Two More Return
DPAA has been busy recently. Since my article yesterday on the subject,DPAA has announced the identification and accounting for the following formerly-missing US military personnel.
From Korea
• SGT Robert C. Dakin, L Company, 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, US Army, was lost on 12 December 1950 in North Korea. He was accounted for on 16 November 2015.
From Vietnam
• PFC Kenneth L. Cunningham, 225th Aviation Company, 223rd Aviation Battalion, 17th Aviation Group, 1st Aviation Brigade, US Army, was lost on 3 October 1969 in Vietnam. He was accounted for on 13 November 2015.
You’re no longer missing, elder brother-in-arms. Our apologies that your return took so long.
Rest in peace. You’re home now.
. . .
Over 73,000 US personnel remain unaccounted for from World War II; over 7,800 US personnel remain unaccounted for from the Korean War; and over 1,600 remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (SEA). Comparison of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from recovered remains against mtDNA from a matrilineal descendant can assist in making a positive ID for unidentified remains that have already been recovered, or which may be recovered in the future.
DPAA’s web site now has what appears to be a decent “Contact Us” page. The page doesn’t have instructions concerning who can and cannot submit a mtDNA sample or how to submit one, but the POCs listed there may be able to refer you to someone who can answer that question – or may be able to answer the question themselves. If you think you might possibly qualify, please contact one of those POCs for further information.
If your family lost someone in one of these conflicts and you qualify to submit a mtDNA sample, please arrange to submit one. By doing that you just might help identify the remains of a US service member who’s been repatriated but not yet been identified – as well as a relative of yours, however distant. Or you may help to identify remains to be recovered in the future.
Everybody deserves a proper burial. That’s especially true for those who gave their all while serving this nation.
Category: No Longer Missing
SSG Kenneth L. Cunningham of Ellery, Illinois, was born on 21 January 1948 and, at age 21, was in VN doing his job (MOS 17L20: Aerial Sensor Specialist) as a spotter on board a Grumman Mohawk when the a/c went down. Although he was an E2 at the time, he was subsequently promoted to E6 while in MIA status. The wreckage of the Mohawk was located but aerial recon saw that it had been moved after it crashed. Given its location, and other information, it was believed that a trap awaited those who attempted to reach the difficult, mountainous site and no effort was therefore made to put feet on the site.
Welcome home, SSG Cunningham. You have been missed.
SGT Robert Campbell Dakin of Middlesex, Massachusetts was born in 1928. He was an infantryman in combat in the North Korea Section, a corporal with L Company, 3/31 Infantry, which fought nearly to the last man at the Chosen Reservoir and had, as the National Museum of the United States Army puts it, “ceased to exist.”
Welcome home, Sergeant.
For SGT Robert C. Dakin and PFC Kenneth L. Cunningham. Rest In Peace in your home soil now. When there was no more left to give, you gave your all. God bless and be with your families.
I’m surprised SSG Cunningham was a PV2 at the time of his death. Maybe it was just 1ID policy but I thought it was USARV policy that all PV2s were automatically promoted to PFC upon arrival in country. In any event, it must have been hard on the family that we knew where he was but couldn’t get to him. RIP soldier.
1969, as we know, wasn’t the computer age. Triplicate forms with carbon copies were the order of the day. I don’t know, either, why he was an E2 but we do know that he ultimately became an E6 and that’s what he shall forever be: Staff Sergeant Cunningham.
welcome home heroes… rest well
thank you !!!!!!!
for your service