A step toward closure

In recent developments, China has agreed to open their sealed military records concerning POWs from the Korean War and other cold-war conflicts. The United States Department of Defense figures that this opening of records can provide some closure to families of some 8,100 missing soldiers.

These open records may provide answers to questions that have been avoided for decades. I come from a family with a rich military tradition. No men should be left behind, and for those who were lost to Chinese control, there is now at least a hope that many with be honored, and at least their names will be able to come home.

Although the State Department and the DoD is viewing this a a positive step in international relations, I can only think of the wives and mothers of those lost so long ago. It may be a time of mutual cooperation, but it is also a time of healing and solidarity. Let us pray that the politics of the matter will resolve, and those lost will be able to be remembered, not only in the hearts of those who loved them, but by the nation they died for. And to a positive step being made between Washington and Beijing.