Department of Defense seeks help from community

The Department of Defense (DOD) has the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), whose mission is to provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and nation. When American personnel remain captive, missing, or otherwise unaccounted for at the conclusion of hostilities, the DOD accounting community becomes the responsible agent for determining the fate of the missing and, where possible, recovering them alive or recovering and identifying the remains of the dead worldwide. For those killed in action, the accounting community is charged with locating, recovering and identifying their remains. More than 81,000 Americans remain missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, Libya and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The DPAA Laboratory is the largest and most diverse skeletal laboratory in the world and is staffed by more than 30 anthropologists, archaeologists and forensic odontologists. Dental remains are extremely important to the identification process. An individual’s dental records are often the best way to identify remains, as they have unique individual characteristics and may contain surviving DNA. The lab uses DNA in about three-quarters of its cases. Samples taken from bones and teeth are analyzed at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, where they extract and amplify the surviving DNA to determine the genetic sequence. This sequence is compared with the sequences from family reference samples provided by living individuals who are related to the unidentified American. Depending on your relationship to the missing service member, you could be a reference for multiple DNA testing methods. These family reference samples are collected as needed by the casualty and mortuary offices of the individual services.

Service Casualty Officers serve family members. Each military department maintains a service casualty office. The Department of State does the same for civilians. The officials in these offices serve as primary liaisons for families concerning personnel recovery and accounting. The process of donating a DNA reference sample is easy, painless, and free-of-charge. If you are the relative of a missing service member, you should contact your Service Casualty Office (SCO) for information on how to provide a DNA sample. The SCO will mail to your home a DNA donor kit that contains a donor consent form, instruction form, three buccal (cheek) swabs and a shipping envelope. All you have to do is fill out the paperwork, rub the inside of your cheek with the swabs, place the swabs back in their containers and affix the label. The collected samples are then placed in a pre-addressed and pre-paid envelope and mailed to AFMES-AFDIL at Dover AFB, Del.

The DPAA has done a phenomenal job going in the field, checking for and recovering remains, and then identifying those remains. The DPAA identifies an average of three to eight and sometimes as many as 15 remains every week. Some of you may remember recently 55 sets of remains came back from North Korea, and a number of those were identified and sent home to their families for burial. The DOD also recently decided to begin removing service members entombed on the U.S.S. Oklahoma, sunk in World War II in Hawaii. A number of those remains have been identified as well and sent home to their families. The DPAA needs DNA reference samples from relatives of missing service members, from World War II to present day. If you are a relative of a missing service member and have not sent a reference DNA sample, please contact the appropriate Service Casualty Office. Listed below are the phone numbers and addresses of the Service Casualty Office for each service as well as the State Department: U.S. Air Force, 800-531-5501, afpc.af.mil/Air-Force-Missing-Persons-Branch; U.S. Army, 800-892-2490, hrc.army.mil/TAGD; U.S. Marine Corps, 800-847-1597, manpower.usmc.mil; U.S. Navy, 800-443-9298, public.navy.mil; State Department, 202-485-6106. If anyone has any questions about this process, please call Bill Tawater, Commander, Wahkiakum VFW Post 5297, at (360) 849-4151. If I do not know the answer, I will refer you to someone or the agency that does. You can also access the DPAA website at dpaa.mil for more information.