BELLEVUE, Wash. –
At the time of his passing, they had mourned without closure and were resigned to not knowing the details of his fate. She knew any questions she had regarding his death would likely remain shrouded in mystery.
This all changed one fateful afternoon when a chance encounter with the principal deputy director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Fern Sumpter Winbush, would allow her something she never thought possible; hope for answers to a lifetime of unspoken questions.
In a small conference room, members of the Washington state Department of Veterans Affairs office met with Winbush during an engagement leading up to one of the year’s Family Member Updates. These engagements are integral to sharing DPAA’s mission and purpose to local community leaders ahead of an FMU.
McDaniel, coincidentally, had followed DPAA out of a passion for their cause, though had never reached out to inquire about her great uncle’s remains due to her family’s belief that they were unrecoverable.
“I knew that there was an organization that looked for fallen service members,” McDaniel said. “I knew it was called DPAA, but I didn't look into the details of my person. I had always assumed it was a deep-sea loss, and I did know that it was highly unlikely that anyone was going to be able to recover a deep-sea loss.”
McDaniels’s great uncle, Donald Raymond Vogel, who his family referred to as ‘Pete’, enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. In March 1943, he was at the Jefferson Barracks in Missouri where he wrote his final letter to his brother.
“He says this last line, ‘Maybe I'll be shipped out soon,’” McDaniels said of the letter, “And then he says, ‘Don't, don't forget to write. I got a new address. Now and always, your little brother, Pete.’”
Vogel was declared missing a month later.
McDaniel herself served five years in the U.S. Army. While she had always been curious about Vogel, she describes her time in the service as an experience that only heightened her desire to know more about his final moments.
“Once I was in the service and it gets ingrained in you that you don't leave anyone behind, I wanted to know more about him,” she said. “You meet people, everybody has a backstory. And whether you're a Soldier or a Sailor or an Airman, you're also somebody else's somebody. And so, I wanted to know who this man was that we weren't allowed to talk about.”
Fueled by her need to know, McDaniel jumped at the chance to attend the meeting between Winbush and her fellow Washington VA staff. As the meeting progressed, McDaniel couldn't help but feel the sting of her and her family’s own loss. Particularly when she learned of DPAA’s efforts in recent missions to China.
“I looked at my uncle on the DPAA website and it said something about being in China and that I'd never heard before,” McDaniel said. “When the slides were up during the meeting and it talked about China being open again to you guys coming in to potentially search again, I just had to ask my question.”
So, with tears glazing her eyes, McDaniel fought to keep her voice steady as she shared what she knew about her uncle and asked what the potential could be that after all this time, he might be recovered.
Winbush listened intently, her gaze fixed on McDaniel as she said, “Have you ever given a cheek swab?”
Over the next two days, no time was wasted in preparing for the day of the FMU. The purpose of these updates is to provide the families in the surrounding area with new information regarding ongoing recoveries, advancements in identification processes and other significant developments regarding specific cases of missing service members. It is also an opportunity for families to come together and be around others who understand the complex and deeply emotional journey of seeking a return home for their missing loved ones. Some family members have attended multiple FMU’s.
For McDaniel, this would be her very first.
During the FMU, McDaniel was able to provide a DNA sample to be used to aid in the potential identification process in the future of her great uncle’s case. She was also able to speak one-on-one with Dr. Kyle Bracken, research branch chief in the Indo Pacific Directorate, who was able to give her more details behind Vogel’s role in World War II.
“Every time a service member was killed, whether it was an accident, or they were killed in action, the military developed a file that had everything from missing air crew reports, witness statements and information about the chain of custody to send their personal effects home,” Bracken said. “Everything around the circumstances surrounding their death.”
As with many cases, the process to potentially recovering Vogel’s remains will take an indefinite amount of time, but thanks to McDaniel’s initiative during a serendipitous meeting, the work has taken one step forward in the right direction.
Although McDaniel knows she might not get to see Vogel returned home in her lifetime, she is finally allowed to hope.
“I go back and forth between being grateful to being overwhelmed,” McDaniel said. “Overwhelmed that something as small as a cheek swab could someday be the difference between him being an unknown, to him being a named individual that gets laid to rest somewhere. If it happens in my lifetime, I mean, that would just be the most exciting thing as a family member and a very satisfying moment.”