Columnist Susan Snyder: A soldier search is worth wait

Friday, May 24, 2002 | 9:08 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

Linda Wicksten wants to find the family of the unknown soldier.

Not the one interred in the famous grave back East. The one her father-in-law drew 60 years ago and for whose identity the Sparks woman has been searching since her father-in-law died in 1997.

The soldier's face is so expressive, Wicksten was sure she knew him the first time she laid eyes on the drawing more than five years ago.

"He looked so familiar to me," she said.

And yet, no one in her family has ever the known soldier's name -- not even Layton Wicksten, who sketched him during World War II.

Layton Wicksten was a U.S. Army corporal stationed at the Bengal Air Depot in India, where he worked as a clerk and as an artist for the Tiger Rag and The Depot military newspapers.

He drew pictures of soldiers and of local residents. He painted portraits of base dignitaries. Wicksten says her father-in-law even painted some of the mascots that appeared on the noses of the airmen's planes.

He ran across the unknown soldier while heading off to the newspaper office, Wicksten said.

"He saw this solider sitting there waiting for his transport plane, and he just stopped and did this quick sketch of the soldier," she said. "When he went back later to get his name, the soldier was gone. He never knew who he was.

"He had (the drawing) framed. It hung on his studio wall for years," she said. "He always said, 'If I'd known who he was, I would have given him the drawing.' "

Wicksten is relentless in her effort to finish what her father-in-law couldn't, because she's pretty sure she can do it. She's found people before.

She recounted the years she spent looking for her natural grandfather. Her grandmother had divorced him and remarried. She wrote letters to the San Francisco address where he and her grandmother once lived. She wrote to the church there. She talked to people in the neighborhood to no avail.

After 13 years of letters and phone calls and dead ends, she ran across a retired newspaper union president who suggested she try the typographers' union. Her grandfather had been a printer, and likely joined a union.

She contacted the union's home office, and within weeks received a telephone call from a man who said he was her grandfather. After he answered a few questions on family history to her satisfaction, Wicksten said she knew she had found him.

His name was Jim Smith, and she had nothing but a name to go on.

"If I could find my grandfather, I figure I can find a soldier," she said, laughing. "I have his picture, for God's sake."

The soldier's face has an Everyman quality about it. He could be any World War II soldier stationed anywhere.

And yet, if he was your dad or grandfather, you'd know it.

Wicksten says her father-in-law was stationed at the Bengal Air Depot, just outside the city of Agra, from 1942 to 1945 (he couldn't remember exactly when he sketched the soldier). Shortly before her father-in-law died, Wicksten spent some time with him going through his artwork and listening to the stories behind the pieces.

"He had these full-page pictures in the Tiger Rag. He loved India and its people," she said.

After he died she donated his extensive collection of paintings, drawings and military newspapers to the Eisenhower Museum and Library in Abilene, Kan., which archives hundreds of thousands of military documents for researchers.

Everything went, except for the unknown soldier.

"This soldier seemed to look at me and say, 'Please find me,' " Wicksten said.

So she set off on her search. This time, she had the Internet to help. She says she has contacted dozens of military and veterans' organizations, sending the picture with an e-mail that pleaded, "If you know of any place to help, forward this."

Her plea and the picture appears on a website for the U.S. Army Ranger's Association and one for World War II combat cargo groups. One retired U.S. Marine Corps officer offered no help and some rather unfriendly advice.

"He said, 'Give it up. Everybody he knew is dead.' I wrote back and told him when I find the soldier, I'd let him know," Wicksten said.

Organizers of a reunion at the Camp Breckinridge Museum and Arts Center in western Kentucky have told Wicksten they will post the picture at their June event, which is expected to draw 5,000 veterans.

"I've got my fingers crossed. But that's only military people. It's not family or friends," she said.

But Wicksten doesn't give up easily. Each rejection typically comes with another name or group to contact.

"By God, I'm going to find him," she said. "It's been my quest."