United in grief, kin of missing G.I.s Byron Fouty and Alex Jimenez console each other in D.C. On left, Fouty's former stepdad, Gordy Dibler; on right, Jimenez's mom, Maria DeRosario Duran.
People may think they understand Maria del Rosario Duran's anguish at having a child missing in Iraq. But yesterday, Duran embraced a man whose empathy cannot be questioned.
Duran, the Queens mother of missing Army Spec. Alex Jimenez, shared photographs, stories and hope with Gordy Dibler, the former stepfather of Pvt. Byron Fouty, who was captured with Jimenez by Al Qaeda operatives in May.
"To hear the words he said - he made me more strong," Duran said of Dibler. "Sometimes, I'm weak."
The parents shared not only the pain, but its side effects - the way Dibler's sorrow has kept him from eating healthily. The way Duran goes to bed at 2 a.m. and wakes up three hours later.
"Sharing the same sorrow with anyone brings you closer," said Dibler, 70. "I saw Maria's interviews first, and I heard her heartache, and I understood."
Jimenez, 25, of the 10th Mountain Division, and Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich., went missing May 12 after their two-vehicle patrol was hit by a roadside bomb. Their capture set off a massive U.S. military search in the area south of Baghdad dubbed the "Triangle of Death."
A group called New England Caring For Our Military brought the relatives together at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Mass.
Jimenez's father, Andy Jimenez, came to the meeting wearing a POW hat. "Events like this, to meet each other, are the things that when you're feeling down, [make] you feel 'up,'" he said.
The body of a third soldier, Pfc. Joseph Anzack, 20, who also went missing, was later pulled from the Euphrates River. But Jimenez and Fouty's families hold out hope - something they tried to shore up during a phone call with several of the soldiers still looking for their lost brothers.
One Vietnam vet at the stadium yesterday spoke of two captured soldiers who returned to their families more than five years after disappearing.
It is such a day Jimenez and Fouty's families pray they'll share.
"God is going to give us the opportunity to celebrate together when they are here," Andy Jimenez said.
ckatz@nydailynews.com
