Good Stars & Stripes Article For Memorial Day

"Why America Scours the Earth For Its Fallen Service Members."

The fallen navigator waited until dawn to crawl from the jungle. His back was broken, his jaw ripped open by shrapnel. There was a bullet hole in his left leg.

In the night, Lt. Jose Holguin had parachuted from a burning B-17. Painted on its nose were a scantily clad woman and the words "Naughty but Nice." Now the bomber lay before him in pieces.

He hobbled to the plane's mid-section, where he saw the charred, mangled bodies of two of his nine comrades. He fired his pistol twice, signaling the crew to rendezvous. He heard nothing in return.

This is when he made his hardest decision — to flee — and his most important promise, one as old as war. "I told the men that I couldn't take them with me," he would recall. "But I would be back to take care of them."

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