News-Info-Alerts

Re: Othwr Families Still Waiting

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: September 14, 2003

"Other families still waiting for news

By Patti Richter, Staff Writer

It took 32 years for Jim and Jane Black to get to bury their son in Arlington National Cemetery.

Other families are still waiting.

The recovery of soldiers' remains in foreign countries is something the United States military is extensively involved in, said Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Prisoner of War/Missing in Action office in Washington, D.C.

"Most people think of these recovery operations in connection with the Vietnam War," he said. "But other wars also have men missing."

Greer said Vietnam currently has 1,882 soldiers listed as missing in action, while the Korean War has 8,100. World War II also has soldiers' who have never been returned to American soil - 78,000. Ironically, the Pentagon also has a list of 130 men still missing from "the Cold War."

Greer said there are approximately 600 people working in various countries on the process of excavating areas in search of the human remains of fallen U.S. soldiers. Currently, there are at least four teams working in North Korea.

"We have people working around the clock, 365 days a year," he said.

There are thousands of missing-in-action cases that are still active, he said.

"There are hundreds and hundreds of cases just from Vietnam yet to be identified." he said. "In all the wars we have recovered bodies and brought them back. But the Vietnam War is by no means the largest one with men that are still missing."

Overall, he said, 701 sets of human remains have been recovered and identified from the Vietnam War.
"Hundreds of others have not been identified," Greer said. "There are huge obstacles. Obviously the process is too slow for some families. But we are going to continue to do it."

The process of identifying human remains is often long and tedious. DNA tests are not as quick as they appear on television, he added.

Greer said the test alone can take two weeks to complete, then families have to be contacted and samples obtained and other protocol has to be followed. That can often take more time than the test itself, he said.

© 2003 Southwestern Oregon Publishing Company"