'Stone Phillips: 15 Years of Dateline'

ECHOES OF WAR

"The Long Way Home,” 1995

Judy Warstler: Even to this day when I hear a Rolling Stones song on the radio, I instantly think of him.
Gary Warstler: That's one thing I've always wanted to do is to look into his eyes and see what I'm going to be like in 20 years. Who am I going to look like?

Gary Warstler was two years old and his sister Judy just a newborn when their father shipped out to serve his country in Vietnam.  Their father didn't come home. 

Private George Warstler disappeared.  It was a mystery the Army couldn't explain and neither could Gary and Judy's mother.

Gary Warstler: She couldn't explain it.  She couldn't tell us what happened.
Stone Phillips: Did you consider him missing, or did you consider him dead?
Judy Warstler: I considered him gone.

After 12 years, the military finally pronounced George dead.  But the death certificate only raised more questions.

It said George had not died in battle, but from unknown causes, and the last place he'd been seen alive, in 1969, was not Vietnam, but Sydney, Australia.

Gary Warstler: The man wasn't in Vietnam.  That's when it all started.  That's when you started like, 'Well, maybe he's alive. Maybe he's not dead.'

So the searching began. Off and on for the next 13 years, Gary contacted MIA and veterans' groups, but could find no trace of his father. Then in February 1994, 25 years after George Warstler was supposed to come home, his wife Gisela got a notice in the mail that the family's death benefits were being cut off.

Stone Phillips: That's how you found out that your husband was alive?
Gisela Warstler: That's right. My first reaction was shock, then somewhat of relief, and then some terrible anger set in.
Stone Phillips: Angry that he had...
Gisela Warstler: Angry that he let us hang like this for 25 years.

Gary Warstler: She said, 'Your dad's alive.’  And ah, I didn't believe her. I said ‘Come on.’
Judy Warstler: It was like finding the missing piece of the puzzle that you've been searching for your whole life.

And where was George Warstler? Gary tracked him down, half a world away.  Don't let the name on the hat or the lawn bowling fool you.  David Mitchell of Wellington, New Zealand was really George Warstler of Ashley, Indiana.

Stone Phillips: What is it like to be found?
George Warstler: Frightening. Very frightening.

He had walked away from his country, his name and his family. After two tours in Vietnam, George had spiraled into what he called his ‘going down.’ 

Stone Phillips: Did you see people get killed?
George Warstler: Yes.

Even after a quarter century, his memories of the war and of one mission in particular were still overwhelming. In a midnight ambush that went terribly wrong, he had lost his best friend.

George Warstler: He didn't get killed on the spot, but we to lift him into the helicopter and I remember his leg coming off in my hand. I was laying right beside him and I never got a scratch, I'll never understand that.

But it's what happened next that pushed him over the edge. After volunteering for his third tour, George was in Australia for rest and relaxation when he heard that a dozen soldiers in his platoon had just been killed. 

George Warstler: That's when I think, ‘Well I should have been there with them.  I shouldn't be over here.’  I think that's when the decision came to disappear.

For 25 years, living under a false name, George never called, never wrote. Now, he was about to face everything he'd been running from for so long. Gary had come to New Zealand to meet a stranger.

In 1969, a little boy had looked up to his father. Today, his father was looking up to him.

George to Gary: I can't get over how tall you are!

As for the question: why his dad never came home?

Stone Phillips: Have you asked him why?
Gary Warstler: Nah, and you know to be real honest with you it's not important. This is the second chance I've got, and there's just a million people that like this second chance that I've got, so it doesn't matter.

Then it was George's turn to travel. He returned to the United States to get square with his former wife, who forgave him; with the Army, which granted him an honorable discharge; and with the daughter, who had waited a lifetime to meet him.

Judy Warstler: I think it's going to take a lot of courage to come back home to us after so many years when we know that he doesn't have to do this.

Judy Warstler: I've been waiting forever. It seems like forever for this. I think my heart's beating so fast right now.
George Warstler: Hey, Gary.
Judy Warstler: Hi.
George Warstler: How have you been?
Judy Warstler: I'm so happy to finally meet you. (hugs and tears)

Although George would return to his home in New Zealand, he was finally home from the war.

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