Pride and sorrow: Gold Star Mother Valerie Kustigian remembered by family for strength shown through loss of MIA son
LEICESTER — While Valerie Kustigian looked through family photos earlier this month at a nursing home in Auburn, a painful memory found its way into the last days of her life.
Among the faces of her five sons, she found that of Michael, whose youthful features have remained unchanged in the minds of the Kustigian family for the last 54 years.
In 1968, 19-year-old Michael was stationed 24 miles off the coast of northern Vietnam aboard the nuclear-powered missile cruiser USS Long Beach.
For Michael to serve in the military, Kustigian and her husband, George Sr., had signed a deferral form that allowed their second son to enlist.
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Harry, their eldest, was already serving with the Marine Corps in Chu Lai, Vietnam, and U.S. military required the permission of family for Michael to join the Navy.
While sitting next to granddaughter Lindsay, earlier this month, Kustigian her expressed regret.
“'Oh, Michael, I wish I never signed that form for him,’ she said,” Lindsay recalled. “'That's the worst thing I ever did in my life,’ she said.”
On the morning of May 5, 1968, Michael Kustigian did not report for duty as he was expected to. He was declared Missing In Action the next day.
The last time anyone had seen him was the night before, but any circumstances of his disappearance remain unknown to this day.
Unanswered questions
The family’s repeated attempts to resolve Michael’s fate in the days after May 5 stretched out into the following years and decades.
Nothing more was reported to the family by the military, and the case was finally sealed on Sept. 13, 1979, when he was officially declared "deceased".
As the mother of a military casualty, Valerie Kustigian was honored with the title of Gold Star Mother after Michael’s disappearance.
Valerie Kustigian, 94, died May 4, and more than a week later, two of her sons, Harry and George, daughter-in-law Gail, and granddaughter Lindsay, remembered Kustigian with tears in their eyes.
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They said that even though Kustigian wore the title of Gold Star Mother with pride throughout her life, it was also a constant reminder of the open wound that her son’s unknown fate had left behind.
“Until just about the last moment she passed away, my mother always believed that Michael would walk in the door,” Harry Kustigian said. “She never gave up hope.”
Despite the pain of a mother who lost a child, Kustigian showed resilience and strength every day to deal with the tragedy, according to her sons.
Witness of war
They said that events in her life had prepared her for the worst from a young age.
Valerie Robertson was born and raised in Ipswich, England, where she witnessed the bombings by Nazi Germany during World War II.
George Kustigian, the youngest of her sons, said that while seeking shelter with her family as a teenager, she would find strength in the words of her World War I veteran father, who would tell her, “It’s OK to cry, but don’t ever let anybody see you.”
“That toughness, that strength, came to her at a very young age,” George said. “That unwillingness to give up that fight was always in her — it was in her until the day she died.”
Kustigian left England after meeting and marrying American soldier George Kustigian Sr., who at the time was stationed in Ipswich.
The couple moved on Dewey Street in Worcester, where they raised five sons: Harry, Michael, John, Robert and George Jr.
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The couple ran Kustigian’s Greenhouse in Oxford starting in 1977, where they grew flowers and Christmas trees which they sold out of a store in Worcester for 40 years.
“Michael had wanted her to buy that property,” said Lindsay, who worked at the flower shop during her high school years. “He had said to her, ‘When I come out of the Navy, I want to come work there with you.’ ”
To honor her son’s memory, Kustigian attended Gold Star Mother events every year, especially with groups of other Vietnam War mothers.
Gail Kustigian, Harry’s wife, remembered her dedication to honoring her son’s memory by attending Gold Star Mothers yearly meetings, breakfasts and functions, and donating money every year to South High, which Michael had attended.
Elm Park ceremony
Every Memorial Day, Kustigian would attend the Water Ceremony at Elm Park in Worcester, where she would throw flowers into Lincoln Pond as is customary to honor Worcester soldiers lost at sea.
“When you’d ask her whether she had given up hope on him, she would always say ‘Never, never, never,’ ” Gail recalled. “She was always waiting for him to come through that door.”
The Kustigians went to Washington, D.C., every year to meet with a casualty officer who would give them a report on her son Michael, according to Harry and George Jr.
After her husband’s death in 1993, Kustigian continued going to those yearly meetings for a few more years, but after health issues, she stopped in the mid-1990s.
"The tragedy of the whole thing is that never did they get any additional information, never did you really get anything new,” George said. “I can only imagine how it had to be as a parent to not know what happened to your son.”
The Kustigian brothers said that their parents would always present reports about their son from other military servicemen, but they were always met with pushback.
Over the years, the resistance bred bitterness toward military leadership.
“There’s bitterness toward never getting an answer and that everything’s the world’s biggest secret,” George said. “But there's a great admiration and respect for the people who serve and are putting their lives on the line.
“Nothing but respect.”
A bout with COVID-19 during April left pulmonary and heart problems for Valerie Kustigian that in the end, caused her passing May 4 nearly 54 years to the day Michael was declared MIA.
She was the last surviving member of the Vietnam War mothers in the area, according to her sons.
They said that the family will always remember their mother for her kindness and strength.
Amid tears, they admitted that it was what got her through the remorse and pain.
“She would say, ‘Listen, I know it's hard, but you got to deal with it. Who's tougher, you or this issue?’ ” George said. “You know that British ‘keep a stiff upper lip’ thing? Yeah, there's a lot more truth to that than anybody would ever realize.”
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Gold Star Mother Valerie Kustigian, MIA son in Vietnam remembered by family
