News-Info-Alerts

Re: CILHI - SEA Remains Repatriated

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: July 30, 2002

"July 24, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

REPATRIATION CEREMONY

CAMP H.M. SMITH, Hawaii - Remains believed to be those of four American servicemen missing or unaccounted-for from the war in Southeast Asia will arrive home to American soil on July 30; two from Vietnam and two from Laos. An all-service honor guard will commemorate their arrival in a ceremony July 30, 9 a.m., Hickam Air Force Base outside the 15th Air Base Wing base operations building.

Following the arrival ceremony, the remains will be transported to the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI), where the forensic identification process will begin.

Military and civilian members who recovered the remains during recent search and recovery missions include personnel from Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA), CILHI, the Joint Field Operating Base Hawaii (Stony Beach) and technical representatives from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Lao People's Democratic Republic. The missions are part of an on-going effort to provide the fullest possible accounting for American servicemen still unaccounted-for as a result of the Vietnam War.

Since 1973, approximately 734 American service members formerly listed as unaccounted-for from the war in Southeast Asia have been identified, and many others are currently in the identification process. There are currently 1,907 Americans still unaccounted-for in Southeast Asia - 1,441 in Vietnam, 400 in Laos, 58 in Cambodia, and eight in China.

WE NEED YOUR HELP: Today's technology allows us to identify some remains through mitochondrial DNA. If you know of a family member who is from the maternal bloodline of an unaccounted-for serviceperson, please ask them to contact the military services to provide a blood sample at U.S. Army: (800) 982-2490; U.S. Air Force: (800) 531-5510; U.S. Navy: (800) 443-9298; U.S. Marine Corps: (800) 847-1597.

U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii
310 Worchester Ave, Hickam AFB, Hawaii 96853"