thedrifter
03-19-08, 06:27 AM
Team recovers war heroes' remains
By John Carlson, Des Moines Register
HONOLULU — Each of the tables in the sealed room at Hickam Air Force Base holds the remains of an American servicemember, killed in action but unidentified.
Down the hall is another room, with dog tags, coins, trinkets, crinkled pieces of yellowed paper, shreds of uniforms and other artifacts to be studied, cataloged and matched with the dead soldiers and Marines.
"These are from the 208 sets of remains returned in 1993, ground troops who died in the Chosin Reservoir area in North Korea in 1950," said Dennis Danielson, an anthropologist and archaeologist. "We're close to identifying these men." Danielson is standing in the center of the largest forensic anthropology laboratory in the world. The men and women who work here — archeologists, anthropologists and forensic dentists and support staff — have one mission: to travel the world searching for, returning and eventually identifying America's war dead.
The remains of an estimated 78,000 Americans were never returned after World War II, about half of them considered still recoverable, according to Air Force Lt. Col. Mark Brown, chief spokesman for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), which is based here. Then there are the 8,100 missing from the Korean War, 1,800 from the Vietnam War, 120 from the Cold War and one from the Persian Gulf War, Brown said.
"This effort is not going to stop," he said. "These Americans went to war and lost their lives. They are the honored dead, heroes who deserve to come home. Their families deserve to have them home. We leave no fallen American behind."
Teams from among the 425 military and civilian workers at JPAC routinely go to Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, Europe, China and islands in the Pacific to search, then spend years working to positively identify every set of remains, Brown said. A key for them is to locate family members who can provide DNA samples for comparison.
It's how JPAC identified the remains of Norman Roggow, who grew up near Peterson, Iowa, and died in Vietnam in 1967.
"We had a memorial service 40 years ago," said Roggow's younger brother Curtis, who lives in Shawnee, Kan. "We went through the grief and the mourning. Last December, we had the funeral, with full military honors for my brother. You have mixed emotions going through it again. I wouldn't call it closure. I'd call it a completeness. And now I have a grave site to visit. That means a lot."
Norman Roggow, who was 26 when he was killed, was identified after two of his sisters provided DNA to investigators at JPAC.
"DNA is one piece of the puzzle, but in some cases, it's the last piece of the puzzle that can confirm identification," Brown said.
Of the roughly 1,000 active cases here, 40% are Korean War-related, 40% are Vietnam War-related and 20% are from World War II, Brown said. Some remains are here because governments returned them. Most were recovered by field teams.
"We always go with a plan, having reason to believe we're going to find something in a specific place," Danielson said. "That plan is based on historical documents, military records, maps and, in some cases, eyewitness accounts from military people and local residents. A person might remember seeing some Americans taken to a particular area, then hearing shots and never seeing the Americans again. That would be a place to search."
JPAC has 18 recovery teams, typically with 10 to 14 members each. They travel to Korean War battle areas at least five times a year, 10 times to Southeast Asia for Vietnam War-related investigations and 10 times to areas associated with World War II and the Cold War. Missions last one to two months.
"Sometimes we're successful," Danielson said. "Sometimes we find nothing. But we always come back with information we didn't have before we left."
Recovery teams treat potential excavation areas much like they would a crime scene. They may search just a few square feet of a site — where they believe a servicemember is buried — or an aircraft crash site the size of a football field."
"We often hire local residents to help with the search," said Troy Kitch, a civilian employee at JPAC. "It could be a few. It could be dozens, depending on the terrain and the information we have."
The remains are placed in sealed containers and received with a formal ceremony at the Hawaii air base. They're taken to the Central Identification Laboratory and the identification process begins. About two are identified each week, Brown said.
At least one investigative or recovery team is in the field at all times.
This isn't just a job for the people who work here — particularly Danielson, 61, who has been on 57 excavations around the world in his 14 years at JPAC. He served as an infantryman in the Marine Corps in Vietnam.
"I lost friends there," he said. "Good friends. This is meaningful to me."
Ellie
By John Carlson, Des Moines Register
HONOLULU — Each of the tables in the sealed room at Hickam Air Force Base holds the remains of an American servicemember, killed in action but unidentified.
Down the hall is another room, with dog tags, coins, trinkets, crinkled pieces of yellowed paper, shreds of uniforms and other artifacts to be studied, cataloged and matched with the dead soldiers and Marines.
"These are from the 208 sets of remains returned in 1993, ground troops who died in the Chosin Reservoir area in North Korea in 1950," said Dennis Danielson, an anthropologist and archaeologist. "We're close to identifying these men." Danielson is standing in the center of the largest forensic anthropology laboratory in the world. The men and women who work here — archeologists, anthropologists and forensic dentists and support staff — have one mission: to travel the world searching for, returning and eventually identifying America's war dead.
The remains of an estimated 78,000 Americans were never returned after World War II, about half of them considered still recoverable, according to Air Force Lt. Col. Mark Brown, chief spokesman for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), which is based here. Then there are the 8,100 missing from the Korean War, 1,800 from the Vietnam War, 120 from the Cold War and one from the Persian Gulf War, Brown said.
"This effort is not going to stop," he said. "These Americans went to war and lost their lives. They are the honored dead, heroes who deserve to come home. Their families deserve to have them home. We leave no fallen American behind."
Teams from among the 425 military and civilian workers at JPAC routinely go to Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, Europe, China and islands in the Pacific to search, then spend years working to positively identify every set of remains, Brown said. A key for them is to locate family members who can provide DNA samples for comparison.
It's how JPAC identified the remains of Norman Roggow, who grew up near Peterson, Iowa, and died in Vietnam in 1967.
"We had a memorial service 40 years ago," said Roggow's younger brother Curtis, who lives in Shawnee, Kan. "We went through the grief and the mourning. Last December, we had the funeral, with full military honors for my brother. You have mixed emotions going through it again. I wouldn't call it closure. I'd call it a completeness. And now I have a grave site to visit. That means a lot."
Norman Roggow, who was 26 when he was killed, was identified after two of his sisters provided DNA to investigators at JPAC.
"DNA is one piece of the puzzle, but in some cases, it's the last piece of the puzzle that can confirm identification," Brown said.
Of the roughly 1,000 active cases here, 40% are Korean War-related, 40% are Vietnam War-related and 20% are from World War II, Brown said. Some remains are here because governments returned them. Most were recovered by field teams.
"We always go with a plan, having reason to believe we're going to find something in a specific place," Danielson said. "That plan is based on historical documents, military records, maps and, in some cases, eyewitness accounts from military people and local residents. A person might remember seeing some Americans taken to a particular area, then hearing shots and never seeing the Americans again. That would be a place to search."
JPAC has 18 recovery teams, typically with 10 to 14 members each. They travel to Korean War battle areas at least five times a year, 10 times to Southeast Asia for Vietnam War-related investigations and 10 times to areas associated with World War II and the Cold War. Missions last one to two months.
"Sometimes we're successful," Danielson said. "Sometimes we find nothing. But we always come back with information we didn't have before we left."
Recovery teams treat potential excavation areas much like they would a crime scene. They may search just a few square feet of a site — where they believe a servicemember is buried — or an aircraft crash site the size of a football field."
"We often hire local residents to help with the search," said Troy Kitch, a civilian employee at JPAC. "It could be a few. It could be dozens, depending on the terrain and the information we have."
The remains are placed in sealed containers and received with a formal ceremony at the Hawaii air base. They're taken to the Central Identification Laboratory and the identification process begins. About two are identified each week, Brown said.
At least one investigative or recovery team is in the field at all times.
This isn't just a job for the people who work here — particularly Danielson, 61, who has been on 57 excavations around the world in his 14 years at JPAC. He served as an infantryman in the Marine Corps in Vietnam.
"I lost friends there," he said. "Good friends. This is meaningful to me."
Ellie