“To me, he wasn’t the hero the world knows. He was my father.”

With this phrase, Paris Markou, son of Tassos Markou, attempts to describe to the Cyprus News Agency the man behind the hero of Mia Milia. A father he only got to know until he was six years old, but whose presence, his few memories of him, and above all his absence, shaped his entire life.

Tassos Markou is, for the record, the officer associated with the resistance during the 1974 Turkish invasion and the events at Mia Milia. For his son, however, above and beyond all that, he was the man who, whenever he was at home, made him feel completely safe.

“I remember him in uniform inside the house. He was a calm, serious man, with a presence that made us feel safe,” he tells CNA.

His memories of his father are few, but, as he notes, vivid. He remembers the trips to the beach and the mountains, as well as the order that characterized the family’s daily life. There was a specific time for playing, watching TV, studying, eating, and sleeping.

As she grew up, she tried to learn more about the father she lost so early through the stories of her mother, relatives, and his friends.

In this way, he came to know a particularly modest man who never spoke about his activities in EOKA or about what he had done.

As he characteristically notes, when his Commander once asked him to document his activities, Tassos Markou replied: “Everything I did was my duty to my country, and therefore I have nothing to say about myself.”

“I think that answer describes my father very well,” he notes.

“As a child, I saw only the strength. As an adult, I understood the burden.”

In his conversation with KYPE, Paris Markou often returns to the image of his father in uniform.

He doesn’t single out any one specific memory as the most vivid. What has stayed with him is the overall image of a father who, simply by being there, made a child feel protected.

“For a six-year-old, that was his father—the man he believed could protect him from anything,” he says.

Years later, when he himself joined the military, that same image took on a different meaning.

“I understood what that uniform meant to him and how much responsibility it carried. As a child, I saw only the power. As an adult, I understood the burden.”

His own career in the Armed Forces helped him, as he explains, to better understand his father’s attitude toward his men.

“A commander isn’t just someone who gives orders. He’s the one who leads from the front and takes responsibility first.”

“His own children were now his soldiers.”

Paris Markou doesn’t clearly remember the last time he saw his father.

He says he doesn’t want to create a memory today that might not have actually happened that way.

“I was almost six years old, and I don’t clearly remember the last moment I saw him. I don’t want, so many years later, to create a scene that may not have happened that way.”

She does, however, know from her mother what happened during those critical hours.

Tassos Markou contacted her and asked her to take the children to Limassol, near her parents, so they would be safe. He also told her that from that moment on, she would have to stand by the children and look after them, because “his own children were now his soldiers.”

That statement, as Paris admits, hurt him when he was a child.

“I wondered how he could say that his children were his soldiers when he had us.”

As he grew up and served in the army himself, he came to understand what his father meant.

“He wasn’t pushing us aside. He had already made sure we were safe, and at that moment he felt responsible for his men and for his duty to his country.”

“Our home was waiting for us”

The days of the invasion, as Paris remembers them, were filled with fear and anxiety for the family.

He was too young to understand the war. But he understood that something very bad was happening.

“I remember the sirens, the radio, and the bits and pieces of news that trickled in. We had gone to Limassol to be safe, but we didn’t know where our father was or if he was all right.”

For his mother, that day marked the beginning of a life of searching.

Every new piece of information could rekindle hope. Every account of prisoners of war could mean that perhaps Tassos Markou was still alive.

“Every piece of information about prisoners, every account, gave us hope all over again.”

And every time, hope gave way to disappointment.

“Our home was waiting for us. That is perhaps the simplest way to describe it. There was no grave, no closure, no place to go. Life went on, but a part of us always remained in August 1974, just as it did for thousands of other families.”

Paris’s mother never stopped searching. In front of the children, she tried to be strong, to keep them united, and to carry on with family life amid the uncertainty.

“I don’t know how my mother managed. In front of us, she tried to be strong; she kept us together and truly became both mother and father.”

His mother passed away in 2004, without ever receiving the answer she had waited for her entire life.

Her anguish, however, did not end with her passing.

Today, Paris Markou, having served in the military himself, is able to view the events from a different perspective.

“Today, as a soldier, I can view the events more dispassionately. But as a son, I cannot accept assumptions in place of the truth.”

And his position remains clear. “Until we have a substantiated answer, my father remains missing.”

“Pride doesn’t fill the empty seat at the table”

What does it mean, I wonder, for a child to grow up knowing that his father is one of Cyprus’s heroes?

Paris Markou answers KYPE’s question without romanticizing the story, but with the lived truth of a child who grew up without his father.

“To the world, he was Tassos Markou, the hero of Mia Milia. To us, he was our father who never came home.”

As he said, “You grow up, of course, with pride, but pride doesn’t fill the empty seat at the table; it doesn’t replace your father during celebrations, in difficult moments, or when making life’s decisions.”

As he grew up, Paris also felt the weight of the responsibility that came with his name.

When he entered the Hellenic Military Academy and began his own career in the National Guard, he met people who had known his father.

From the way they spoke of him, he realized how much they respected him.

“I didn’t feel that my own path was guaranteed just because I was his son. On the contrary, I felt that every day I had to prove who I was and be careful not to appear unworthy of his name.”

Perhaps, he adds, his decision to join the military was also a way to get closer to his father.

“As I grew up and took on responsibility for others myself, I came to understand his choices better.”

The Letter

Among Tassos Markos’s personal belongings is a letter that holds special significance for Paris.

He sent it to him from the Infantry School in Chalkida, where he was undergoing training. Paris was still a child.

It is not, as he says, a letter full of grand words.

It’s a father writing to his son, advising him not to upset his mother, to be obedient, and to listen to her.

“When I read it, I don’t see the officer or the hero. I hear my father speaking to me.”

The family also preserves Tassos Markou’s uniform, sword, and helmet.

But the letter is different.

“It’s his, and it’s written for me.”

“What’s missing is the truth about his fate.”

Paris Markou acknowledges that his father has been honored by the Republic of Cyprus, Greece, the National Guard, and society.

“It would be unfair of me not to acknowledge that. Our family is grateful for it.”

There is, however, something that transcends all honors, he tells the Cyprus News Agency.

“What’s missing is the most important thing: the truth about his fate.”

As long as Tassos Markou remains missing, no honor and no monument can, as he says, heal the wound.

“The state must continue to seek answers, not only for Tassos Markou, but for every missing person and every family that is waiting.”

He considers it equally important for younger generations to learn who Tasos Markou was and why he made the choices he did.

They shouldn’t just know his name from a street, a stadium, a statue, or a military camp.

They should know the man.

“The most meaningful tribute we can pay to those who fought and suffered for this country is not to pass on the divisions of the past to future generations, but to offer them the prospect of a better tomorrow.”

“History must not become a tool of hatred”

Addressing young people who did not live through the events of 1974, Paris Markou urges them to read, ask questions, and learn.

Not through fanaticism.

“History must not become a tool of hatred. It must help us understand our mistakes and avoid repeating them,” he says.

He notes that 1974 is not a distant event that concerns only his generation.

The occupation, the refugees, those trapped, and the missing are still part of life here.

“They should look ahead, but they should know what came before. They shouldn’t take freedom and democracy for granted.”

And, as a former military officer, he sends yet another message: that responsibility for the country does not lie solely with politicians, but with everyone.

“A people that does not know its history has no memory. A people, however, that remains stuck in the past—without drawing lessons from it and without planning for its future—risks moving forward without a compass. We need unity, a shared sense of direction, and a serious plan for tomorrow. “Because the greatest tribute we can pay to those who fought and suffered for this land is not to pass on to future generations the divisions of yesterday, but the prospect of a better tomorrow,” he said.

“Father, I’ve missed you my whole life”

At the end of our conversation with CNA, our discussion with Paris Markou takes a more personal turn. We ask him if he could say just one thing to his father today, what would it be?

Paris Markou didn’t need a moment to answer.

“Father, I’ve missed you my whole life. I hope I’ve lived up to your name. I’m sorry you never got to meet my children.”

And if Tasos Markou could answer him?

Here, Paris hesitates.

He doesn’t want to put words in the mouth of the man he lost when he was so young.

“I don’t know. And, to be honest, I hesitate to put words in his mouth. He wasn’t one for grand statements.”

Perhaps, though, he would tell him to take care of his family, to hold his head high, and to do his duty without expecting anything in return.

And perhaps, he says, he would ask him not to speak only about him, but “to speak about all the missing persons and all the families who are still waiting.”

Because, after all, behind every missing person there is a family. There is a mother who waited. A child who grew up without answers. A place that remained empty. And a door that, for years, could only be opened again in the imagination.

To the world, Tasos Markou is a hero. To history, he is a symbol of duty and sacrifice.

For Paris Markou, however, he is the man he remembers in uniform inside the house. The father who made him feel safe. The man who wrote him a short letter from Chalkida. The man who never got to meet his children. And above all, the father who never came home.

And perhaps this is the most poignant aspect of Tassos Markou’s story: that behind the hero stands a son who, more than fifty years after the invasion, asks for nothing more than what all the families of the missing are waiting for: the truth.

Until then, Tassos Markou remains missing. But for his son, he will always be something even deeper than a hero.

His father.

Who Is Tassos Markou

Tassos Markou (1936–1974) is one of the most iconic heroes of modern Cypriot history, known for his role in the EOKA struggle (1955–1959) and the unparalleled bravery he displayed during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. He was born in Paralimni in 1936. He joined the EOKA liberation struggle against British colonial rule at an early age, playing a significant role as a sector commander in the Kythrea region. After the end of the EOKA struggle, he went to Athens, where he studied at the Hellenic Military Academy (Evelpidon), from which he graduated as an officer.

His Service in the National Guard

Upon his return to Cyprus, he enlisted in the newly formed National Guard. He was known for his high morale, his military training, and his dedication to defending the Republic of Cyprus.

The Turkish Invasion of 1974

During the Attila invasion in the summer of 1974, then-Major Tassos Markou took charge of organizing the defensive line in the northern area of Nicosia and in the Mia Milia–Kythrea sector: He commanded the 281st Infantry Battalion and subsequently the 315th Mobilization Battalion.

 During the second phase of the invasion (Attila II), Turkish forces attacked with overwhelming superiority in tanks and air power. Tassos Markou refused to abandon his positions, attempting to hold back the enemy’s advance and cover the retreat of his men.

The Disappearance

The last time he communicated via radio with the National Guard General Staff was on the afternoon of August 15, 1974, stating that he would remain at his post to fight. Since then, all traces of him have been lost in the area between Mia Milia and Kythrea.

He is considered a missing-in-action soldier, although for the Greek Cypriot community he remains a timeless hero and a symbol of self-sacrifice. Following his disappearance, he was posthumously promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General.

Source: CNA