Carr`s plane disappeared over Laos in 1971, his family was reluctant to believe the cocky three-tour Green Beret was really dead.
”We`ve always said if anybody could come out of the jungle it would be him,” said his brother, Matthew Carr of East Chicago, Ind. ”He was a hard-nose and well trained by the government.”
But, over time, those hopes were difficult to sustain. Butch didn`t return with the wave of prisoners of war released by Vietnam in 1973, and in 1976 the U.S. government declared him dead.
A few months later, Matthew and his family erected a tombstone in Holy Cross Cemetery in nearby Calumet City, and a visiting general spoke of Butch`s bravery at a memorial service in his honor.
A generation passed, tarnishing hopes and memories.
Then, two weeks ago, a phone call changed everything.
”Did you have a relative missing in Southeast Asia?” the voice on the other end asked Carr`s nephew, Rich. The next day, with the family gathered over a facsimile machine, the photo of a wiry, smiling man standing beside an iron cage slowly rolled into their hands.
”It`s my brother,” said Matthew Carr, a tall, solemn man who broke into sobs at the image. ”There`s no question at all.”
The photo, allegedly taken by a Laotian contact of retired Air Force Col. Jack Bailey, a noted prisoner-of-war hunter, is one of several photographs that have surfaced in recent months purporting to show American prisoners of war or servicemen missing in action still alive and being held captive in Southeast Asia nearly 20 years after the end of the Vietnam war.
The photos have both raised hopes and reopened deep wounds for families that lost brothers, fathers and sons in the war. They also have forced the re- examination of a painful chapter of history the U.S. government has long sought to close.
And though some of the photos are feared to be hoaxes, families of the 2,273 servicemen still missing-including 96 in Illinois and 41 from the Chicago area-are renewing their searches for information and daring to hope their relatives might have survived after all.
”I can`t believe there`s just one,” said Claudia Carr, Matthew`s wife, after seeing the photo identified by forensics experts as her brother-in-law, now 52. ”There have to be more.”
The Carrs obtained their photo from Bailey, who heads Operation Rescue, a Washington D.C.-based group trying to locate MIAs. Bailey heard reports from sources that an American was being held in a camp in Laos.
A Laotian operative for Bailey journeyed to the camp, where he took the man`s photograph. The man was working as a gardener, gave his name and asked for help.
The case has been particularly interesting to observers because the Carrs, unlike others who have identified those in photos as their family members, have never been actively involved in POW-MIA issues.
”They`ve been working for years and us just for days,” said Matthew Carr of the prisoner-of-war activists.
The Carrs` photo, taken in 1990 or 1991, also is the only one so far positively matched by a forensic science expert with previous photos. After measuring facial characteristics and doing a complex computer comparison of the photos, Michael Charney, the director of the forensic science laboratory at Colorado State University, wrote that ”the fit is sufficient evidence that the two photos are those of the same person, Donald Gene Carr.”
”The others have been attacked, but ours hasn`t been,” Matthew Carr noted.
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Since a grainy photo of three men reported to be U.S. servicemen missing in Vietnam surfaced last month, the Washington, D.C., offices of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia has been swamped with calls, according to Kelly Murphy, a spokeswoman.
”There is a huge amount of public interest,” she said. But the overall attitude of most callers, she said, has been one of ”cautious optimism.”
”They`re always hopeful, but the families are very realistic,” she said. ”Hoaxes have happened before and that`s why they`re cautious. But when people believe that is their loved one, that gives it a great deal of credibility.”
Still, some wonder why, if people were able to take these photographs, why has no one been able to bring out an actual prisoner of war?
”It`s hard for me to understand why in the world the man that took the photograph of the man from East Chicago couldn`t have brought him out,” said Mary Carol Lemon of Flossmoor, whose son, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Lemon, also disappeared while flying over Laos in 1971.
”For the past 20 years, the families have been on such an emotional rollercoaster with the different reports that have come out,” she said. ”We have to be skeptical until we see actual proof, when they bring out a live man that is properly identified.”
But she, like others, admits to a belief that some Americans-perhaps even her son-remain alive in Laos, if not Vietnam, where more thorough searches have been done.
”Having them declared dead on paper didn`t change anything for any of the families,” she said.
For families such as that of Kathy Borah Duez, who identified her brother Lt. Dan Borah last year as the man pictured in a photo brought out of Laos, the hardest part of dealing with the new information has been the worry and frustration.
”It`s hard because we know for sure and how can we leave him there another day more?” said Duez, of downstate Le Roy. ”You`re just dying to get them home. Not knowing was torture, but knowing is torture too.”
She and her parents, who once were doubters, ”feel 100 per cent sure that this is Dan and that he is alive,” she said.
For others, such as Matthew Carr, there are guilt feelings to deal with.
”I talk to myself, ask, `Did I do enough?` ” he said.
Carr, who has been on a whirlwind lobbying tour in Washington since getting the photo of his brother, said he believes the best hope of getting his brother back home lies with the U.S. government.
He isn`t planning a trip to Laos and won`t listen to would-be Rambos who have called, offering to bring out Butch on their own.
Mostly, he said, he`s worried that doing anything rash could threaten his brother or the other men he now believes must be in Laos, most being held as laborers for small tribal rulers, as his brother is said to be.
”We really feel whatever happens to him in this case can influence the others,” he said.
Though the Pentagon and national security officials long have maintained there are no living American servicemen in Southeast Asia, and still say the photographs do not present ”credible” evidence, Carr points out that Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney last Tuesday ordered a doubling of the size of the Pentagon staff to more than 160 people now working to resolve POW-MIA cases remaining from the Vietnam war.
”This time, I don`t think this is going to be swept away,” said Dorothy Semrau of Moweaqua in central Illinois, whose son Timothy, a Marine, was shot and captured after his helicopter was downed on a rescue mission in Laos in 1967.
The news she has of her son`s disappearance, like other stories, is heart-rending. Timothy, she has learned from fellow Marines, had volunteered at the last minute for the rescue to replace a buddy who had hurt his foot. The helicopter settled into an area thick with North Vietnamese patrols and the Marines rushed out to save others pinned down there. But as they were dragged aboard and the helicopter rose again, it was shot down.
”I just keep getting bits and pieces, but I know Tim was hit twice and fell, then was hit again,” said Semrau, formerly of Downers Grove. ”Some of them did get away, but Tim was picked up and captured. One said he knew Tim regained consciousness and tried to get out but couldn`t.”
She and many others want to believe their loved ones are still alive. But even those families who now have new hope wonder what life would be like for them now, after 20 years away.
”It hurts. It makes you wonder,” said Helen Driessen, of Naperville, whose brother, Robert Lapham, may still be in a POW camp, according to sketchy reports she has heard. ”The thought of him coming back to adjust to this type of life, if he is alive . . . I just can`t imagine it.”
But Matthew Carr says he knows what he`ll do with Butch if his brother ever returns home.
”I have that tombstone,” he said. ”And I want to be able to go dig it up wit1h him.”