News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci
(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Korean War Outreach Program

Date: July 26, 1998

From the News wires

"The Department of Defense and the five military services are expanding their intensive public outreach efforts to locate family members of Korean War and Cold War servicemen who are unaccounted for from those conflicts. Contact has been lost with many families since the cessation of hostilities in Korea in 1953.

DOD still seeks to account for more than 8,100 servicemen from the Korean War and another 130 from Cold War aircraft shootdowns. As a result of several negotiated agreements, the United States has located and recovered in the past two years the remains of what is believed to be seven US servicemen lost during the Korean War. One has already been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Specialists from the US Army Central Identification Laboratory and the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office conducted four joint recovery operations in North Korea during 1996 and 1997.

The first of five scheduled 1998 recovery operations in North Korea began in June. Each will last approximately 25 days and the last operation will end in October.

Besides remains-recovery operations, North Korean officials have agreed to a second archival review by US specialists in 1998. Last year, a week-long research effort in the People's Liberation Museum in Pyongyang located documents which may be related to US servicemen. As those documents are correlated to specific individuals, they are being provided by the military services to known Korean War families.

The expanded outreach effort is to accomplish several goals. First, family member reference blood samples are needed to compare to mitochondrial DNA sequences from recovered skeletal remains. Second, family members often possess personal or wartime documents that may aid in identifying an unaccounted-for serviceman. Finally, the military services are seeking to keep family members updated on specific recovery operations and if remains are recovered and identified, families will be asked to make decisions regarding the burial of the serviceman.

Beyond the Korean War outreach effort, families of Cold War unaccounted-for servicemen are also being sought. Through the work of the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs, the remains of two American servicemen shot down during the Cold War have been recovered and identified. Each of the services has established a toll-free number to keep these families fully informed on Korean War and Cold War remains recovery operations. Family members of these servicemen should contact the appropriate service casualty office to provide name, address, and relationship to their loved one.

If the missing serviceman was in the Air Force, the number is 800/531-5501. The Navy and Coast Guard number is 800/443-9298. The Army number is 800/892-2490, and the Marine Corps number is 800/847-1597.