By Nick Buglione
And although Piller had managed to find or account for 172 of the 173 graduates, there was one that, up until recently, had him stumped--Eugene Charles McCaffery, a man who, according to records, once hailed from East Meadow.
"I've actually been looking for Eugene since I started, but the leads dried up, and I put him on the back burner," Piller said.
Yet, after an exhaustive hunt that included employing the help of the Herald, Piller was able last week to finally find McCaffery, 56, who has been living as a successful executive in the midwest.
Piller, 55, began the extensive search for McCaffery and his other classmates after Memorial Day 2001. "I have no idea why I started looking for them," Piller said. "I was sitting around on Memorial Day, and I started thinking 'whatever happened to those guys.'"
Scouring through the Internet and white pages, Piller hit the phones, logging about 4,500 minutes on phone cards. "You just keep calling and calling and calling," he said. His persistence found him immediate success.
"I found about 120 of them by Aug. 2001, " he said. "Some of the guys were definitely harder than others to find."
McCaffery was without a doubt one of the harder ones.
Of the 200 young men that entered the Fort Benning, Georgia-based Officer Candidate School in November 1968, 173 graduated as second lieutenants in the Army infantry. Many were promptly shipped to Vietnam, where America was embroiled in an escalating conflict.
"Ninety percent of the class went to Vietnam," Piller said. "Six of them never made it back."
According to Piller, he knew McCaffery, who was drafted into the Army, did go to Vietnam but made it out safely.
"There was a guy I got an e-mail from that said he came home from Vietnam with [McCaffery] on the same plane," Piller said. When that plane landed in San Francisco, Calif. on Dec. 22, 1970, McCaffery presumably headed home to East Meadow, where he resided at 2493 Third Ave. Neither Piller nor his classmates ever saw or heard from him again.
"He wasn't a friend of mine, he was just a part of the class," he said. "He's the only one I hadn't found. Like a pit bull, I'm wasn't giving up until I found this guy."
Although his resolve remained strong, Piller exhausted nearly every avenue, canvassing the Internet, white pages and records from the Army and the Social Security Administration. He even got in touch with US Search, an organization that helps individuals locate lost friends or family members. Still ,McCaffery was nowhere to be found.
That's when he contacted the Herald, which launched its own investigation into the matter.
The white pages listed John Borman as the current resident of 2493 Third Ave. Borman purchased the house from the McCafferys in November 1999, but said he didn't know Eugene.
"I just bought the house from them, I didn't really know them," Borman said.
The Bushmans, who have lived across the street for the past 38 years, said they knew the family well.
"The father and the mother both passed away," said Catherine Bushman. "They did have three children, Nancy, Gerry and one that's missing."
Another neighbor who has lived on the block her whole life said she knew Eugene, who was a few years older than her. "After he went into the service, he kind of fell off," she said, adding that to her knowledge, nobody from the family still lives in East Meadow. "Last I heard he was successful, doing well and living out west."
Although no one knew of McCaffery's current residence, several neighbors agreed to get in touch with his sister and ask her to get in contact with the Herald.
In the meantime, Piller had telephoned an extensive list of McCafferys located all over the United States, to no avail. He was especially excited when he found a Eugene McCaffery living in nearby Farmingdale. Unfortunately, a call proved that he was not the missing classmate.
Good news, however, came on Aug. 22 in the form of an e-mail. McCaffery, who had moved out west, had received several letters from Piller and finally decided to reply.
"He evidently had been receiving my written inquiries all along but just wasn't answering them," Piller said.
McCaffery said that he did not want his current location publicized, though he did say in the e-mail he was very proud of his military service.
"I sincerely hope that you and the others in that class, as well as all those other classes, are doing well and that our service remains an important and proud chapter in our lives," said McCaffery, who is now president and CEO of the television-shopping network ShopNBC.
Piller was ecstatic to have finally found the East Meadow native. With all fellow graduates now present and accounted for, he is ready to take the next step.
"There are a couple of guys back in Virginia that are supposed to be working up a reunion," Piller said.
Anyone interested in learning more can visit the Web site Piller set up in honor of his graduating class at home1.gte.net/kalaiwaa/index.htm.
