Soldier Who Was Dragged By Somalis Still Unnamed

WHO WAS HE, this unknown soldier? The shocking photo of a dead American, his near-naked body mutilated and mocked by Somalis, was beamed worldwide in October without a name. A search for his identity led to five mourned men, five grieving families, and a military unable - or unwilling - to provide an answer. -------------------------------

Popeye Field watched the news that day both fearful and transfixed as a U.S. soldier was shown dragged like a dead dog through Mogadishu by jubilant Somalis.

Was that Tom? His Tom?

"I can tell my son's face, and his arms," said Field, his voice still thick with heartbreak since the death of the 25-year-old sergeant from Lisbon, Maine. "My two sons and myself was all looking. Right now, I couldn't tell you for sure."

On Oct. 3, Tom Field was among the U.S. Army Rangers hunting the underlings of Mohamed Farrah Aidid who were plunged into a bloody urban battle that left 18 U.S. servicemen dead, 78 wounded and 300 or more Somalis killed.

The death toll was terrible enough, but one single, sickening sight - a still photograph of a mutilated dead soldier, tied with rope before a jeering crowd - chilled many who had continued to think charitably about the United States' purpose in Somalia.

SEARCH NARROWS TO FIVE MEN

Of the 18 men killed by Aidid's supporters, five were reported missing until the Somalis returned their remains.

"They were the only ones that could have been in that

photograph," said Navy Cmdr. Joe Gradisher, a Pentagon spokesman.

Was he Sgt. Thomas Field, whose father felt uneasy about his choice of an Army career?

Was he Staff Sgt. William Cleveland, 34, whose military heritage dated back to a soldier who died fighting on the Union side in the Civil War, and whose ambition since childhood was a life in uniform, like his father?

Was he Chief Warrant Officer Raymond Frank, 45, a pilot for 27 years who dearly loved flying?

Was he Sgt. 1st Class Randall Shughart, a 35-year-old from Newville, Pa., who so loved the military that he made his wife, Stephanie, promise never to ask him to quit?

Or was he Master Sgt. Gary Gordon, 33, whose funeral in Lincoln, Maine, the town he left 15 years ago, drew hundreds of mourners?

The Pentagon's position is this: Naming the man in the picture serves no purpose, and would only pain those who loved and lost him.

"They were American soldiers," Gradisher said. "That in itself is jarring enough. You don't need an individual's name to express horror at the treatment of the bodies."

Gradisher said he did not know if the Pentagon had even identified the soldier in that indelible photo.

Many among the families of the 18 dead told of trying to learn whether the unknown soldier was theirs, of quizzing the battle survivors at the funerals.

But others contacted did not want to be quoted, saying it was better to leave the grieving alone.

Nada Morford, the mother of William David Cleveland Jr., felt that way at first.

She knew her son's stepmother had told a newspaper she recognized David as the man in the photo, but Morford immediately protested, saying it was not her son. "I want him to rest in peace and let him go," she said then.

But Morford had only glanced at the picture in the newspaper weeks before, and the question gnawed at her. And then she asked a reporter for the photograph.

She swallowed tears, describing how she found contours that seemed so familiar, but not enough for her to say with certainty the soldier in the photo was her son.

"I would hate to say this is positively my son, and have it be somebody else's," she said from her home in Peoria, Ariz. Then, she began to cry.

In Clarksville, Tenn., Willi Frank thought she spotted her husband immediately in TV footage. But even then, of the bodies she saw, she wasn't really sure which might be Ray Frank's.

"At the same time, you're looking for identifying marks, you're praying there aren't any," Frank said, reflecting on that endless day. "I picked out the one that I hoped was him, because it looked like it had been the least mistreated." "Every parent's nightmare"

Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant, who was taken prisoner when his helicopter was shot down and later released, offers the five families at least some comfort: He believes all five men were dead before the Somalis got to them.

But Durant will not publicly even attempt to put a name on the face in the photograph.

"There's no way to prove beyond any doubt," he said, "so why put the family through what they've already been through?"

Caroline Smith of Long Valley, N.J., who lost her 21-year-old son, Spc. James Smith, said "that picture represents every parent's nightmare."

When she buried her son, Smith learned from some of the men with him in the battle that he had been shot and pulled inside a building.

"Even though we happen to know that person wasn't our son," she said, "it could have been. It could have been."