THE LAST FULL MEASURE :

Years After Vietnam, Father Rests in Peace : Daughters Bury Remains of Long-Missing Soldier (Susan Levine, June 13, 2002, Washington Post)

After more than three decades of waiting, of wondering what and where and how, his daughters buried Lt. Col. Donald E. Parsons on Friday with full military honors. They walked behind a horse-drawn caisson for the final journey to his gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery. They stood for the
sharp report of 21 gunshots and the moving simplicity of taps. They received from a commanding officer the American flag that had been draped over their father's casket, now folded into a sharp, taut triangle of mourning.

The casket contained little, though: A green Army uniform with all the appropriate bars of rank. And underneath the uniform, placed carefully within an Army blanket, two teeth.

Yet for those teeth, Stacy Parsons and Donna Willett were profoundly grateful. At last, they knew, their father was home.

Not until six years ago were the two meager and badly discolored relics recovered from the dense jungle where Parsons and six other soldiers had gone missing in action during the height of the Vietnam War. The discovery by a military search team was part random luck, part persistent investigation, part hard-sweat work. But confirming their identity took several more years, and so not until late 2000 did Willett pick up the phone one day in North Carolina to hear, "We have found your father's remains."

The other Brother served with the Old Guard at Arlington. There is nothing more humbling than to walk the rows of graves there and to think about the awesome sacrifice that others have made so that we could remain free. God bless you and yours, Lt. Col Parsons. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 18, 2002 7:59 PM