Sunday 18 August 2013

In a year, over 2,000 corpses in Mumbai unclaimed


You have seen them at railway stations, on busy roads and near bus stops. They either stare blankly ahead or indulge in strange antics while speaking incoherently to themselves. These are the 'homeless zombies' who nobody cares for. A recent RTI query revealed that, on an average, more than 2,000 such individuals die unknown in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai out of the total 95,000 deaths registered every year.

In America, the unidentified dead are often called John Doe or Jane Doe, depending on their gender.

"In our country those who die unknown are mostly the homeless with mental sickness such as schizophrenia, dementia or other problems. They keep wandering around like dazed zombies as there is no help forthcoming,'' said Anil Galgali, RTI activist and chairperson of the Mumbai based NGO Athak Seva Sangh.

Based on his recent RTI findings, Galgali said, "According to the latest National Crime Record data, Maharashtra recorded 5,906 unknown deaths in 2012. This figure includes 1,100 unclaimed bodies in Mumbai's government railway police (GRP) jurisdiction itself. Beyond the railway zone, every year, more than 800 unknown deaths are registered in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai,'' said Galgali.

Galgali had written to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan to start a dedicated helpline and shelters for the homeless. Despite repeated attempts, Chavan could not be reached.

Pastor Biju Samuel of Panvel's SEAL (Social & Evangelical Association For Love) Ashram for the homeless, said, "It is mainly private NGOs which pick up the really bad homeless cases from the streets to treat them. Otherwise, they do die as John Does or Jane Does, and end up in municipal crematoriums. Why isn't the state government doing anything for these poor, helpless souls?''

Pastor Samuel added that even if conscientious citizens call up the police emergency number '100' to help a homeless person in distress, the aid comes rather late and reluctantly.

"The state government must certainly have a special helpline for mentally ill homeless persons, as they are completely clueless and not even able to beg to survive," said Brijesh Arya of Beghar Adhikar Abhyan. Arya added that on June 25 this year, two women hawkers died in the heavy rains at Mumbai's Girgaum Chowpatty beach as they could not find a proper shelter.

"If the normal homeless can also die due to lack of roof over their heads, imagine what the mentally ill face all alone in their warped frame of mind,'' said Arya.

In 2010, the Supreme Court had ordered night shelters in 62 major Indian cities. BMC also declared seven shelters in Mumbai. Arya, though, said that these shelters are already occupied by permanent residents such as street children. "Why can't the state reserve a few spaces only for the homeless?'' said Galgali.

Monday 19 August 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/In-a-year-over-2000-corpses-in-Mumbai-unclaimed/articleshow/21888965.cms

continue reading

Update: Death toll rises to 38 in Cebu ships’ collision; 82 missing


Rescuers counted 38 bodies and upped the number of missing people to 82 on the second day of search and rescue operations following a ship collision off Talisay City, Cebu, on Friday night.

Thirty-two bodies had been found on Saturday while divers retrieved five more from the sunken MV St. Thomas of Aquinas on Sunday. Of the 751 earlier reported survivors, one died Sunday—a child who has yet to be identified.

The number of missing was earlier estimated at 58 based on the manifest released on Saturday by 2GO Group Inc., the ferry owner, showing 841 passengers and crewmembers on board. But on Sunday, 2GO released a “supplemental manifest” that brought the total number of people on the ill-fated ferry to 870.

After almost 48 hours of search and rescue operations, some of the rescuers feared the toll from the collision may yet reach 120. But Cebu Coast Guard station commander Weniel Azcuna said he had not given up the search for the missing passengers of the ferry that collided with a cargo vessel, the Sulpicio Express Siete, in the Mactan Channel off Lawis Ledge, just 3.2 kilometers from port.

“We are still on search and rescue mode … we are not losing hope. There’s still a possibility that we can find survivors somewhere,” Azcuna said.

He said three simultaneous underwater search operations were being conducted by Philippine Navy and police divers, while Air Force and Coast Guard helicopters scoured the surface for passengers still clinging to debris. Several civilian rescue groups and fishermen have also joined the search.

Azcuna said they feared that some missing passengers were trapped inside the vessel. Technical divers were needed due to the risk in going inside the sunken vessel, which was lying 30 meters deep.

Recovered bodies were taken to the Talisay Fish Port, where the command center for the retrieval operation had been set up. Only 22 of the 38 bodies now at the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes on Junquerra Street in Cebu City have been positively identified by their relatives.

2GO said the vessel’s authorized capacity was 1,010 passengers and crew, and 160 6-meter containers.

Coast Guard deputy chief Rear Adm. Luis Tuason said divers were also trying to plug a fuel leak to prevent oil from spilling into the sea.

Azcuna said the St. Thomas of Aquinas skipper, Capt. Reynan Bermejo, survived the accident and was on a rescue ship helping look for survivors.

Bermejo was expected to submit his marine protest on Sunday.

The 36 crew of the Sulpicio Express Siete headed by Capt. Rolito Gilo had been instructed to stay on their vessel, which was docked at Pier 5, and were ordered to cooperate with the special board of marine inquiry, which will be held in Manila after the completion of the search and rescue operation.

Gilo submitted a marine protest, but Azcuna said he had yet to go into the details of the document.

Azcuna said the licenses of both the captains and the crew of the vessels were suspended by the Maritime Industry Authority because of the accident.

Meanwhile, relatives flocked to a ticketing office of ferry owner 2GO Group Inc. and put up pictures of their missing loved ones. Others, like Richard Ortiz, waited quietly and stared blankly at the vast sea from the Talisay pier, where Coast Guard and Navy rescuers were encamped.

“I just want to see my parents,” said Ortiz, who clutched a picture of his father and mother. “This is so difficult.” Transportation and Communications Secretary Joseph Abaya said on Saturday there were foreigners among the ferry passengers and all were fine, except for a New Zealand citizen who was taken to hospital.

Abaya said the cargo vessel, which was leaving the Cebu pier, smashed into the right or starboard side near the rear or stern of the ferry, which was coming in from Nasipit and making a short stop in Cebu before proceeding to Manila.

Outbound and incoming ships are assigned separate routes in the narrow passage leading to the busy Cebu pier. An investigation would determine if one of the vessels strayed into the wrong lane and sparked the accident, which happened in relatively calm weather, Coast Guard officials said.

“There was probably a nonobservance of rules,” Melad told a news conference in Cebu on Sunday, suggesting human error may have been a factor in the accident. He stressed, however, that only an investigation would show what really happened.

Sunday 18 August 2013

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/468569/death-toll-rises-to-38-in-cebu-ships-collision-82-missing

continue reading

Japan: Remains of 114 victims still unidentified from 3/11 Tsunami disaster


With more than 2,600 people still missing in the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the remains of 114 victims are still awaiting identification in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.

With the passage of time, almost two and a half years after the March 11, 2011, disaster, it is becoming more difficult to find clues to identify them.

At Kichijoji temple, located on a hill in the Kirikiri district of Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, chief priest Eigo Takahashi says, “Good morning,” to all of the 22 wooden boxes being kept there every morning. At that time, he raises his right hand in front of his chest as in prayer and places his left hand on each box.

Each box contains an urn holding ashes that are part of the remains of a victim of the 2011 disaster. Fifteen of the 22 boxes also contain a skull. Each of the other seven boxes contains the bones of body parts from below the neck.

The ages and genders of the 22 sets of remains are unknown. The boxes are identified by number.

On July 20, a person came to the temple to pick up an urn whose remains were identified through a DNA test. It was the first time since November 2012 that an urn placed in the temple was claimed.

“I was very surprised by the visitor because I was thinking that it may be almost impossible to identify remains,” Takahashi said.

In Otsuchi, unidentified remains are currently kept in three temples, including Kichijoji. Takahashi is proposing that the Otsuchi town government build a charnel house at a side of an evacuation center on the hill and place all of the unidentified remains there so that town residents can pray for the victims.

In Rikuzentakata, a grave site was constructed to accommodate the unidentified remains.

“There will be no recovery (of our town) without mourning the dead. I feel that unidentified ashes are asking us not to forget the victims who were killed by tsunami,” Takahashi said.

According to the National Police Agency, the number of remains of unidentified victims of the 2011 disaster stood at 71 in Iwate Prefecture, 42 in Miyagi Prefecture and one in Fukushima Prefecture as of Aug. 9. All of the 114 sets of remains contain skulls. If remains that do not contain skulls are added, the total will be larger.

Temples are keeping those unidentified remains at the request of local governments.

From DNA, teeth, surgical scars, clothing and other materials, police identified the remains of 348 people during the second year from the disaster--from March 11, 2012, to March 10, 2013. Since then, the remains of only 18 victims have been identified.

The number of new clues for identification is decreasing. In addition, there are cases in which missing persons reports were not made to police or DNA was not available for matching because all the family members have died, or the victims had no close relatives.

Showing the difficulty in identifying victims, on Okushirito island, off southwestern Hokkaido, which was devastated by a 1993 earthquake and tsunami, the remains of an unidentified person are still being kept at a temple there more than 20 years later.

Horyuji temple, in the Aonae district in the southernmost part of Okushirito island, is still keeping the remains of an unidentified person found about one kilometer off the coast four days after an earthquake and tsunami struck there on July 12, 1993.

According to police, the remains are those of a woman who is 149 centimeters tall and her blood type is A. She is believed to have been 55 to 85 years old at the time of the disaster.

After the body was found, no one contacted police to report that she could be a family member or relative. After more than one month passed, the remains were cremated. Then, the ashes were placed in Horyuji, the only temple in the Aonae district that survived the disaster.

“I hope that her family members appear as soon as possible. It is best for her to return to her family. I think that she is also thinking so,” a 51-year-old priest of the temple said.

Sunday 18 August 2013

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/life_and_death/AJ201308180028

continue reading

Floods kill 25 in North-East China


The bodies of three people who went missing in a flood in Northeast China's Jilin province were recovered on Saturday, local authorities said.

The latest casualties brought the death toll of floods which also hit neighboring Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces to 25.

Around 4:00 am on Friday floods hit a residential compound in Hongshi township, Huadian, leaving 11 dead. Three others were reportedly missing before their bodies were recovered Saturday.

About 200 residents from some 70 families have been relocated from their submerged community buildings.

Northeast China has been hit by the worst flooding in decades this summer.

Heilongjiang reported 11 flood-related deaths on Friday and Three people remain missing since the floods began on August 10, bringing water levels in three major rivers in the province to dangerous levels.

Nearly 2 million people in Heilongjiang have been affected, with 140,000 being relocated, according to the provincial civil affairs department.

The floods have destroyed over 2,500 houses and severely damaged at least 12,500 others, with direct economic losses estimated at 7.13 billion yuan (US$1.15 billion).

In Liaoning Province to the south of Jilin, more than 140 reservoirs discharged water after rain from Thursday to Saturday raised levels above warning lines.

Railways and highways were cut off and bridges damaged by the floods in Fushun City where rainfall was the heaviest. Over 300,000 people there have been affected.

Sunday 18 August 2013

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-08/17/content_16901615.htm

continue reading

Sindhurakshak: 6th body recovered from submarine


Battling difficult conditions, rescuers from Indian Navy extricated body of one more victim from the submarine INS Sindhurakshak on late Saturday evening, taking the total number of bodies recovered so far to six, naval sources said.

The rescue team had on Friday extricated badly charred bodies of five of the 18 personnel trapped in the craft after gruelling efforts as naval authorities voiced worst fears that others on board might have been incinerated too.

"Body of one more sailor was recovered from the submarine late this evening," Navy sources said.

The divers had managed to open a second access to the sunken vessel during an overnight operation.

Sources said the Navy divers are carrying out the task of searching within the submarine by "feeling each inch" due to zero visibility within flooded compartments to locate the missing bodies and mark a probable route to be used for further rescue operations.

18 Navy personnel, including three officers, were on board the Russia-made submarine when a devastating fire ripped through the frontline underwater craft following serial explosions on Tuesday midnight. The Navy has instituted a Board of Inquiry to probe the cause of the explosions and fire which is expected to submit its report within four weeks.

Mumbai Police have also registered a case of accidental death in connection with the worst peacetime tragedy suffered by the Navy.

Sunday 18 August 2013

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Mumbai/Sindhurakshak-6th-body-recovered-from-submarine/Article1-1109291.aspx

continue reading

Search suspended for 171 missing in Philippine ferry disaster


Stormy weather forced Philippine rescuers to suspend a search on Saturday for 171 people missing after a crowded ferry collided with a cargo ship and quickly sank, with 31 others confirmed dead.

The St Thomas Aquinas ferry was carrying 831 passengers and crew when the vessels smashed into each other late on Friday night in a dangerous choke point near the port of Cebu, the Philippines' second-biggest city, authorities said.

Coastguard and military vessels, as well as local fishermen in their own small boats, frantically worked through the night and Saturday morning to haul 629 people out of the water alive.

But when bad weather whipped up the ocean mid-afternoon on Saturday, authorities suspended the search with 171 people still unaccounted for.

"It rained hard ... with strong winds and rough seas," navy spokesman Lieutenant Commander Gregory Fabic told AFP.

He also said powerful currents had earlier prevented divers from assessing all of the sunken ferry to determine how many people had died and were trapped inside.

Fabic said rescuers had not given up hope that there were other survivors who were still drifting at sea.

But Rear Admiral Luis Tuason, vice commandant of the coastguard, said the death toll would almost certainly rise from the 31 bodies that had already been retrieved.

"Because of the speed by which it went down, there is a big chance that there are people trapped inside," he said, adding the ferry sank within 10 minutes of the collision.

Pope Francis was "deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life", a Vatican statement said, adding he would pray for all affected in the predominantly Catholic country.

One survivor, Lolita Gonzaga, 57, recalled the terror of falling from the top deck of the ship to the bottom level when the collision occurred, then the horror of escaping the black waters with her 62-year-old husband.

"When we were rescued we had to share the rubber boat with a dead woman. She was just lying there," Gonzaga told AFP from a hospital bed in Cebu where she was nursing spinal injuries.

"We were transferred to the other ship that hit us, but I could not go up the stairs because it was full of dead people.

"They were left hanging there. We thought we were going to die. I just held hands with my husband and prayed to God to save us."

Fisherman Mario Chavez told AFP he was one of the first people to reach passengers after the ferry sank in calm waters between two and three kilometres (around one to two miles) from shore.

"I plucked out 10 people from the sea last night. It was pitch black and I only had a small flashlight. They were bobbing in the water and screaming for help," he said.

"They told me there were many people still aboard when the ferry sank ... there were screams, but I could not get to all of them."

The cargo ship, Sulpicio Express 7, which had 36 crew members on board, did not sink. Television footage showed its steel bow had caved in on impact but it sailed safely to dock.

Tuason said it appeared one of the vessels had violated rules on which lanes they should use when travelling in and out of the port, without specifying which one.

The strait leading into the Cebu port is a well-known danger zone, said the enforcement office chief of the government's Maritime Industry Authority, Arnie Santiago.

"It is a narrow passage, many ships have had minor accidents there in the past. But nothing this major," Santiago told AFP.

"There is a blind spot there and each ship passing through needs to give way in a portion of that narrow strip."

Industry authority head Maximo Mejia later told reporters that both vessels had previously passed safety inspections and were sea worthy, indicating human error was to blame.

The captain of the ferry survived, coastguard authorities said.

Ferries are one of the main forms of transport across the archipelago of more than 7,100 islands, particularly for the millions of people too poor to fly.

But sea accidents are common, with poor safety standards and lax enforcement typically to blame.

The world's deadliest peacetime maritime disaster occurred near the capital Manila in 1987 when a ferry laden with Christmas holidaymakers collided with a small oil tanker, killing more than 4,300 people.

In 2008, a huge ferry capsized during a typhoon off the central island of Sibuyan, leaving almost 800 dead.



Sunday 18 August 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Search-suspended-for-171-missing-in-Philippine-ferry-disaster/articleshow/21890304.cms

continue reading

INS Sindhurakshak tragedy: Indian Navy divers open second access to submarine


Battling the odds, divers from the Navy continued their search for more bodies on board submarine INS Sindhurakshak without any success but managed to open a second access to the sunken vessel during an overnight "challenging but critical" operation.

The rescue team had extricated badly charred bodies of five of the 18 personnel trapped in the craft on Friday after gruelling efforts as naval authorities voiced worst fears that others on board might have been incinerated too.

"The divers have gained a second access to the submarine late last night when they successfully prised open the rear escape hatch which was submerged below and jammed due to high temperature," a release from the Navy said, terming the operation as "challenging but critical."

Also, opening of the jammed forward escape hatch is being attempted for an entry to the front portion of the submarine, it said.

Sources said the Navy divers are carrying out the task of searching within the submarine by "feeling each inch" due to zero visibility within flooded compartments to locate the missing bodies and mark a probable route to be used for further rescue operations.

The identification of the five bodies recovered so far is being given high priority and all means including DNA profiling is being carried out, a defence spokesman said.

Doctors at the state-run J J Hospital here have completed postmortem on the bodies recovered from the submarine.

"DNA samples and dental marks have been taken (to ascertain identity)," said an official, adding all these will be sent for forensic analysis.

Doctors have opined that prima facie the cause of death was burning and drowning. However, other details will be known only after receiving the forensic report, the sources said.

Sunday 18 August 2013

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-08-17/india/41420557_1_navy-divers-submarine-escape-hatch

continue reading

Pentagon analyst who tracks down military remains thinks there’s a chance body of Medal of Honor recipient Kapaun could be found


The senior Pentagon analyst in charge of finding Korean War troops missing in action says there is a “better than even” chance that the body of Medal of Honor soldier Father Emil Kapaun will eventually be found buried in a national cemetery in Hawaii.

Finding Kapaun’s remains would be big news, not only to the U.S. military – which awarded him the Medal of Honor in April – but to the Catholic Church, which is deciding whether the Kansas native and Army chaplain will become a saint.

“It would be wonderful,” said Maj. Gen. Donald Rutherford, a Catholic priest who is the chief of chaplains for the U.S. Army. “It would be great, especially as the church is moving toward canonization.”

Friends of Kapaun’s who were prisoners of war say Chinese Army guards buried Kapaun in a shallow unmarked grave after he died of starvation and disease in a North Korean prison camp in May 1951. The assumption since then by the Army has always been that Kapaun’s remains are still there.

But Pentagon analyst Philip O’Brien, an authority on Korean War soldiers missing in action, said he thinks Kapaun’s remains may have been resting since 1954 in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, the cemetery in Hawaii better known as the “Punchbowl.” Hundreds of unknown soldiers and other veterans from several wars lie there.

“My best belief, a presumptive belief, is that we have a good chance, better than even, of having Father Kapaun in possession right now,” O’Brien said.

Korean War historian William Latham says the fact that O’Brien is saying this on the record is significant.

“When Phil says it’s true, it’s true,” Latham said.

Buried in Korea

Kapaun, a native of Pilsen in Marion County, and other survivors of the 8th Cavalry were overrun and captured in the November 1950 battle of Unsan in North Korea. They were forced to march north to camps picked out for them just south of the Yalu River, on the border with China.

Of the 4,000 Allied prisoners herded into the camp in the village of Pyoktong in late 1950 and early 1951, about 1,600 – including Kapaun – died of starvation, disease and exposure.

Bodies were sometimes stacked up six high outside huts as men died by the dozens overnight. Camp guards gave the prisoners only a handful of grain apiece to eat every day and no water. Prisoners scraped snow off the ground with their fingers to get hydrated.

POW friends of Kapaun’s have told The Eagle for years that they – and sometimes Kapaun himself – helped carry many of the dead across a frozen backwater of the Yalu River to ground on the far side. They buried most of the dead in shallow trenches scratched into frozen rocks and snow there.

They also said some prisoners, including Kapaun, died on the village peninsula in an old pagoda Chinese guards called a “hospital.” The Allied prisoners called it a “death house.”

There, prisoners already near death were deliberately isolated from food and water and left to die. Kapaun’s body was rolled into a single grave near the death house, POWs said.

O’Brien has known these stories for years. He also knew, he said, that when the war ended in a ceasefire in 1953, the Chinese Army dug up about 560 American bodies in and around the hill where the death house stood – and repatriated them home.

One thing the American body recovery teams did, O’Brien said, was unfortunate to future identification. Faced with packages of crumbling bones, they dumped preservative solution on them, not realizing that this would destroy most of what later would be called DNA evidence, which might have helped to identify remains.

Since then, O’Brien’s office has collaborated with military scientists who have meticulously examined bodies a few at a time, slowly identifying which bodies belonged to which long-missing prisoners of war. So most of the “unknown” bodies from Pyoktong “have been identified and been sent, and accepted, by their families,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien said they are down to “55-odd” bodies, and he thinks they will more than likely find Kapaun’s among them.

They are not deliberately looking for Kapaun’s body among those graves, any more than they are looking for anyone else, O’Brien said. But he said it has occurred to them that they might be able to narrow the possibilities.

They know most American soldiers from that war were 20 years old and about 5 feet, 9 inches tall. Kapaun was 35 when he died and was about 6 feet tall, according to his family. Forensics experts can often tell the approximate age of a man from bones.

For Kapaun and many other soldiers, they also have dental records and chest X-rays taken during routine Army medical examinations. The X-rays show what their clavicles and vertebrae looked like, which are good forensic evidence for identification, O’Brien said, because those bones have distinctive edges and marks, “not as good as fingerprints,” but pretty good.

Ray Kapaun, reached at his home near Seattle, said the Army long ago obtained DNA material from his father, Eugene, who was Emil Kapaun’s brother. O’Brien said there is some hope that new advances in DNA research might also allow examiners to use DNA to determine identity even though the bones were treated in the preservative solution.

Identifying remains

Latham, the historian whose book “Cold Days in Hell: American POWS in Korea” came out earlier this year, said he has consulted O’Brien for years during his research.

He said O’Brien for nearly 20 years has been a beloved figure among families of the thousands of Korean War missing. They like him because he does relentless detective work and has often been able to tell families of many of the missing what actually happened to their fathers or husbands or grandfathers.

“He’s beloved not only among the children but the grandchildren of many these missing men,” Latham said.

O’Brien and others in his office have spent years interviewing surviving soldiers, including former prisoners of war who knew Kapaun and many other men who died in Camp 5 in Pyoktong.

In April, when President Obama presented the Medal of Honor to Kapaun’s family, O’Brien showed up, not only to witness the ceremony but also to spend two days with POW friends of Kapaun’s who survived and still have memories. He took notes, accepted documents and questioned a few of them about what happened to Kapaun and other servicemen who died in Pyoktong.

O’Brien, 66, a retired Air Force captain, works for the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, based at the Pentagon. The office coordinates with civilian and military people around the world to find and return the remains of 83,000 missing Americans lost in many wars. They also collect data and stories.

“I have always felt like we owe it to those men we lost to preserve their stories,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien’s office does what often is a difficult job, given the strained relations between the U.S. and North Korea. He and his office try to find bodies and facts concerning the 7,908 American service personnel still listed as missing in action from that war.

His office also coordinates with scientists who exhume and examine bodies in Hawaii of unknown soldiers from the war. Over the past 18 years since he went to work for the Pentagon, O’Brien said, this work has matched identities to more than 200 bodies, which were then sent to their families decades after the war. Hundreds more were identified before O’Brien started work. Church’s interest

Father John Hotze, the Wichita Diocese priest in charge of the Kapaun sainthood investigation for the Vatican, said finding Kapaun’s remains would be huge news.

The church would step in immediately and coordinate with the family to protect the remains from theft, relic hunters or any other harm, he said.

That’s because the church has historically put more emphasis on venerating saintly relics – such as clothing or bone fragments – than other religions, Hotze said. For example, tiny pieces of Kapaun’s clothes from before he went to Korea have been attached to prayer cards and used in prayer services for the sick.

“The proper use of a relic is to help us honor those people that have lived a virtuous life,” Hotze said. “We ask for their intercession as we pray for our own needs.”

‘A true … hero’

Rutherford, the chief of the Chaplains Corps, said it would be “a great thing” if Kapaun’s remains were ever to be identified. Rutherford gave the invocation and benediction at the White House ceremony when Obama handed the Medal of Honor to Kapaun’s nephew Ray.

Rutherford said he and others are using Kapaun’s story to recruit for and inspire the Chaplain Corps, which he said is in need of priests.

Rutherford said that when he joined the service, there were nearly 200 priests among the 1,600 clergy serving the Army as chaplains. But war has taken a toll.

The work in the war zones can be dangerous; Rutherford himself said he survived several close calls in combat in both Afghanistan and Iraq, including an IED explosion that has left him hard of hearing. The Chaplain Corps is down to about 100 priests now, he said.

“If he’s found, we’d be repatriating a true, proclaimed hero who gave his life for the soldiers and for his nation,” Rutherford said.

Sunday 18 August 2013

http://www.kansas.com/2013/08/17/2948898/pentagon-analyst-who-tracks-down.html

continue reading