In 1968, Lieutenant Johnie Webb was a logistics officer in the United States Army. His job was to run supply convoys from base to base along the Cambodian border in Vietnam. It was a dangerous assignment. The roads were rough and narrow, surrounded by jungle. And the huge 5,000-gallon tankers he oversaw were an enormous target for ambushes and booby traps.

For that reason, he taught the soldiers under his command exactly what to do if they ever hit a mine or were struck by a grenade: Get off the road. Even if their vehicle was on fire, they must do everything in their power to get out of the way so the trucks behind wouldn’t become trapped.

“If you block the road,” Johnie would tell them, “then we’re all done.”1

Then, one day, it happened: A rocket-propelled grenade hit the cab of one of Webb’s trucks. Despite the flames and the heat, despite the fact he had been severely burned, the driver did not try to escape. Instead, he did what he’d been trained to do: Pulled off the road so the rest of the convoy could goby. It was the last thing that soldier ever did.

“He didn’t survive,” Johnie later recounted. “But he saved the rest of us.”1

Johnie never forgot that incredible example of supreme sacrifice. It was something he probably saw dozens of times during his years of service.

But he also saw something else. Many of the soldiers who gave their lives so that others could keep theirs — they never came home. Their bodies went unrecovered, lost. There was nothing for their families to bury. In many cases, there was never even confirmation that their loved ones were dead.

By the time the Vietnam War ended, there were 2,583 soldiers listed as Missing in Action (MIA). No one knew for sure how many of those were dead or how many were still alive. For the families, it was a double tragedy, because it brought not just loss, but unanswerable questions.

What happened to my husband?

Where is my son?

Is my father still alive?

Nobody knew. So, finally, in 1975, the Army asked Johnie Webb to find the answers. Not because he was an expert, but because he had logistical experience…and because he once took a course on graves registration.

It was a dangerous assignment. It required going into former combat zones and disputed territories. It required dealing with hostile governments, even combing unmapped jungles. Hardest of all, it required talking with grieving family members. Family members who expected — and deserved — answers. Even when there were no easy answers to give.

But Johnie remembered that soldier who pulled his truck to the side of the road. He remembered all the others, too. Of course he said yes.

For the next forty years, Johnie Webb became the leading figure in the government’s efforts to find tens of thousands of American MIAs. Not just in Vietnam, but in Korea — 8,100 MIA— and across the worldwide battlefields of World War II, where over seventy thousand Americans are still considered missing.2 He traveled from Papua New Guinea to North Korea, from Laos and Vietnam to Europe. He hired, trained, and coordinated hundreds of forensic scientists, historians, genealogists, excavators and anthropologists. It was detective work on a massive scale, but always behind the scenes and with few rewards to look forward to. Except the most important reward of all:

To finally be able to give a family answers…and maybe, just maybe, some small measure of peace.

For instance, take the case of one father who waited for decades to know what happened to his son. He and Johnie would check in periodically, the father increasingly becoming frustrated as time went by. Said Johnie: “He would say to me,‘Johnie, I gave my son to the Army. I want my son back.’”

So, Johnie kept working. Until finally, many years later, he finally recovered the son’s body and returned him home for burial with full military honors. After a few weeks, a brown envelope appeared on his desk. Inside was a POW/MIA bracelet…and a note from the father.

“Johnie,” it said, “I just want to thank you for all you’ve done for us over the years and let you know what it really meant to me to get my son back.”3Johnie Web retired in 2023 at the age of 77. But ever since we came across his story, we’ve thought about him and his mission every Memorial Day. As you know, this is a day for commemorating the men and women who gave their lives in service of our country. It is a day of mixed emotions. Solemnity, sadness, anger, pride, confusion, hope. It’s also as important a day as we have in this country. Because it is a day for reminding ourselves of what we are and what we have …and who we have to thank for it all.

But it is also, we think, a day for remembering the living. The living families whose loved ones still have the letters M-I-A next to their names. The families whose sacrifices are never-ending. And the living, too, who work so hard and for so long to remove those letters. To find answers. To return loved ones to their families.

Because of them — because of people like Johnie Webb — thousands of our best and bravest have finally come home. And that, to us, is one more thing to be thankful for.

On behalf of our Feliciano Financial family, we wish you a safe and peaceful Memorial Day.