Search goes on for soldier from Ohio missing since '04

Maupin, of Batavia, Ohio, has been missing since April 9, 2004.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) -- Members of a U.S. Army unit have been spending their time searching for an Ohio soldier missing in Iraq for more than a year.
To the troops of the Army's 10th Mountain Division, finding Army Reserve Sgt. Keith Maupin, who is known as Matt, of Batavia, Ohio, has become a quest that defines their values as soldiers.
"He needs to go home to his family," 1st Sgt. Joseph Sanford told an Iraq-based reporter for The Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y. "And there needs to be closure for his family. Those are the two things we're trying to bring: closure to his family and a way to send this young man home."
Maupin has been missing since April 9, 2004, when his fuel truck convoy was ambushed by insurgents west of Baghdad after leaving camp. A week later, Arab television network Al-Jazeera released a videotape showing Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.
That June, Al-Jazeera released another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot. But the tape was dark and grainy and showed only the back of the victim's head, and did not show the actual shooting.
The Army ruled it inconclusive, saying it could not determine if the man was Maupin or even if it was an American soldier.
The Army lists Maupin as "missing-captured." Spokeswoman Maj. Elizabeth Robbins declined to comment Tuesday.
Minute search
Thirty-two members of the Fort Drum, N.Y.-based unit spent seven hours Saturday inching over terrain, overturning rocks and probing bushes on a stretch of land between two highways in the Abu Ghraib section west of Baghdad.
A tip had suggested that Maupin's body might be there, so they parceled the tract into sections and moved systematically through them. It was the third day of searching the area.
They had dug 45 holes and bagged and tagged 10 items that could hold the answers to Maupin's fate, including a scrap of military clothing. Each will be shipped to a lab for analysis.
"The physical search is the key," said Sanford, 38, a native of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. "It's all hands-on. It's picking up every rock, it's looking under every bush, it's turning over every piece of clothing or trash that we find out there."
Sanford cited the Warrior Ethos, in which a soldier vows never to leave a comrade behind.
"When it all comes down to it, it's about the man on your left and the man on your right," Sanford said. "It's all about protecting their flanks and making sure they get home."
Sgt. Bryan Hatfield, 27, of Oklahoma City, said hope of finding Maupin keeps him searching.
"We may go out there day after day, time after time, scouring the grounds ... then comes that one time, you might find something, and it'll be worth it," Hatfield said. "The hope is always there that, yeah, he could be here. So I'll go and look."
Father's reaction
The search was welcome news to Maupin's father, Keith.
"It makes me feel better to know they are looking," he told The Cincinnati Enquirer on Monday night. "I believe they were looking the whole time, but they don't say much, they always say it's classified."
Keith Maupin said his Army contact told him it wasn't yet known if anything found was connected to his son. "But we remain hopeful and pray for the best," he said.