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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Suffering on home front


Phyllis

Memorial Day is just another day off for many Americans.

Most use the day to camp, barbecue or just hang out with their families.

But for the daughters and sons of those killed in war, Memorial Day holds special significance. They grieve for the memories they never made with their fathers – the birthdays, graduations and weddings with an empty chair where dad should have sat.

Many barely remember their fathers who were killed in far-off nations and whose bodies were returned home weeks or years later. Or never.

For years, they have felt alone. But today, the American WWII Orphans Network, which was founded by a Moses Lake woman, and its Vietnam War equivalent, Sons and Daughters in Touch, offer ways for them to support one another.

These fatherless children, now adults, help one another obtain copies of military records and find the men who served beside their fathers. The groups provide some of the answers the war orphans have sought all their lives.

But they can’t completely fill the holes left in families ripped apart decades ago.

“I still resent it. I just think our lives could have been a lot better off with our fathers,” said Post Falls resident Linda Glass.

Glass still chokes up when she talks about her dad.

Army Air Corps Tech. Sgt. Thomas Leroy Madison was killed in 1945, when his plane crashed over Germany.

Glass was 4 ½ years old.

“I don’t know if I remember it, or I was told,” she said of the day the news was delivered.

The family was gathered together, and the message given to Glass’ grandfather. He unemotionally passed the news along to her mother. And Glass’s life immediately changed.

Her mother remarried and the family moved from California to an Idaho mining camp, away from the life she’d lived with her father.

The half-brother born later just couldn’t relate to the pain Glass felt.

Until she joined AWON, Glass said, she didn’t fully understand it herself.

On a recent trip to the World War II Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium, Glass was finally able to see where her father was buried. It was beautiful, she said – much better than the overgrown cemetery she had imagined.

“When we got there I just collapsed on my knees,” Glass said.

Strength together

Although each got its start roughly 15 years ago, Sons and Daughters and AWON were created independently of one another – Sons and Daughters in 1990 and AWON in 1991.

“You don’t want to be a member of this organization,” said Sons and Daughters founder Tony Cordero.

But it can make grieving easier for its 3,000 members.

Last Father’s Day, about 300 of them visited the Vietnam Memorial.

Ann Mix, of Moses Lake, founded AWON as part of her own search for information about her father, Sydney Bennett, who was shot by a sniper in Italy in 1945 when she was 4 ½ years old.

“I thought, ‘Am I the only one?’” she said.

She began interviewing other World War II war orphans for a book.

“The first experience I had talking to someone who had also lost a dad was so profound. I knew others had to experience it, too,” Mix said. And AWON was born.

The group has about 800 members and 2,700 more World War II orphans registered in its database.

“People say, ‘How can you miss someone you never had?’ My answer is, ‘How can you not?’” Mix said. “It’s a huge, empty space.”

A journey for dad

Karen Spears Zacharias’ grief has taken her from her home in Hermiston, Ore., to the Wall in Washington, D.C., and to the Vietnam battlefield where her father, David Spears, was killed in 1966.

Zacharias was 9 years old, and she can still hear the wails from her mother’s bedroom.

“People ask me, ‘How can you remember it so well?’” she said. “That’s what happens when chaos touches your life.”

For years, Zacharias’ mother struggled to take care of her three children. She went to school to become a nurse. The family never talked about Spears; it was too painful.

And Zacharias couldn’t discuss her dad with her schoolmates because of the divisiveness of the war.

“It was kind of the national shame,” she said. “What do we do with shame? We don’t talk about it.”

Sons and Daughters helped Zacharias through her grief. It was on a trip sponsored by the group that she went to Vietnam.

Zacharias wrote a book about her experiences, “After the Flag Has Been Folded: A daughter remembers the father she lost to war – and the mother who held her family together.”

“I spend every Memorial Day – since I’ve been on this journey of rediscovering my father – at the Wall in Washington, D.C.,” said Zacharias. “Visiting his grave is sacred, but being at the Wall is like a reunion. That’s where I go to be with the men who served with my dad.”

“Daddy Jack”

Phyllis “Chickie” Shields Berry’s father led the Oregon Army National Guard band. But after the attack on Pearl Harbor, John Shields was sent to Australia and then New Guinea to fight in the the Pacific Theater.

Berry’s older half-sister always called Shields “Daddy Jack,” so Berry did, too. She slept with a stuffed koala bear he sent for her fourth birthday.

Then, in 1943, when she was 5 years old, her dad died. Berry’s mother told her he had malaria, but Berry later found out he killed himself in a military hospital in Australia.

“My father became a psychiatric casualty of the war,” said the Rathdrum resident.

Berry suffered emotionally, too, and she said the pain was worse because she was never able to properly grieve for her father. Her family just didn’t talk about him.

As with many war orphans, the grief was punctuated by poverty or uncaring stepfathers.

“For 10 years my mom was married to a man who was so jealous of my dad’s memory that his name wasn’t even allowed to be mentioned in our house,” she said, adding, “As a kid I was kept away from anything military, including Memorial Day services.”

But Berry is making up for that now by helping organize North Idaho Memorial Day events.

She proudly displays her father’s trumpet in a glass case and has pictures of him hanging on her walls.

Grief passed down

The missing branch in a family tree is a loss that continues with grandchildren who never know their grandfather.

Zacharias’ daughter, Ashley Sinner, yearns for the grandfather she didn’t meet. Talking to her mother about him has brought the family closer.

“We knew all the time there was this person missing,” said Sinner.

On Father’s Day last year, Sinner and her twin sister, Shelby, accompanied their mother to Washington, D.C., to wash the Wall. They left pictures of their college graduation and letters under David Spears’ name.

Sinner is now attending Gonzaga University to get her MBA and law degree.

“Not only did he miss my wedding, but he missed hers as well,” Zacharias said of her daughter.

But Spears’ presence at Sinner’s New Year’s Eve 2005 wedding ceremony was unmistakable.

Sinner’s bridesmaids wore traditional Vietnamese costumes and she carried his military insignia pin on her bouquet. Her groom wore a matching pin on his lapel.

Today’s war orphans

Members of both groups worry today about the U.S. children losing fathers and mothers in Iraq and Afghanistan – and say they want them to get the support previous war orphans did not have.

Unfortunately, said Cordero, “the need’s not going to go away.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, Sons and Daughters wrote an open letter to the kids whose parents were killed. The attacks were “an act of war,” said Cordero, explaining why the group wrote the letter.

AWON’s Web site features downloadable books to help children who’ve lost parents in war or otherwise.

Mix said she hopes that adults today can learn from the mistakes made in previous wars, when it was assumed that children couldn’t understand their fathers’ deaths, and were kept in the dark.

Today’s war orphans have a better support system, including summer camps where they can meet other kids going through the same experience.

Americans have also learned to be respectful of troops and their families, even if they oppose the war, said Cordero. That’s something his generation’s experience taught the country.

“I like to think we’ve been of some help,” said Mix.