After a brief hiatus last week, I've come back to this blog just as the news coverage of the Iraq war's fifth anniversary has winded down. Now we're back to the daily routine of chronicling what soldier's face on and off the battle front. In some ways these war anniversaries are an excellent opportunity to pause and remember where we've been, and where we're going. In other ways it is difficult to now find ourselves with a popular interest that's once again subsided. Nevertheless, it's crucial to keep moving on.

It is almost fitting then that today we focus on recent news that the remains of a soldier who went missing in 2004 have finally been found. U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Matt Maupin went missing on April 9, 2004 during an ambush outside of Baghdad. A few months later a video surfaced depicting the shooting to death of a man dressed in Army fatigues--a man said to be Maupin. But because of the video quality, investigators were unable to positively identify that the victim was indeed Maupin.

The Associated Press reported on the reaction of Maupin's parents:

Keith Maupin said the Army told him soon after his son's capture that there was only a 50 percent chance he would be found alive. He said he doesn't hold the Army responsible for his son's death, but that he did hold the Army responsible for bringing his son home.

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"I told them when we'd go up to the Pentagon, whether he walks off a plane or is carried off, you're not going to leave him in Iraq like you did those guys in Vietnam," Maupin said....

...."It hurts," Carolyn Maupin said. "After you go through almost four years of hope, and this is what happens, it's like a letdown, so I'm trying to get through that right now."

The Maupins were told by an Army official on Friday to expect an update on their son over the weekend, Keith Maupin said. The Army broke the news about their son's remains at a somber meeting.

March 2008 had been an eventful month in the Iraq war - the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion, the marking of the 4,000th U.S. military death, an uptick in violence after months of declining hostility.

So there's a sad closure in the fact that the agonizingly long-awaited news of his fate should end that month: Matt, perhaps more than any other American serving in that conflict, has helped put a tangible, individual human face on an issue filled with abstractions and acrimony.

However you feel about the war in Iraq, the story of Matt Maupin - who had joined the Army Reserve to earn money for college - brings home the human cost of war, the lost potential, the lives not fully lived.

According to Public Affairs Officer LTC Steve Stover, "Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin's remains were recovered northwest of Baghdad on March 20, by Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, based out of Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, attached to 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment.  The recovery was the result of four years of intensive efforts by Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers and multiple joint and interagency organizations."

For a look at other soldiers still missing in Iraq check out this past Soldier's Home post.  Fortunately, you can disregard the information about Matt Maupin. He's home now.