A Brief Public Service Announcement . . . .
Jonn’s article yesterday about the recovery of MOH recipient LTC Don Carlos Faith Jr’s remains brought to light something I didn’t know – and which may not be common knowledge. Some of TAH’s readers may be interested.
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is the DoD entity having the mission of accounting for US POWs/MIAs. They often use maternal-line mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in the identification of recovered remains. That much is fairly well-known.
However, the JPAC also maintains lists of unaccounted for US personnel from three conflicts for which they still need maternal-line mtDNA samples. These lists are reportedly reasonably complete, and are available in PDF and Excel formats; the PDF versions are linked below:
Excel versions of these lists may be found here under “Search”.
Additionally, the JPAC maintains a partial list of World War II unaccounted for personnel for whom current investigations have a critical need for mtDNA samples. Unfortunately, the list from World War II is not complete due to the sheer magnitude of US personnel still not formally accounted for (78,000+) and the relatively limited scope of JPAC’s work to date on World War II casualty cases.
General contact information for JPAC can be found here; an explanation of who can give a useful sample can be found here. If you or anyone you know have a relative who never came home, please consider seeing if you can help JPAC find them. Even if you can’t give the sample yourself, you may be able to help them locate someone who can.
Everyone deserves a proper burial – if possible, in their homeland.
Category: Military issues, No Longer Missing, Veterans Issues
Thanks for posting that Hondo.
Indeed, this truly is a public service message.
Thanks for posting that, Hondo. I had no idea how many are still unaccounted for from WWII.
The guys out at JPAC are doing good work; a close friend of mine from school ended up being a team leader for JPAC after his last pump to the Af. He’s their new superstar (couple of purple hearts in Iraq, silver star from Afghanistan) since he’s a Recon Marine competing with mouth-breathing Army POGs, so he spends literally half his time away from home in places like Loas, Cambodia, Vietnam, Papau New Guinea, et cetera. Those guys are unsung heros doing an important job far away from any recognition.
78,000 in WWII, I had no idea there were so many.