The thing that sets desertion cases apart in a class of peculiar technical difficulty for the case worker is not simply that the man is away from his family. There is no man to deal with in a widow's family, but widows' families present comparatively simple problems. The deserter, though absent, is still not only a potential but also a real factor in the family situation. The plans of the family are often made with one eye to his return; he is the unseen but plainly felt obstacle to much that the social worker wants to accomplish. The children look forward to his reappearance with dread or with joy (for many deserters have a way with them, decidedly, and are welcome visitors to their children). In short, he is usually at the key point in the situation. No plan can safely be made that leaves him out, but--there's the rub!--you cannot include him at once for he is not to be reached, certainly not at the outset. The discovery of the deserter's whereabouts is not only the first but the most urgent of the problems that confront the worker who tries to deal with a deserted family. Unless he can be found the whole plan rests upon shifting sand. A prompt and vigorous effort to find the absentee is therefore a first requisite in dealing with family desertion. Unfortunately, many case workers, having started bravely and exhausted the first crop of clues, become discouraged and fall back on the supposition that the man is permanently out of the scene, and that it only remains to make plans for the family. Numberless case histories attest the unwisdom of this assumption. It is not making an extreme statement to say that, as long as the family remains under active care or until the missing man is proved to be dead, the effort to find him should not be abandoned. Mr. Carstens, in discussing this point, says: To carry on this search persistently is the great safeguard. It is rare when in the course of a few months the true state of affairs will not have been revealed, though it may have been quite hidden at the start.[18] This is not to say that time must be spent unprofitably in going over the same ground, or that out-of-town agencies must be badgered to reinvestigate old clues. But the frame of mind that pigeonholes the whole matter as having been attended to must be shunned by the social worker, who should be always on the alert for new clues and prompt to follow them up. An example of a vigorous and persistent search for a deserter is taken from the files of the National Desertion Bureau.[19]