Operation Iraqi Freedom ended last week, but for the families of the four Americans still officially categorized by the U.S. government as missing in Iraq, the ceremonies marking the war’s end by no means meant the end of their search.
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ahmed Altaie and contractors Timothy Bell, Adnan al-Hilawi and Kirk von Ackermann are not home for Christmas. Nor do their families have answers about their disappearances, according to the government agency responsible for overseeing prisoner-of-war and missing-in-action cases.
The Army’s investigative unit told Megan von Ackermann in 2006 that her husband had been killed in a botched kidnapping the day he disappeared, Oct. 9, 2003. But for her, the story isn’t over. She told The Daily that even though she held a funeral for Kirk in January 2007, she doesn’t consider herself a widow.
“When we meet people, we have this set of standard questions that we ask each other: What do you do? Are you married?” she said. “I get hung up on the second one. Yes, I kind of know that I’m widowed; I kind of don’t.”
Her husband, Kirk, had been working with Turkey-based military contractor Ultra Services to supply the military mission in Iraq. His jeep was found on the side of the road between Kirkuk and Tikrit with the doors open and no signs of struggle. His satellite phone and laptop as well as about $40,000 in cash in a briefcase were in the car.
Megan started a blog, Missinginiraq.blogspot.com, to preserve her husband’s story. Most importantly, she wants to help her three children remember their dad, she said.
“His death wasn’t the important thing to them; it was the way he lived,” she said. “From here on out, the majority of their life, that’s going to be the reality of him — him being gone."
When Kirk disappeared at age 37, one son, Alexander, had just turned 11. Now 19, he told The Daily that his mother’s blog helped him form a fuller picture of his father. Because of Alexander’s youth and Kirk’s service in the military, many of the stories were new to Alexander. Now, he tries to emulate his father, Alexander said.
“It really was about living as much as possible and not wasting anything,” Alexander said. “He always told us, Do life; don’t watch it. I’ve always tried to kind of live that because why waste anything, especially life.”
The war’s end brought a sense of disappointment to the family — not because of the mission itself but because, as Megan wrote in her blog, of the feeling of abandonment.
“I’m sad because Kirk is alone now,” Megan wrote. “Wherever he is, whatever happened out there in that desert, we’ve left him behind.”
Both Alexander and his mother still hope Kirk is alive somewhere and that he can’t get in touch because it would endanger the family.
“Hope’s what keeps us going,” Alexander said.
“The odds that they’ll find out what really happened or that they’ll actually find him — they’re so remote,” Megan said.
“That’s something that we’ve just had to absorb and accept, and I don’t think that you can ever accept that.”
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California soldier shot at his homecoming party
A soldier who survived a suicide bombing while serving in Afghanistan has been left paralyzed after being shot at his homecoming party in Southern California.
Christopher Sullivan, 22, was shot late Friday while trying to break up a fight between his brother and another man at a San Bernardino residence.
“My son didn’t deserve this. He served his country,” his mother, Suzanne Sullivan, told the San Bernardino Sun yesterday.
She said her son suffered two gunshot wounds to his back, which shattered his spine. Family members said the soldier is in critical condition.
Police said Sullivan’s brother and a partygoer got into an argument. When Sullivan moved to intervene, the man pulled a gun and opened fire.
The gunman fled the scene before police arrived.
Sullivan was wounded in a suicide bombing attack last year in Kandahar while serving with the Army’s 101st Infantry Division.
He suffered a cracked collar bone and brain damage in the attack and has been recovering in Kentucky, where he is stationed.
He was home on leave when the shooting occurred.
– AP
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Photo: The von Ackermann Family
Kirk von Ackermann has vanished.