Monday, March 31, 2003 | 9:46 a.m.
For many veterans and families of military personnel, missing in action may be the most haunting phrase in the lexicon of war.
"It's hard to describe what you feel inside but there's a lot of anxiety because you don't know what happened to them," Vietnam veteran Gary Dee said.
There are 17 soldiers from Dee's Army Special Forces unit still unaccounted for, he says, so he can relate somewhat to what those who served alongside Marine Lance Cpl. Donald J. Cline Jr. are going through.
Cline, 21, of Sparks, is among eight Marines reported missing after fighting on March 23 in Iraq.
Dee, a Las Vegas resident who was in Vietnam from 1970 to 1972, said he's sure that Cline's fellow soldiers are "very itchy to go out and look for him. But they have to follow the battle plan or they'll put themselves and the rest of their unit in (danger)."
Korean War veteran Tony Badillo, 70, of Las Vegas, says the dangers of battle are too great to spend much time thinking about lost soldiers, whether missing or killed. When a friend of his went missing after a battle he tried to put any thoughts of his friend out of his mind.
"You just go forward," Badillo said. "You have to keep thinking of the ones side by side with you."
People will deal in various ways with the sudden loss of a friend or family member, whether missing or killed on the battlefield, said Chris Heavey, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and a clinical psychologist.
And there's also a great difference between dealing with news a loved one is missing and news that the relative or friend was killed in a war, Heavey said.
Those with a missing friend or relative typically will go through high levels of anxiety.
"You're hopeful some of the time but sometimes you're thinking of the worst," he said.
For those close to someone killed in battle there is likely to be a great deal of depression, he said.
"The person with the loved one who died may have a tough time getting out of bed, whereas the one whose loved one is missing might have trouble getting into bed -- there's less terrible sadness and grief and more terrible anxiety," Heavey said.
For Las Vegas resident Benjamin Ortiz, just having one of his sons in Iraq is enough to keep him up most nights flipping through news channels to catch the latest on the war. Every announcement of soldiers getting killed, taken prisoner or reported as missing "strikes at the heart," he said.
"I'm anxious, tense, praying for his safe return," Ortiz said. His son, 20-year-old Christopher Ortiz, is an engineer in the Marines.
Dee, who now has two nephews in Iraq -- both are in the Army -- says if someone in his family went missing in action the fact he could not really know what had happened to them "would drive me crazy."
Badillo too said the missing label is a difficult one to deal with. He has two grandsons in the military.
"It's hard to describe the feelings. You are in limbo," Badillo said. "I feel very sorry for the people going through that. I would not like to go through that myself."
But on the battlefield, Dee says, there's nothing worse than knowing one of your fellow soldiers was killed in action.
"It makes you think of the person and that they had a wife and kids and it makes you think of yourself and what it could do to your family," Dee said.
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