August 2000

Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork

00 AUG 00: 2,014 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: ARMY: 638 (VN-10, VS-487; LA-106; CB-35; CH-0); NAVY: 409 (VN-280, VS-92; LA-28; CB-1; CH/OW-8); USMC: 255 (VN-24, VS-202; LA-21; CB-8; CH-0); USAF: 672 (VN-231; VS-165; LA-260; CB-16; CH-0); and CG: 1 (VN-0; VS-1; LA-0; CB-0; CH-0). 39 civilians remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: VS-22, LA-12, and CB-5. 569 Americans have been accounted-for post 1973: VN-409, LA-142, CB-16, and CH-2. 200 Americans have been accounted-for during the present administrations. PURSUIT STATUS: Further Pursuit: 1,170 (VN-245; VS-500; LA-373; CB-48; CH-4). Deferred: 202 (VN-60; VS-111; LA-28; CB-2; CH-1). No Further Pursuit: 642 (VN-240; VS-358; LA-26; CB-15; CH-3) Persian Gulf War - unsatisfactory accounting. Korean War - 8,139 remain unaccounted-for, 42 possible remains returned, 4 identifications. World War II - Over 78,000 remain unaccounted-for.

02 AUG 00: A team of 43 US specialists from Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, Central Identification Laboratory and Stony Beach is now in Laos conducting joint field operations. Scheduled to conclude around August 24, they are conducting remains recoveries over a 30-day period at three sites in two separate provinces. On August 26, a larger US team will begin month long joint operations in Vietnam. This team will work with Vietnamese citizens and specialists in 16 provinces and cities to investigate 32 cases and excavate six or more sites, including both aircraft and ground losses. EXCERPT FROM REPUBLICAN PLATFORM 2000: This country's relations with Vietnam are still overshadowed by two grave concerns. The first is uncertainty concerning the Americans who became prisoners of war or were missing in action. A Republican president will accelerate efforts in every honorable way to obtain the fullest possible accounting for those still missing and for the repatriation of the remains of those who died in the cause of freedom. The second is continued retribution by the government of Vietnam against its ethnic minorities and others who fought alongside our forces there. The United States owes those individuals a debt of honor and will not be blind to their suffering.

03 AUG 00: US forensics specialists excavating sites in North Korea recovered remains believed to be those of 14 American servicemen missing in action from the Korean War. The remains are to be flown aboard a US Air Force plane from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, to Yokota Air Base near Tokyo for a United Nations Command repatriation ceremony. The remains will then be taken to the Army Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, for forensic examination and positive identification. The 14 sets of remains are the most recovered in a single operation since excavations began in 1996, when communist North Korea first agreed to allow US searches on its territory. Twenty-six sets of remains have been recovered so far this year. More than 8,100 US service members are still listed as missing from the 1950-53 war, although remains of fewer than half that number are believed to be recoverable. 04 AUG 00: Three more Americans previously unaccounted for from the 1975 attempted rescue of the Mayaguez crew off the coast of Cambodia are now accounted for, though no names were publicly released at the request of their families. This brings to 12 the number of remains recovered and identified from that tragic incident. Between 1991 and 1999, US, Cambodian and Vietnamese personnel conducted seven joint investigations and Cambodian officials unilaterally turned over remains believed to be those of Americans associated with this incident on 3 occasions. The identifications, made by CILHI, were achieved using extensive technology available from the Armed Forces mtDNA Laboratory in Maryland. The accounting for these three Americans brings the number still missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War to 2,014, 1,514 in Vietnam.

05 AUG 00: The US Navy bomber Ventura lifted off from Alaska's Aleutian Islands into a snowstorm on March 25, 1944, heading for a sortie over northern Japan, and disappeared for 56 years. The American military announced it found the plane, which crashed into a mountain in Russia's Far East. Authorities now hope to identify the remains of the seven-crew members and return them to their families. The wreckage was found on the slope of a volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, said US Army Gen. Roland Lajoie, chair of the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on Soldiers Missing in Action.

08 AUG 00: Guided by a map drawn by a former US marine, Vietnamese soldiers have unearthed remains of comrades killed more than 32 years ago in some of the most bitter fighting of the Vietnam War. Excavation began two weeks ago in a jackfruit orchard in Cam Lo, just off central Vietnam's Highway 9. US veteran Geoffrey Steiner said the area could hide remains of as many as 600 North Vietnamese Army soldiers. The excavation is the latest to result from a reconciliation initiative launched in 1995 by Vietnam Veterans of America Inc. to help Vietnam locate some of its estimated 300,000 war missing. Local officials questioned Steiner's estimate of 600 dead, given the relatively small number of bones so far discovered. However, US experts who have spent years searching for American war missing in Vietnam say the high acidity of the soil and fragmentation of bones by explosions meant many would have disintegrated over the years. The Vietnamese searchers said the only clothing found so far was the sole of a Chinese pattern plimsol worn by communist soldiers in the war. They will eventually be interred in a nearby war cemetery containing the remains of more than 9,600 communist war dead. They will join the 5,000 resting beneath the simple inscription: "Liet Sy, Chua Biet Ten" or "Fallen Martyr, Name Unknown." Vietnam Veterans of America vice president Tom Corey related that Vietnamese authorities had said they discovered 800 sets of remains based on information from US veterans. He said another US veteran had provided details of another site near Cam Lo that could contain another 600 dead. US veterans wanted to repay Vietnam for its help recovering remains of 555 US soldiers who went missing in action in Vietnam, Corey said. "This is a commitment we've made soldier-to-soldier, veteran-to-veteran. The Vietnamese do not have all the information and that is what we are trying to provide. We're getting more and more former soldiers coming forward to help." Vietnamese veterans said they were grateful for the US veterans' initiative and were hoping for more information. "We welcome all the information we can get from them," said Truong Hong Tan, a former communist guerrilla who heads Quang Tri province's overseas friendship organization. "We helped them find their missing and now they're helping us find ours."

09 AUG 00: The United States would like Vietnam to do more "unilateral work" to account for US servicemen still listed as missing from the Vietnam War. Robert Jones, deputy assistant secretary of state for prisoner of war/missing personnel affairs, said Vietnamese officials had expressed to him their commitment to the task of accounting for US missing. Asked what the United States wanted to see more of, he replied: "As we seek ways to be more efficient, we are looking at ways that the Vietnamese can do more unilateral work in terms of recovery operations." He said this particularly applied to cases in which soldiers were last known by their comrades to have been alive. Jones said these were "cases where during the war Americans were known to be on the ground in close proximity to the enemy, but we don't know what happened to them." They also included "discrepancy cases" in which individuals were known to have been captured but never returned to the United States. "We have determined the fate of many of those and we have recovered the remains of several," Jones said. "But there still remains a lot of work to be done in that area."

10 AUG 00: At a press briefing in Hanoi Robert L. Jones, deputy assistant secretary for prisoner of war/missing personnel affairs said US. Defense Department would hand over to Vietnam more documents related to Vietnamese soldiers missing in action during the war. "We will turn over 400,000 pages of text relating to Vietnamese soldiers stored by the US Navy and Marine in October," Mr. R. Jones was cited as saying. The US has so far provided Vietnam with three million pages of documents covering information on Vietnamese soldiers missing in action since 1993, which has helped Vietnam in the recovery of more than 2,500 sets of remains. The chair of the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday said he would push for passage of legislation this year aimed at reducing the burden on CIA declassifiers overwhelmed by numerous special requests from government officials. Those special requests from administration officials and members of Congress have asked CIA declassifiers to search for documents on everything from UFOs to murdered churchwomen in El Salvador to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, a Florida Republican, and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, have sponsored legislation to create a nine-member board to prioritize such special requests. "The purpose of the bill is to bring some order to the chaos," Goss said at a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the legislation. He said he would seek passage of the legislation this year. Iraq said on Thursday Iran had freed 357 Iraqi prisoners of war, 12 years after the end of a ruinous war between the two neighbors. Iran had said it would free a total of 728 prisoners in stages this week. A source at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the remaining prisoners would arrive in Iraq in the next few hours.

11 AUG 00: Pursuing reports of American soldiers still alive a quarter-century after the end of the Vietnam War remains the top priority even though 21,000 alleged sightings have failed to pan out, a US official said. Robert L. Jones, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the POW/Missing Persons Office, said all the reports have been investigated. "None has borne fruit," he said. "There still remains a lot of work to do in that area." The number of reports has steadily shrunk since 1973, after Vietnam said it returned all American prisoners of war, with only one alleged sighting for all of last year. "I thank the Vietnamese government and people for everything they have done," Jones said. "We could not have had the success we have had without their assistance." Washington is urging Vietnam to conduct more unilateral searches, particularly in central Vietnam where some of the fiercest fighting took place. Those would supplement month long joint operations now held five or six times each year. Jones said the US presidential election would not affect Washington's commitment to account for the 2,014 still listed as MIA. "Our methods may change, but we will continue to seek missing Americans until all of them are accounted for," he said. Since January 1993, 249 sets of remains have been repatriated and returned to their families, including 28 since Jan. 1, 1999. Vietnam has recovered the remains of 2,500 of its 300,000 MIAs with US assistance, including 800 in the past year after being given access to US military archives, Jones said. A team of US and Russian investigators has positively identified the wreckage of a US Navy PV-1Ventura patrol bomber, missing since March 25, 1944, at a crash site on the Russian far eastern peninsula of Kamchatka. At the site, forensic specialists from the US Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI) recovered remains assumed to be those of crewmembers. The specialists believe additional remains are located at the site and have recommended a full-scale recovery operation be mounted next summer, when the absence of ice and snow would make excavation possible. A local Kamchatkan historian, Ms. Alla Paperno, provided initial information on the crash site to USRJC officials. The investigation team, which included members of the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) and CILHI, used a combination of archival research and interviews with Russian geologists who had been to the site 30 - 40 years ago to locate the remote site. The plane was one of five, which took off from Attu, in the Aleutian Islands, on the "Empire Express," a reconnaissance and bombing mission over Japanese bases on the northern Kurile Islands. In the face of extremely bad weather and hazardous flying conditions, only one of the five planes in the flight was able to successfully complete the mission.

12 AUG 00: Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs Bob Jones is currently in Vientiane, Laos, for talks, having met with Vietnamese officials August 7-10th. He will then go to Phnom Penh, Cambodia for talks. The Lao Vice Foreign Minister will visit Washington, DC, later this month at Jones' invitation. During his visit, he will meet with State and Defense Department officials. He will also travel to Hawaii for briefings and meetings with officials at CILHI, JTF-FA and CINCPAC en route back to Laos. JTF-FA Commander BG Harry Axson will host the Vice Minister in Hawaii.

13 AUG 00: More than two million tones of bombs were dropped by the United States during the Indochina war in Laos. When asked if the US government felt any responsibility to help Laos to deal with the unexploded ordnance, Mr. Jones replied that his office was not directly responsible. However, he said, the US government had provided more than US$ 13 million to assist Laos to resolve UXO problems. His team was conducting an operation to excavate aircraft crash sites. Mr. Jones said: "My office has encouraged a program called Veteran-to-Veteran and has asked American veterans who served in Laos, who might have information related to missing Lao persons or may have materials relating to soldiers who were disabled during the war, to provide such information and materials to Lao government to facilitate accounting and/or humanitarian assistance to those disabled." Asked about responsibility for people who were injured by UXO, he replied that the US had developed training and sponsored UXO-LAOS, and provided US$ 1.5 million a year. He said that his trip here has emphasized that there are issues remaining for the relationship between the US and Laos, which continues to be a high priority. Asked about the status of American MIAs, he said that there are 2,014 in Southeast Asia (427 in Laos).

16 AUG 00: About 450 Australian, British and Dutch visitors paid their respects Tuesday at a World War II cemetery near the bridge on the River Kwai, part of the infamous "Death Railway" that the Japanese army built using Allied prisoners of war and Asian slave labor. About 50 Japanese tourists also visited the cemetery, to learn what Japanese textbooks do not tell them -- the unspeakable record of the Japanese Imperial army during its brutal occupation of Southeast Asia. Some 13,000 Allied prisoners of war and up to 100,000 Asian slave laborers died of disease, starvation and torture while building the 256-mile "Death Railway" supply line between Bangkok and Rangoon.

17 AUG 00: Remains believed to be those of 14 American servicemen, missing in action from the Korean War, will be repatriated Aug. 19, Korea time. The remains will be flown on a US Air Force aircraft from Pyongyang, North Korea, to Yokota Air Base, Japan, under escort of a uniformed US honor guard. A United Nations Command repatriation ceremony will be held at Yokota. The following week the remains will be flown to Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. Following a US Pacific Command ceremony there, the remains will be transferred to the US Army Central Identification Laboratory (CILHI) for forensic examination and positive identification. A joint US-North Korean investigation team recovered the remains, the largest number recovered during a single operation to date. The 20-person US team is composed primarily of specialists from CILHI. This recovery operation is the 14 in North Korea since 1996. Three more are scheduled for this year, with the fifth operation scheduled to conclude on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2000. Joint US - North Korean teams have recovered 26 sets of remains so far this year, surpassing the total in any single, full year of operations. Of the 88,000 US servicemembers missing in action from all conflicts, more than 8,100 are from the Korean War.

21 AUG 00: During his August 21 address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars 101 National Convention in Wisconsin, Republican candidate for President Governor George W. Bush made the following statement regarding America's POW/MIAs: "To build morale in Today's United States military, we must keep faith with those who have worn the uniform in the past. We must keep faith with America's veterans. This means doing everything in our power to obtain the fullest possible accounting for those who have not yet returned -- those still missing in action in America's Pacific wars. When we send Americans into danger, they will never be abandoned." Vice President Gore's published speech to the same gathering included no mention of the need to account for America's POW/MIAs. South Korea will push for the return of hundreds of elderly prisoners of war held in North Korea for up to half a century. Seoul is already set to return 62 former North Korean prisoners under a deal signed in late June by Red Cross officials from two Koreas. North and South Korea are still technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce. "The government agreed to send back the 62 unconverted Communist spies to Pyongyang partly because we wanted to quicken the return of the South Korean prisoners of war," the English-language Korea Times quoted Unification Minister Park Jae-kyu as saying. The return of South Korean POWs in the North will be one of the major topics of South-North ministerial talks scheduled for August 29-31. According to a Defense Ministry report, there are 343 South Korean POWs still alive in the communist North. The issue has drawn sharp criticism in the South because Seoul agreed to return the North Koreans without winning a similar promise from Pyongyang. The agreement for repatriation followed the first-ever summit between leaders of the two countries in mid-June where they pledged to improve relations. The summit also led to emotionally supercharged family reunions last week, with 100 families from each Korea meeting family members separated before and during the traumatic events of the Korean War.

23 AUG 00: A crew of 10 young Army aviators returned to a friendly base this week and were laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery almost 56 years to the day after they set out on their World War II mission. Second Lt. George H. Pierpont and 2nd Lt. Franklin A. Tomenendale piloted the B-24 "Liberator," a heavy bomber aircraft capable of long operating ranges. After taking off from an airfield in Liuchow, China, Aug. 31, 1944 to bomb enemy ships, according to a military report, "The aircraft never returned to a friendly base." Along with pilot and co-pilot, the flight manifest included 2nd Lt. Robert Deming, 2nd Lt. George A. Ward, Staff Sgt. Anthony DeLucia, Staff Sgt. William A. Drager, Sgt. Robert L. Kearsey, Sgt. Ellsworth V. Kelley, Pvt. Fred P. Buckley and Pvt. Vincent J. Netherwood. Pierpont, the pilot, was promoted to first lieutenant Sept. 1, 1944, the day after he was reported missing. Family members and acquaintances - young and old - gathered Aug. 21 at the Fort Myer Post Chapel for a group funeral service. There, Chaplain (Lt. Col.) James E. May said that 56 years cannot diminish the memory nor the service given by the 10 men. "We can consecrate this moment in time," May said, "and give thanks for the impact their brief lives have on us all. We can give thanks for their noble service." "They touched our lives," said Chaplain (1st Lt.) Boguslaw A. Augustyn, "and we pray for their peace and happiness today, tomorrow and the day after."

24 AUG 00: Former World War II prisoners of war honored their liberators with a memorial dedication, 55 years after Army units freed 512 men from a prison camp in the Philippines. Members of the 6th Ranger Battalion and the 6th Army Alamo Scouts rescued the Americans Jan. 30, 1945. At a ceremony at the Rangers training headquarters at Fort Benning, Ga., the POWs dedicated a bronze plaque with the names of 143 men who participated in the operation, assisted by 284 Filipino guerrillas. The plaque will be installed on a granite memorial outside the Ranger Hall of Fame. "I'm satisfied, and I'll go to sleep tonight knowing that I've finally honored these men," said John Cook, 79, a retired Army medic from San Bruno, Calif., who spent 34 months as a prisoner. The surprise assault killed 500 Japanese and two Rangers. None of the prisoners was injured during the rescue and 30-mile trek to US lines. The liberation, which took less than 30 minutes, is still recognized as an example of a virtually flawless special operation, according to Fort Benning officials.

25 AUG 00: Although the names have not yet been publicly announced, six Americans previously missing in Laos have now been accounted for, bringing the number accounted for from Laos since the end of the war to 148. All were jointly recovered. The remains of two Air Force officers were recovered in October 1996, and identifications were approved on August 15th. The other four, three Marines and one Army, were jointly recovered in February 1999, and approved on August 14th. In addition, though also not yet announced by the Department of Defense, the remains of two Americans previously missing in northern Vietnam have also been identified. The primary next-of-kin requested that the name of LCDR Roger B. Innes, USN, missing since December 27, 1967, be publicly announced as accounted for. His remains, and those of his fellow officer, were identified using mtDNA following a successful underwater recovery in May and June of last year. The accounting for these eight Americans brings the number still missing and unaccounted for to 2,006, 1512 in Vietnam, 421 in Laos, 65 in Cambodia and 8 in the territorial waters of the PRC. The government in Vietnam has turned to spiritual advisers to help find the remains of Vietnamese people killed during the War, which ended twenty-five years ago. The Chief of the Scientific Anticipation Unit, in the Research Centre for the Hidden Abilities of Vietnamese People, said the organization had been asked to take part in the search. The official Nguyen Phuc Giac Hai said three experts were searching for people missing-in-action, known as MIAs, and they were capable of finding up to twenty sets of remains each day. Correspondents say Vietnam has three hundred thousand MIAs, and many people believe in the ability of the spiritualists to provide detailed maps of the location of the remains of their loved-ones. The return of American MIAs has also been a major issue in improving bilateral relations.

26 AUG 00: The return of hundreds of South Koreans believed to be living in North Korea against their will is among topics to be discussed during high-level talks in Pyongyang this week, officials said. A five-member government delegation led by Unification Minister Park Jae-kyu was to leave for Pyongyang for three days of talks. Seoul officials say tens of thousands of South Korean prisoners of war never returned home after the 1950-1953 Korean War. Citing defectors, they say about 300 of them are still believed held in the North. The Seoul government also says North Korea has abducted 3,756 South Koreans since the end of the war. All but 454 of them -- mostly fishermen -- were sent back to the South.

27 AUG 00: Two Chinese prisoners of war have been found in an Indian mental asylum where they spent the past 35 years. The two inmates, Shih Liang and Yang Chen, have been held at the Central Institute of Psychiatry in the east Indian state of Bihar since 1965, the South China Morning Post said. The two were arrested in 1962 during a bloody Sino-Indian border war across the Himalayas and were held at a jail in New Delhi on charges of espionage, it said. Three years later, the Indian army took them to the asylum. Neither the Indian nor Chinese government appears to know about the two men, the Post said. The newspaper quoted India's Home Affairs Ministry as saying that it has no knowledge of the two prisoners, while the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said it would investigate the matter before responding.

28 AUG 00: Iraq dismissed an Iranian statement that it had freed all Iraqi prisoners captured during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. General Abdollah Najafi, the head of Iran's POW committee, said on August 13 his country had freed all Iraqi prisoners. "There is not even a single Iraqi prisoners in Iran," he told reporters. "Najafi's statement is a repetition of statements he used to air, thinking that by doing so he can hide the truth," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the state news agency INA. "Najafi is well aware of the facts concerning the number of our prisoners and missing in action as we had discussed the issue with him within the framework of the joint Iraqi-Iranian POW committee," the spokesman said, adding that these facts were registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The spokesman urged Iranian officials to demonstrate good will through the release of all Iraqi prisoners held by Iran so that this file could be closed. Iraq said recently said that Iran still held thousands of its soldiers captured during the bloody Iran-Iraq war, which ended in 1988. Najafi accused Iraq of erecting obstacles to a final resolution of the POW issue, and appealed for help from the ICRC to put the matter to rest. He said Iran had unilaterally freed more than 12,000 Iraqi prisoners since the mid-1990s, saying another 9,000 had sought asylum. The POW issue and the two countries' support for guerrillas from the other side have been the main hurdles to a rapprochement between them. Iraq says it has freed all Iranian prisoners, a claim Tehran disputes.

29 AUG 00: Teams searching for Americans posted as missing in action (MIA) in the Vietnam War have recovered remains believed to be those of US servicemen from five Vietnamese provinces, the US MIA office said on Tuesday. The remains were handed over to US charge d'affaires in Hanoi, Dennis Harter, on Monday, official Vietnamese media reports said. Gary Flanagan, casualty resolution supervisor at the US MIA office in Hanoi, said the remains had been discovered during searches in five provinces, but he said he did not know how many individuals they represented. Most were from aircraft crash sites dating back to the years 1965-1972. Flanagan said more than a dozen US servicemen were lost at the crash sites investigated. The remains will be flown to a US military laboratory in Hawaii for identification. The official Vietnam News Agency said the remains had already undergone primary forensic testing by US and Vietnamese specialists. A total of 2,006 Americans remain unaccounted for from the US involvement in Indochina until 1975, 1,512 of them in Vietnam. Since the end of the war, 577 US servicemen have been accounted for, 410 of whom went missing in Vietnam. Vietnam's assistance in accounting for US war missing helped bring about the normalization of diplomatic ties between the two countries five years ago. New on the DPMO web site. August 25, 2000: - Posted updated Accounted-For and Unaccounted-For reports in include the change in status for the identification of six missing US servicemen (PMSEA). August 29, 2000: - The PMSEA database page has been further expanded to include individual reports for each of the servicemen and civilians listed in the PMSEA database. To access these pages, click on the first letter of the individual's last name, then find and click on their name. To see these files please visit the PMSEA Data Files page. - Posted a new Vietnam-Era Unaccounted-For Statistical Report to include the identification of six missing US servicemen (PMSEA).

30 AUG 00: National POW/MIA Recognition Day will be September 15 this year. The national ceremony will be held at 11:30 a.m. at the Pentagon, hosted by Deputy Secretary of Defense de Leon. Planning is well underway for ceremonies across the nation and around the world at US military installations. Contact your local post office and nearby military installations for information regarding ceremonies to be held in your area. By law, the POW/MIA flag will fly over most US Government buildings, all US Post Office facilities, major military installations and Federal cemeteries on National POW/MIA Recognition Day. The last required date this year for flying the POW/MIA flag will be Veterans Day, November 11.

31 AUG 00: REMINDER -
DOD/DPMO Family Updates - 22/23 SEP Seattle, WA

BACKGROUND: NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY

Until July 18, 1979, no commemoration was held to honor America's POW/MIAs, those returned and those still missing and unaccounted for from our nation's wars. That first year, resolutions were passed in the Congress and the national ceremony was held at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. The Missing Man formation was flown by the 1st Tactical Squadron, Langley AFB, Virginia. The Veterans Administration published a poster including only the letters "POW/MIA" and that format was continued until 1982, when a black and white drawing of a POW in harsh captivity was used to convey the urgency of situation and the priority that President Ronald Reagan assigned to achieving the fullest possible accounting for Americans still missing from the Vietnam War.

National POW/MIA Recognition Day legislation was introduced yearly, until 1995 when it was deemed by Congress that legislation designating special commemorative days would no longer be considered by Congress. The President now signs a proclamation each year. In the early years, the date was routinely set in close proximity to the National League of Families annual meetings. In the mid-1980's, the American Ex-POWs decided that they wished to see the date established as April 9th, the date during World War II when the largest number of Americans were captured. As a result, legislation urged by the American Ex-POWs was passed covering two years, July 20, 1984 and April 9, 1985, as the commemoration dates.

The 1984 National POW/MIA Recognition Day ceremony was held at the White House, hosted by President Ronald Reagan. At that most impressive ceremony, the Reagan Administration balanced the focus to honor all returned POWs and renew national commitment to accounting as fully as possible for those still missing. Perhaps the most impressive Missing Man formation ever flown was that year, up the Ellipse and over the White House. Unfortunately, the 1985 ceremony was canceled due to inclement weather, a concern that had been expressed when the April 9 date was proposed.

Subsequently, in an effort to accommodate all returned POWs and all Americans still missing and unaccounted for from all wars, the National League of Families proposed the third Friday in September, a date not associated with any particular war and not in conjunction with any organization's national convention. Most National POW/MIA Recognition Day ceremonies have been held at the Pentagon. On September 19, 1986, however, the national ceremony was held on the steps on the U.S. Capitol facing the Mall, again concluding with a flight in Missing Man formation.

National POW/MIA Recognition Day Ceremonies are now held throughout the nation and around the world on military installations, ships at sea, state capitols, at schools, churches, national veteran and civic organizations, police and fire departments, fire stations, etc. The National League of Families POW/MIA flag is flown, and the focus is to ensure that America remembers its responsibility to stand behind those who serve our nation and do everything possible to account for those who do not return.

POW-MIA Issue Update September 2000