The Army declared a missing soldier dead. His family wants more answers.

Hard to say, but assuming he's dead, understand there's a awful lot of open desert in those parts. I know if I were going to hide a body--whole or in parts--there's a lot of options.

Strange, strange story Brother Dale.

Interesting,,,:::,,, In 1977 I was assigned to HQ&A Company, 1st Med Bn, Ambulance/Evac PLT. On a cool spring night while providing medical coverage to the Retraining BDE, the retraining BDE was conducting an E&E exercise and one of the trainees went AWOL/MIA... 2+ years later when I was assigned to Fitzsimmons AMC... the AWOL/MIA soldier surrendered himself to the MPs at the West gate for medical treatment for ???///???. I remembered him, told him I, and the cadre, spent the entire night he had disappeared walking the entire exercise area looking for him, and told him to he should relay to Ft Riley's Retraining BDE how he went AWOL... He had never informed anyone of his "exploits" while he had been AWOL/MIA Deserter
Sometime in the early 1980's, I was assigned to HHB 1/41FA, HQ PLT, it was reported that a SSG had gone AWOL from one of the firing Battery's... 4 months later the German police notified 56th BDE that it had found a body that had been trapped under a bridge, and had been deceased for the same amount of time as the missing, AWOL/MIA soldier...
My take on all of this is: either the Soldier is truly AWOL/MIA and does not wish to be found or: he has succumbed to the elements. The search area North to South, between el Paso, TX and Alamogordo, NM. is huge... so also, is the East/West search area, el Paso, Tx. to Whites City NM... Only time will tell...
Either way; I'm sorry for their loss; for peace of mind, I do hope the soldier is...