For 18 years my family wondered happened to Michael Scott Speicher. We learned the that military catch phrase “Leave no man behind” is just a catch phrase.

America found out that an FA-18 pilot had died when Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney told reporters on live TV on Jan. 17, 1991. Cheney didn’t say the name, but many pilots knew. The next day, the rest of America knew Scott.

I wasn’t in America. For me, the news would arrive at the speed of mail.

It was in the middle of the night somewhere in the Arabian Desert near the Iraqi-Saudi border with A Company of the 82nd Signal Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division during a shift inside a TTC-49(V)A switching systems trailer monitoring lights and noises of several SB-3614A switchboards that I ripped opened a letter from Grandma Gladys O’Tool. In it, she mentioned a relative on the Engstrom side of the family dying and sent her condolences.

I was puzzled.

A few days later, I had some free time during daylight, and opened my pack of mail. Grandpa and Grandma Rudy and Tootie Engstrom — yes, that’s their names — informed me of Scott’s death. He was my first cousin, once removed.

I was standing under the camouflage net that covers our tents, rigs and trucks. Upon reading the letter, I began to cry, dodged inside the tent and fell onto my cot.

I didn’t know Scott Speicher well because he lived in Florida, but I had met him at family reunions. The most memorable had been at a park in Lake City, Iowa, in the 1980s. I remember playing lawn darts with him. This was before they were banned from sale in the United States in December 1988. Now when anyone mentions lawn darts I think of Scott.

His death made me weep, but I also wept because so many relatives were now worried for me. We had two family members in the Gulf War. One was supposedly dead. I had a job of not dying. I appreciated the concerns, but I didn’t want to worry folks.

The same sentiments came in letters from other relatives, who also let me know Grandma Tootie’s comments about the war even made the CBS Nightly News. She supported the troops and opposed the war. I was proud. Michael Scott Speicher, after all, was her nephew. She has her rightful opinion. Speicher is her maiden name.

Her opinion brought some division to the family but soon it was overshadowed by a drive by family members, pilots, friends and support groups such as Rolling Thunder to find out what had happened to Spike. His remains had not been found. Where was he?

He first was listed as Missing in Action. In May 1991, the status of the 33-year-old was changed to Killed in Action/Body Not Recovered. If you haven’t followed the story from here, it’s a long one, more than I have time to share. It has been covered by media outlets from the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville to the Kansas City Star and from to NBC’s Tom Brokaw on “Dateline” to the New York Times. President George W. Bush even mentioned him in a speech to the United Nations during the buildup to the Iraq War.

The most detailed account comes in the book by Amy Waters Yarsinke, “No One Left Behind: The Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher Story.”

In short, the crash wreckage, intelligence reports and even a jail-cell scrawling of initials suggested he had survived and possibly in Saddam’s custody. Which meant no U.S. rescue party had searched for him that night during the war when they should’ve, all because he had been pronounced dead all too quickly. No body was ever found at the wreckage. His status was changed in 2001 to Missing in Action and in 2002 to Missing/Captured. Over the years, he was promoted to commander and then captain.

Free Scott Speicher items, especially bumper magnets, were commonplace among Engstrom family members. The one on the back of my truck eventually faded, cracked and fell off in my driveway when I lived in Washington state thanks to the wear and tear of Cascade Range backcountry roads.

I checked my Facebook account on Aug. 2, a Sunday. Friend Dale Hubbard of Ellensburg, Wash., mentioned seeing my relative in the news and posted a link to ABCNews.com. I read the story and then wrote comments on Facebook. Another friend who works at WSJ.com wrote it was the site’s main story. I posted the WSJ.com link to my Facebook wall, then called Mom, who said my sister had contacted us via text message earlier that morning.

Finally, everyone in support of Scott sighed. The entire city of Jacksonville, where he was stationed and which deserves credit for keeping issue on the front burner all these years, sighed. We might have our answers as to what happened to him.

The Navy confirmed remains that had been buried in the desert by Bedouins were his. This meant they had found the remains after the crash and buried them and it meant he had not survived the crash. He had never been in Saddam’s custody.

The Christian Science Monitor reported, “A Bedouin who was 11 years old when the U.S. Navy jet crashed in the Iraqi desert helped steer a team of 150 Americans to the site where the remains of Capt. Michael Scott Speicher were found late last month, some 18 years after his plane went down. …

“The Pentagon said that the Iraqi, now about 30, remembered talking about the crash to other Bedouins who had firsthand knowledge of the incident but had no idea the U.S. sought the information.

“The Iraqi led a ‘personnel recovery team’ to an area about 100 kilometers west of Ramadi in western Iraq to investigate two sites, one near where the aircraft was first discovered in 1993, and another, about two kilometers away, where the remains were found.

“About 150 people, mostly U.S. Marines, were involved in excavation at both sites over the course of seven days in late July.”

In another story, the Christian Science Monitor summarized the long tale well: “The confirmation Sunday that remains found in Iraq are those of Capt. Michael Scott Speicher — the first American casualty of the 1991 Gulf War — ends a veritable saga punctuated with hope, uncertainty and despair for the past 18 years.”

But it wasn’t until I was driving home from work on Friday listening National Public Radio’s report on Speicher’s funeral that I wept again. Thousands had lined the streets of Jacksonville to watch the funeral procession. It had been 18 years since I last cried for Speicher’s death. Memories of my Gulf War service flooded my mind. I quickly pulled myself together because I was behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.

Damn news. And thank you. You brought me to the funeral, because I wish I could have been there in person.

The Navy indeed left my cousin behind, but I am glad the Navy made up for its mistake. This is closure.

Tribune Managing Editor Tim Engstrom’s column appears every Tuesday.