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thedrifter
02-12-03, 10:53 AM
February 11, 2003

Dogs to aid in search for Vietnam MIAs

By Matt Sedensky
Associated Press

HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii — The U.S. military is sending two German shepherds on a mission to Vietnam next week — the first time dogs will be used to search for the remains of lost American servicemen.
The dogs will join a team from the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting and the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory on a mission to search for up to 30 sets of remains of servicemen killed in southern Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

Law enforcement officials have long used dogs to locate bodies of missing people. But the addition of Max and Panzer to the 10-person crew that leaves Honolulu for Danang on Feb. 17 makes this the first military team to do the same.

The 35-day Vietnam mission will focus on seven separate sites — representing a range of incidents that occurred from 1963 to 1970, from a downed F-100 Air Force jet to an ambushed truck to missing light infantry soldiers.

“In some of these cases, this is our last hope,” said Army Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara. “We’re going to try anything until we find” them, he said.

There are still 1,889 Americans still unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, the vast majority in Vietnam. Search teams rely on witness interviews, which lead to excavations to pinpoint a site.

“In all of the cases, we know we’re in the right area, we just can’t find the spot,” O’Hara said.

But military officials are hoping dogs will change that. The dogs are trained to locate remains by sniffing for certain chemical byproducts present in human decomposition.

In a demonstration of their search tactics Monday, Max looked for two small bone fragments buried in two separate areas at Hickam Air Force Base. When he located the remains — which are up to 40 years old — he sat to indicate the location.

If the dogs are similarly successful in southern Vietnam, an anthropologist will then attempt to excavate the remains.

“What we’re about to do in Vietnam has never been tried before,” said Matthew Zarella, 40, a Rhode Island state trooper who will travel on the mission. “There is no data anywhere in the country or in the world that will support or disprove this.”

After family members of missing servicemen suggested the use of dogs to military officials last summer, Zarella was contacted to help. He spent 12 of his 13 years with the Rhode Island state police in the canine unit.

To train for the search, the two dogs underwent several months of preparation, including rides aboard Black Hawk helicopters to acquaint them.

The dogs’ veterinarian, John Turco, 45, of Westerly, R.I., will travel to Vietnam as well. Turco said the dogs face the dangers of unexploded ordinances, snakes and other wildlife and heat exhaustion.

Zarella said dogs have found remains dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries, buried as far as six feet underground. Remains recovered overseas have been found at various depths — close to the surface and as much as 20 feet underground, O’Hara said.

Military officials weren’t sure why they hadn’t used dogs in search efforts sooner. They said they did encounter some difficulty in convincing Vietnamese officials to let them use dogs at the sites because of cultural views.

Regardless, O’Hara is hopeful the canines will make progress in a seemingly never-ending search for remains that “started the day the war started.”




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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press


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