Re: Military to Hold Family Update

Date: January 22, 2004

"Military to update MIA families here

By ANDY HUMBLES
Staff Writer

Bill Burkart was 8 years old when his father disappeared while piloting a midnight bombing mission in Vietnam in 1966.

His dad, U.S. Air Force Col. Charles Burkart Jr., is one of 88,000 Americans classified as ''missing in action'' from conflicts dating to World War II.

For those families, the Department of Defense's Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office has held monthly briefings called ''Family Updates'' in different U.S. cities since 1995. For the first time, Nashville will be the site of a Family Update, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center.

''I want to be brought up to date about anything they might be doing,'' said Burkart, 47, of Lebanon, who went to one other Family Update four years ago in Washington.

''It's just being involved in the process and maybe getting some kind of understanding of what happened to him. There is no closure to this. A lot of families are going through similar things. It's somewhat comforting to hear and tell the stories that other people have gone through.''

More information is also why Nashville's Jo Ann Connor and Maymie Birchett, both 68, also have registered for Saturday's briefing, though both say they have no hope that their missing loved ones are still alive.

Connor's husband, Charles Connor, was a pilot in the Marine Corps serving in Vietnam when he was classified as missing at age 30. Charles Connor would have been 66 last week. ''I don't expect him to be accounted for,'' Jo Ann Connor said, recounting the day in 1968 while living in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., when a Marine major came to the door and said her husband was missing.

''I'm reconciled to that. I guess I'm just curious to see if they are making progress on accounting for (all missing soldiers). I'm interested in seeing what advances have been made, if DNA technology is helping.''

Larry Greer, spokesman for the Defense Department's POW/MIA office, said advances are being made in the discovery of remains of soldiers missing in action because of improved technology.

He also said that since 1996, when an agreement with North Korea allowed the United States to enter and look for evidence of missing soldiers during certain parts of the year, more than 180 skeletal remains from the Korean War have been discovered. He said 14 American soldiers have been identified from the Korean War and about 12 more are in a final stage of identification.

Birchett's brother, Army 1st Lt. Franklin D. Johnson, served in the Korean War. She went to a Family Update three years ago in Memphis, where she learned her brother probably was a prisoner of war in Korea and was killed a short time later.

''I still have hope they can find out more,'' she said.

Levels of hope of those attending the Family Update in Nashville will range from very high to none, Greer said.

''The mood is somber,'' Greer said, ''but for some of the attendees, especially the younger ones … they are often encouraged we're still pursuing their grandfather or uncle's case. Older family members, widows and siblings, may not have shared information with younger members of the family. So some hear information for the first time.''

Saturday's briefing will bring about 40 Defense Department personnel, including archivists, DNA scientists, recovery and remains' experts, and policy-makers from Washington.

The program is only for family members of servicemen missing in action. Family members of missing servicemen who haven't preregistered can be admitted by giving information about their loved one, Greer said.

The searching continues

Just because American servicemen have been ruled presumed dead by the military doesn't mean American authorities have stopped looking for them.

''That in no way diminishes our effort to find them, account for them, identify them alive or dead,'' said Larry Greer, spokesman for the Defense Department's Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.

When no evidence points to a person's still being alive, the head of that serviceman's branch of the military, such as the secretary of the Army or Navy, can rule that person to be presumed dead, Greer said.

The decision clears the way for the serviceman's family to collect the loved one's death benefits. The ruling usually happens anytime from one year after the serviceman was declared missing to one year after that conflict.

Investigations continue for World War II veterans, not with hopes that any would be found alive, but to provide answers to living family members. World War II ended almost 59 years ago, in September 1945.

''Those families have sacrificed just as much. They deserve the same answers as other families,'' Greer said.

Units trained to investigate ''live sightings,'' in which servicemen may still be alive, work in North Korea and Southeast Asia, Greer said.

He said there were still hundreds of suspected World War II crash sites to investigate and remains of hundreds of servicemen were recovered each year. ''We can come very close in almost every case of telling families what happened,'' Greer said.

— Andy Humbles

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