Keeping the Promise: The Story of MIA Jerry Elliott, a Family Shattered by His Disappearance, and a Sister's 40-Year Search for the Truth

by Elliott Donna E.

  I continued to go to night school, but now I put in ten-hour days at the shop as well. I found no easy method to answer the phone. Nine times out of ten, when the name of the business is “Bill’s Auto Repair,” the caller will ask to speak to Bill. In my best telephone voice, I recited, “I’m sorry he’s no longer with us. What can I help you with today?” Inside, a dull voice repeated, “Daddy’s dead.” It was draining to separate personal calls from customers who only preferred to speak with the owner. I changed the name to “Mr. Mechanic.”

  The name change didn’t stop visits from Daddy’s out-of-town friends. They were in the habit of dropping by unannounced when they passed through town. I dreaded these unexpected visits because of the inevitable questions. I became unsure of how many times I could repeat the story of his death, and watch another stranger’s face go slack, without screaming. How many times would I get up from my desk to ask Daddy something, or to tell him a funny joke, only to remember I couldn’t talk with him about anything, ever again. It was gut wrenching to know his boisterous laughter would never again fill the empty spaces in my life.

  Due to a slump in the oilfields, business went from bad to worse. Louis and I held onto the shop as long as we could. The bottom line was Daddy had been the business; his personality brought in the customers. I hadn’t asked my parents for money since my first job as a café waitress at fifteen. However, when times got rough, I always knew I could go to Daddy to cosign a small loan at the bank for me. Now, there was no one to turn to for help when I needed it. Randy and Cindy depended on me to take care of them. I’d never felt so lost and alone in my life. At one point, I drove myself to the cemetery with every intention of throwing myself on Daddy’s grave and crying my heart out. There were at least three new unmarked graves in the same area, and workers hadn’t mounted his headstone yet. I walked around in circles, tried to orient myself, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t be sure which fresh mound of earth was my Daddy’s grave. Alarmed, I thought about how I would feel later if I learned I’d cast my woe upon the wrong grave, a complete stranger. Suddenly, I felt foolish. Daddy’s spirit wasn’t in this place. I left with dry eyes and a heart that hurt like cleaved meat, but indeed, it was “time to let go.”

  Left to right: Randy, Donna, Cindy, 1981.

  As much as I relished my military career, I had neither the time nor the energy. I put in for a hardship discharge from the Louisiana Army National Guard. I was disheartened; loss seemed to be a specter that shadowed me no matter how hard I tried to keep an even keel. Cindy’s horrible nightmares that began after Mama died only got worse with Daddy’s death. I really didn’t know what went on in my little sister’s twenty-year-old mind, but I was afraid for her. Since Daddy’s funeral, Cindy drank heavily to fall asleep in the hope she wouldn’t dream of Mama in flowing white rags, beckoning her. The dreams frightened and depressed my little sister, but I couldn’t make them go away anymore than the booze could.

  At his young age, Randy had been through so much. He would look at me with those big, hazel eyes so full of trust. I knew I couldn’t let him down. I worried also, because Randy didn’t cry or express his grief. Never a difficult child, he was generally independent, spirited, and private. Now my easy-going son was moody and curt. I remembered how well I hid my sorrow after Jerry disappeared. I was concerned his pent-up emotions would erupt in extreme behavior at some point down the road. A few weeks after Daddy’s death, as Randy crossed Highway 90 with his dog, he watched helplessly as an eighteen-wheeler ran the old hound down, killing him instantly. When he didn’t cry, or otherwise acknowledge the loss of his furry best friend, I decided drastic action was necessary. I didn’t want my son to live with the baggage of unexpressed emotion.

  I made Randy get into Daddy’s old Chevy truck with me. After a short ride to Lake Palourde, I parked the truck at the shoreline. He didn’t want to talk, or listen, but I wouldn’t let up. I purposefully talked about Mam-ma and Pap-pa. Randy got madder and madder. He demanded I stop, but I kept bringing up memories of good times he shared with them. I wanted him to get angry if that was the trigger needed to release his pent up misery. Finally, Randy broke and let it all out; his little shoulders racked with sobs that came from so deep inside there was no sound. I hoped he would be all right; and he was, but the price he paid was suppressed memories of grandparents who adored him.

  At times, I wanted to give up, fall in a crying heap on the floor, but I’d look at my son and realize how much he needed, trusted me. I forced myself to keep going, resolved to try harder, no matter what. I also took note of Daddy’s last bit of advice: “Donna, your problem is you take life too serious.” In the worst of times, laughter is the most healing sound in the world, and we weren’t afraid to laugh at ourselves. If one of us did something funny, even if embarrassed, we never hesitated to share the experience with each other. Laughter was a bond that held us together. Daddy always told us, “It’s better to laugh than to cry.” I tried to remember that when things got rough.

  Two years later, in 1983, life was more organized and Randy was older. As I re-enlisted in the Louisiana Army National Guard, I imagined Jerry standing next to me, mocking me with his crooked grin. Having loved the military, he would understand. It was hard to believe he had been MIA fifteen years.

  I served with the 241st Public Affairs Detachment at Jackson Barracks in New Orleans. It felt good to write again, to free my mind of matters at home. I pulled a short active duty stint as Supply SGT for the 204th Area Support Group, but I hated paperwork that tied me to a desk. My job was to keep up with everything the company needed, from toilet paper to weapons. My heart just wasn’t in my work. Louisiana was full of bad memories and broken dreams. I wanted to take my little family away, make a fresh start. We all wanted to live on a farm in the country. At first, Cindy and Randy talked about the animals they would raise, while I drew diagrams of the home I would someday build. Over time, they stopped dreaming, so I made up my mind to find a piece of land we could call our own.

  In the fall of 1983, I made my first visit to Stone County, Arkansas, to look for property. I waded across a shallow spring-fed creek, walked up the west side of the bank, and stepped out onto green pastures sprawled along a mountain ridge. I stood for a long time under two huge, old oak trees, at peace for the first time in years. Finally, I thought, a place to put down roots.

  Along with my vet buddy, Audrey, my sister and I put a little money down on the sixty-two acres I’d discovered on the lower-end of Stone County. The original plan was to stay in Louisiana and work towards paying the mortgage down, but I couldn’t get Arkansas out of my head. Owning land was important to me. Raised during the Depression, Mama had drummed it into my head since I was old enough to understand that as long as we had a piece of land large enough to raise a garden and a few cows, no matter how bad things got, our family would always have food and a place to sleep. With life so unpredictable, I needed assurance Randy and Cindy would have a home if something happened to me.

  I had fond recollections of the Ozarks. When I was little, our family always traveled through the Ozark Mountains on trips from Mississippi to Kansas City, Missouri to see Grandma Rosie and her older sister, Great Aunt Mary. Daddy would pull into a farm stand and while we kids stretched our legs, Mama would buy our lunch - several slices of hoop cheese, a box of saltine crackers, canned sardines or Vienna sausage, an onion, and a gallon of fresh apple cider. Depending on the season, we could pick from crisp apples, fuzzy peaches, or sweet watermelon. We would then drive a short distance, stop where the view was pretty, and have a roadside picnic. With these pleasant memories in mind, I daydreamed about a house under the two big oak trees, pictured where the barn would go, and read articles on how to develop the small spring-fed pond. Everyone said I was foolish to move six-hundred miles from everyone we knew. I thought of myself as a pioneer, a woman with grit, who dared to take her family to the mountains in search of a new beginning.

  I decided to make the big move to Arka
nsas in the spring of 1984. Randy joined me a few months later when school was out for the summer. A month away from turning fifteen, he suffered severe culture shock. The nearest town was so small there were no traffic lights. Downtown consisted of the town square, one bank, two grocery stores, and assorted craft and music shops. The closest McDonald’s was over thirty miles away, nor was there a shopping mall, bowling alley, or skating rink anywhere close. The only entertainment was a ramshackle movie theater and a single-screen drive-in.

  There were sometimes humorous differences too, such as accents and colloquialisms. Randy heard his supervisor at his after-school supermarket job tell him one afternoon to, “Face out the bacon aisle.” My industrious son spent the next couple of hours busy rearranging the meat aisle, pulling all the products to the front and generally tiding things up. When finished, his boss inspected his work and said, “That looks fine. Now go do the same thing to the aisle with the flour and other bake’n goods.”

  Randy wasn’t the only one who had to adjust to country living. It didn’t take me long to discover there was a serious flaw in my plan, I’d failed to research the job market in rural Arkansas. The Stone County Industrial Park boasted a sign and a few cows. The largest employers in the county were the sewing factory and the ironworks. Audrey had thirteen years of emergency room experience as an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse), but the highest wage she could find was five dollars an hour at the hospital in Batesville, over thirty miles away. With no particular skills that were in demand, I had a difficult time finding work. I finally landed a summer job tracking farms on aerial photographs for Arkansas Soil and Conservation Service (ASCS) at minimum wage.

  A few months after our move to Arkansas, Audrey married her old beau from Louisiana, Russell, and moved back to New Orleans. I was happy for her, but I was worried about how I was going to make ends meet. Fortunately, Uncle Bouler decided to follow Randy and me to the mountains. Although he kicked in part of his little social security check each month, I struggled to feed three people, pay house rent, and a land mortgage, all on minimum wage.

  Eventually, Cindy also followed us to Stone County. She liked life in the country, but she hated living in a dry county that didn’t sell alcohol, with only a pool hall full of old men playing dominoes. She couldn’t tolerate being idle, but like Daddy and Randy she talked to everyone, so she quickly picked up odd jobs through new friends. By this time, we all lived in the remodeled cafeteria of an old rock school building converted into rental apartments. Money was always tight, but we had some good times together. Cabin fever in the winter sent us on long treks in the hills, and with only one television station within range, we tended to talk more.

  Randy and his aunt Cindy on a winter walkabout in Arkansas, 1985.

  Times were very rough that first year in Arkansas. When Cathi’s mom, my friend Betty, died unexpectedly after routine bladder surgery, I couldn’t afford to travel back to Louisiana for the funeral. I knew from experience Cathi, and her brother, Allen, needed the support of all their friends. Cathi had always stood beside me through my personal tragedies. We didn’t allow distance to dim our friendship. Although Cathi said she understood the situation, I still felt I had let her down.

  When the new school year started, I questioned dragging my son to a place where it was so difficult to find work at a decent wage. Randy went to school wearing old blue jeans that were at least four inches too short for his fast-growing legs. He was a good sport about his “high-waters,” but I couldn’t help feeling I had failed my son. Even at fifteen, Randy was notable for his big feet. I worried he would become self-conscious, but when I asked if his size twelve feet bothered him, he said no. Amused at my puzzled expression, Randy explained, “They help me to meet people. I use my feet for ice-breakers. All I have to do is kick my shoes off and get a girl to walk across the room in them, everyone laughs, and starts talking about my big feet.” I admired my son; he had turned a potential liability into an asset.

  Randy was used to a larger community with more to offer young people, but to his credit, he quickly made friends. Often the mothers of his friends would stop me in the grocery store to tell me how much they enjoyed his visits. They bragged about how much help around the house Randy was. He washed dishes, carried in firewood, and took out the trash. Sometimes I wondered if we were talking about the same kid. He wasn’t so eager to do chores at home; I could barely get him to pick up the clutter in his room much less wash dishes. Carrying clean towels to his bathroom one day, I stubbed my toe on what I thought was a pile of blankets at the foot of his bed. Lifting the covers, I discovered a brand new engine block. I knew Randy had plans to build himself a vehicle from the inside out, one part at a time; I just hadn’t realized he planned to do it in his room.

  Thru all my misgivings, I loved it in the mountains. Stone County was a good place to raise kids, but Randy didn’t like being so far from town. It wasn’t easy for a teenager to adjust from city life to living in the country. We often argued about selling the land. Randy wanted to move to town so we could have a nicer place to live, he could be near his friends, and have access to cable television. “Randy,” I would tell him, “you might not believe this, but for every person who wants to live in a city, there are ten people who would love to live in the country where you do.” He didn’t accept this idea, but I refused to sell the land. By now, I’d obtained my real estate license, and managed to buy out Cindy and Audrey’s interest in the property. The land note was the first bill I paid every month. I anticipated Randy would grow up, go to college, marry, someday have children of his own, and want to raise his family on the land.

  To Randy’s delight, a year after the move to Arkansas I married our good friend, Louis. Several months later, his baby sister, Dee, and her two preschoolers, Jim Bob and Janet, left Louisiana in crisis and joined our household. Randy and I enjoyed having a family larger than three people again. I relished spending time with my new nephew and niece. Jim Bob and Janet were as close to a younger brother and sister as Randy would ever have. Cindy and Uncle Bouler were also doing well, and we were all one big, happy family. When I was accepted as one of two interns for the 1985 Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship Program out of hundreds of applicants, I was thrilled. For the first time in years, my life was so balanced, I couldn’t help but wonder when the other shoe would drop.

  Once a month I would drive to Camp Robinson in North Little Rock for weekend drill with the Army Reserves 343rd Public Affairs Detachment (PAD) under the command of MAJ Dennis White. I was in my element when we went to Fort Hood for our two weeks of summer camp in support of “Starburst ‘85,” a major exercise that combined over 15,000 soldiers from the 49th Armored Division of the Texas Army National Guard with approximately 3,000 support personnel from Arkansas and Oklahoma. As I pulled duty at Fort Hood, it made me think a lot about Jerry. I accepted the deaths of my parents, but I could not fail my brother. Years before, Mama had asked me to promise her two things. The first pledge required I would always care for my little sister. The second promise was that I would never stop looking for my brother.

  One evening as I stood under a big, old Texas oak tree next to the old “chicken coop” barracks and watched choppers buzz the sky, I started to wonder if Jerry had ever stood under the very same tree, or walked where I walked. I scribbled my downhearted thoughts in my notebook as I stood in the dark shadows,

  “I don’t mean to dwell on these things, old tree. They seem to float up with the dust. Did you know my brother? Did he rest his head against your trunk and cuss the heat? I’d ask him, old tree, but he’s not around anymore—Vietnam, you know. ‘Missing in Action,’ the telegram said.”

  The short story was personal, meant for my eyes only, but the next morning as I typed the last line, the pressroom commander walked by, pulled it out of my typewriter, and walked away. I was certain the story was going to create problems for me because the POW/MIA issue was so politically sensitive. I was on the first truck out to the field to do
a dull story on water storage, which spared me for the moment, but eventually I had to go back and face the music.

  I sensed edginess in the room when I returned. Old memories of the Army warning our family not to discuss Case 1000 flooded my mind. I expected the worst, thought my military career was in the dumpster for sure. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think the story would merit publication in the Fort Hood Sentinel, the Diamond, and Army Reserve Magazine. I had found my military niche, and earned a promotion to sergeant.

  The 343rd PAD returned to Fort Hood in May 1986, in support of the 3rd Signal Brigade. A few months earlier, I’d reinjured my neck at Fort Smith, Arkansas, performing PT during the Basic NonCommissioned Officer (BNOC) course. The second day at Ft. Hood, I snapped my duffel bag to dump my gear out. A hot pain seared from my right shoulder into my neck and doubled me over. I tossed and turned all night, but the last thing I wanted to see again was the inside of a Troop Medical Clinic (TMC). I kept going out on assignment until MAJ White noticed I had a problem with the use of my right arm. He ordered me to sick call. The diagnosis was once again cervical strain. Although my shoulder and back were a major part of the problem, nothing hurt as much as my neck, so that was the body part that got attention. With a great deal of discomfort, I completed my assignments. However, the reinjury sent me home on a Line-of-Duty, and placed me on medical hold status for over a year and a half.

  SGT Donna E. Elliott, 1985.