Uncovering the full story with John Monaghan: Can anthropologists help military families find closure?

Welcome to “This is UIC,” the official podcast of the University of Illinois, Chicago. I’m Grace Khachaturian, and with each episode, we delve into the stories that drive us to impact our most compelling questions as Chicago’s only public research university. UIC is leading the way to create and inspire a better world. 

In this episode we sit down with John Monaghan, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois Chicago who helps lead missions to locate and identify missing U.S. veterans and bringing long-awaited answers to military families across the country. 

Grace Khachaturian  00:00 

Today we’re speaking with John Monaghan, Hey, John, welcome.  

John Monaghan  00:05 

Oh hi, Grace. Thanks for having me.  

Grace Khachaturian  00:08 

Of course, we are so excited to have you on here and to really address a curiosity that I think many might have, but many also might not know about. We’re unpacking: Can anthropologists help military families find closure? So before we dive into unpacking that question, I would love to understand your why, what personal experience or story has informed or inspired the work that you’re currently doing, especially when it comes to anthropology. 

John Monaghan  00:41 

Well, I guess, you know, on a very personal level, my family, almost every male in my family, has served in the military from World War One on, and including in back in Great Britain. I’m one of the few that has not served.  

 So, I grew up around people who had served, and really kind of citizen soldiers, right, not professionals, people that you know were just doing their part for the country. Then, when I came to UIC, I realized how intertwined it was with World War Two. You know, our first graduating class was made up of 75% of veterans. So, as you might know, there was this bill that Congress passed to help people reintegrate into society after World War Two, and it’s been known as the GI Bill. There was such a demand for places in college that the University of Illinois opened up a satellite campus on Navy Pier, and that was really the origins of UIC.  

 It was one of those things that really changed our country, because up till then, you know, college education had been sort of something that, you know, really, it was only for the elites, and now it became much more democratic that people from all walks of life got a chance to go to college.  

Grace Khachaturian  08:47 

I’m going to back up just a little bit, because I have a question on kind of your family with so many people serving, how did you decide to take the route of anthropology and this kind of discovery route, still serving in a great capacity, but this route, instead of serving in the military.  

John Monaghan  09:10 

Well, you know, I was in the Merchant Marine, which is, you know, in times of war, you are called up. My family had a merchant marine background. I’ve always been interested in anthropology ever since I was a child. I can remember my mother in church giving me these books to read while mass was going on, and one of them had this story in this about the Phoenicians. I found them just fascinating, because they traveled all over. I think in the book it even said they invented the wheel, which, of course, it was invented in other places long before that, and so I think I knew I wanted to be an anthropologist to learn about other peoples long before I even knew what anthropology was.  

It was only after we became department head at UIC that I began to start thinking about doing something that would have a more practical application, that would be something that could help solve problems and, it’s very different kind of approach from what I’d use for most of my career. It’s very rewarding personally.  

Grace Khachaturian  12:48 

 Would you mind sharing about the letter that you keep on your door? 

 John Monaghan  12:53 

This is a letter from a father and at the time, when I found it, I had just been kind of randomly looking at they’re called missing air crew reports. When an air crew comes in and they’re missing, one of these reports gets filled out. This is during World War Two, and I was just kind of randomly looking at these, trying to get a sense of what was in them.  

But in any event, this one I came across, it contained a correspondence with the pilot that was missing in action. His father was named Boyd Chambers Senior, and his missing son was Boyd Chambers Junior. Now Boyd Chambers Senior, turns out was the head football coach at the University of Cincinnati.  

He had this facility with words that I found very effective. So his son, Boyd Chambers Junior, was in West Point. He was 23 when he was flying a P 47 which is a fighter bomber in northern Italy. He was part of a group of four planes, and he struck their target. They bombed it. Boyd Chambers Junior saw that there was another target, and he veered off and was flying very low, and he must have hit power lines or something, because it just threw the plane off course, and he crashed into a building. We know this because his wingman reported it. Germany surrenders in May of 1945 and Boyd Chambers Senior begins sort of letter writing campaign to find out more about his son and what happened to him, and his initial letters are not in the file. We know from subsequent letters basically, what was in them. He had written for information and they sent him back information that had been in the file, right. You can see that he’s getting frustrated at this and he said, finally, I think this was his third letter he writes. 

He says, you know, why don’t you just send someone to Lodi and ask what happened and see if they can’t find something. Now, I think it’s interesting that he wrote to the head of the Army Air Force with this letter. So he went to the top, and he had an effect. He had an effect, I think, because at the end of the letter suggesting they send someone to Lodi, Italy to find out what happened. He wrote, and I want to be accurate, so I wrote this down at the end of his letter, “to be told that he died for his country is no consolation, but it would help greatly if the Air Force convinces us it regards its pilots as something other than a number.”  

This had an effect on me, because it really summarizes sort of what we’re doing for the families, is that we’re treating their loss and their loved one as something other than a number. It obviously had a big impact on the Army Air Force Commander, because they immediately sent someone to Lodi, Italy, and they found out everything that happened, and it turned out that the people in Lodi had recovered his body and buried him in a cemetery in Lodi, and we know later that he was disinterred and he was brought back to Cincinnati, and by 1949 he was in a local cemetery in Cincinnati. As I said, you know, this is a moving story, but it’s repeated 1000s and 1000s of times, and we’ll often find families. That have erected gravestones in their family plots, even though their loved one isn’t there, with the idea that someday they’ll be able to bring them back and, you know and have closure.   

Grace Khachaturian  20:20 

You can only imagine the impact something like that would have on a family to know the end of the story of what actually happened. So in with this kind of story in mind, and mentioning the countless families and individuals that you’re working to recover and have recovered, how can anthropologists help provide that context and closure for military families? 

John Monaghan  20:48 

The agency in the Defense Department that oversees this work. It’s called the Defense Pow MIA accounting agency, and it has a sort of long history. The people that they sent out in Lodi to question the people in the town were from an organization called the American Graves Registration Service, and that’s really the origins of the DPAA. There’s always been this effort on the part of the military to account for all the soldiers that are missing, as this process has developed, they’ve included a lot of anthropologist in the recovery and analysis of the of the missing soldiers. So that the DPA now is probably, I would say, it’s probably, the largest anthropology department in the world. And they were originally focused mostly on Vietnam, but in 2010 the NDAA specified that the defense department needed to look for soldiers who are missing in action from World War Two in Korea and the Cold War as well as Vietnam, and that expanded the task to where they were looking for, you know, few 1000 MIA’s to about 80,000. Not only that, but the 80,000 were spread all over the world. So what the DPA has done is it’s reached out to anthropology departments across the country and in other countries to help with this task,   

So UIC’s expertise is in Southeast Asia and the Pacific and just Asia in general, and so what we do is we develop cases, so we do historical research. So there’s people from the history department at UIC that are involved in this. Then we send out teams to like the case and Lodi to ask local people what they know about an incident, and then an archeological team will go out and see if they can pinpoint the location of the incident. Then finally, if everything is going according to plan, archeological excavation will be undertaken, and the remains will be recovered. Then the remains will be sent for a forensic analysis. DNA testing will be part of that. Eventually they’ll, you know, with good fortune, they’ll be able to identify an individual and return the remains to the family so that process goes on. I think the DPA manages to close about between 150 and 200 cases a year.   

 Grace Khachaturian  25:53 

What’s the need for a program like this? What does that look like, and what kind of response are you getting from families when you do return those remains. 

 John Monaghan  26:03 

There’s about 80,000 total missing from World War Two, Korea and Vietnam and…..  

… of the 80,000 I think the DPA estimates about 35,000 might be recoverable, given the present technologies and the country with the largest number of service people who are missing is the Philippines. The Philippines has about 10,000 American MIAS, so we do a lot of work there. 

John Monaghan  26:03 

Well, the family response is interesting. I’ve gotten to hear exactly, sort of what families are thinking. Now, it’s true. There’s some that are frustrated with the bureaucratic process, and it does take a long time, but most are incredibly well some are surprised that the US government does this, and most are incredibly grateful that there’s going to be some closure. There’s a tremendous desire for this kind of project and what’s wonderful about it, given, you know, sort of the divisions that exist nowadays is it’s a bipartisan project. So we’ve had, we have Republican senators and congressmen that support this. We have Democratic senators and congressmen that supported it.     

Grace Khachaturian  33:52 

Now is this kind of work that you’re doing, changing you or your perspective of anthropology and the impact it can have on people?    

John Monaghan  34:04 

  As an anthropologist, I never thought I would know as much about World War Two as I do now. Well just because it was not a topic, you know, I’m a specialist in the indigenous people of Mesoamerica. I work on topics like the anthropology, religion and economic anthropology. So it just really far afield from what you know, I began my career doing. Now we have, you know, academic sessions at national conferences and, and it’s, you know, it’s opening up all kinds of interesting questions. 

Grace Khachaturian  36:14 

Yeah, I can imagine. So, how did that father’s letter on your door continue to fuel your why? 

John Monaghan  36:21 

Well it shows me what we’re doing this for, right? It’s the phrase you know he died for for his country. When he says, it’s no consolation, it’s one of those trite phrases.  That’s where, you know, Boyd Chambers senior said, well I want to see that you treat him as your pilots are something more than numbers, right? It’s not a huge sacrifice on the part of the people that are looking for them, but it does show that it’s something that people care about. 

Grace Khachaturian 38:58 

 Throughout this conversation we’ve talked about your passion for helping military families and the great need for this work across the globe. As we wrap up our time today we like to end every episode with a light-hearted question… 

 If you were to pick a theme song that best represents your story, life, impact. Do you think you could select one?  

John Monaghan  39:05 

You know, I’m sorry. I’m just not very musical. You know, it’s not something I ever think about, although I do remember my father always listening to Peggy Lee and Johnny Mathis. 

 But, yeah, I’m not somebody, you know. I know my kids often commented on that, you know, I only had the radio station set to NPR into the you know, the news stations. So I’m sorry, yeah, I don’t have a good answer.  

Grace Khachaturian  39:50 

It seems like that father’s letter on your door can be the song that you marched to, and that’s plenty. Grateful for your time with us today.  

John Monaghan 40:02 

Thank you.   

Grace Khachaturian 40:04 

And for our listeners, we’ll leave you with a little Johnny Mathis.

[MUSIC: “It’s Not for Me to Say” by Johnny Mathis| 

Learn more about John Monaghan and his work in anthropology bringing closure to military families in the show notes at today.uic.edu.  

Thanks for listening to This is UIC, the official podcast of the University of Illinois, Chicago, Chicago’s only public research university.