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i 

51–069 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–40] 

IMPROVING RECOVERY AND FULL 

ACCOUNTING OF POW/MIA PERSONNEL 

FROM ALL PAST CONFLICTS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

APRIL 2, 2009 
(II) 

MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California, Chairwoman 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana 

CRAIG GREENE, Professional Staff Member 

JOHN CHAPLA, Professional Staff Member 

ROSELLEN KIM, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, April 2, 2009, Improving Recovery and Full Accounting of POW/ 

MIA Personnel from All Past Conflicts .............................................................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, April 2, 2009 .......................................................................................... 41 

THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2009 

IMPROVING RECOVERY AND FULL ACCOUNTING OF POW/MIA 

PERSONNEL FROM ALL PAST CONFLICTS 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Davis, Hon. Susan A., a Representative from California, Chairwoman, Military Personnel Subcommittee ............................................................................. 1 

Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Ranking Member, 

Military Personnel Subcommittee ...................................................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Broward, Ron, POW/MIA Advocate ........................................................................ 13 

Crisp, Rear Adm. Donna L., USN, Commander, Joint POW/MIA Accounting 

Command .............................................................................................................. 28 

Griffiths, Ann Mills, Executive Director, National League of Families of 

American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia ......................................... 6 

Metersky, Frank, Washington Liaison, Korea-Cold War Families of the Missing .......................................................................................................................... 10 

O’Shea, Lynn, Director of Research, National Alliance of Families .................... 9 

Phillips, Lisa, President, WWII Families for the Return of the Missing ............ 7 

Piacine, Robin, President, Coalition of Families of Korean and Cold War 

POW/MIAs ............................................................................................................ 12 

Ray, Hon. Charles A., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense .......................................... 27 

Riley, Philip D., Director, National Security and Foreign Relations, The American Legion ............................................................................................................ 5 

Wysong, Michael H., Director of National Security and Foreign Affairs, Veterans of Foreign Wars ......................................................................................... 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Broward, Ron .................................................................................................... 140 

Crisp, Rear Adm. Donna L. ............................................................................. 183 

Davis, Hon. Susan A. ....................................................................................... 45 

Griffiths, Ann Mills .......................................................................................... 68 

Metersky, Frank ............................................................................................... 121 

O’Shea, Lynn ..................................................................................................... 80 

Phillips, Lisa ..................................................................................................... 75 
Page

IV 

PREPARED STATEMENTS—Continued 

Piacine, Robin ................................................................................................... 126 

Ray, Hon. Charles A. ........................................................................................ 172 

Riley, Philip D. ................................................................................................. 58 

Wilson, Hon. Joe ............................................................................................... 47 

Wysong, Michael H. .......................................................................................... 48 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

POW/MIA Accounting Requires Full—Not Selective Accounting, testimony submitted by Roger Hall, Executive Director of Studies Solutions 

Results, Inc. ................................................................................................... 197 

Statement of Dr. Lester Tenney, Commander, American Defenders of 

Bataan and Corregidor ................................................................................. 240 

Statement of Gary Jones, National Chair, Vietnam Veterans of America 

POW/MIA Committee ................................................................................... 242 

Statement of Keith E. Phillips ........................................................................ 223 

Trip Report: League Delegation to Southeast Asia, March 15–31, 2009, 

submitted by Ann Mills Griffiths, National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia ........................................... 191 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mrs. Davis ......................................................................................................... 251 

Mr. Wilson ......................................................................................................... 252 
(1) 

IMPROVING RECOVERY AND FULL ACCOUNTING OF 

POW/MIA PERSONNEL FROM ALL PAST CONFLICTS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday, April 2, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:04 p.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Susan Davis (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SUSAN A. DAVIS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRWOMAN, MILITARY 

PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mrs. DAVIS. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much for 

being here. The meeting will come to order. 

This hearing I certainly want to thank our witnesses for coming 

today. We appreciate your being with us. 

Our hearing today focuses on improving recovery and full accounting of the Prisoner of War (POW)/Missing in Action (MIA) 

personnel from all past conflicts, which this committee, as you well 

know, has been tasked with overseeing. 

The subcommittee held an oversight hearing on the status of 

POW/MIA activities on July 10th, 2008. It was the first hearing the 

subcommittee held since October 1998, over 10 years ago. 

As I stated during the July hearing, while the subcommittee did 

not hold hearings in the intervening years, it has certainly not forgotten its oversight responsibility, nor has it been sitting idly by 

on this issue. 

Over the past several years, this committee has passed legislation focusing on ensuring the POW/MIA effort remains a national 

priority and continues to receive sufficient funding to accomplish 

the mission. 

The subcommittee remains dedicated to the full accounting of all 

American prisoners of war and those missing in action. We owe it 

to their families, but most importantly we owe it to the men and 

women who are currently serving in uniform. 

Today we will hear testimony and discuss ways to improve the 

recovery and full accounting of those missing and bring them home 

to their families expeditiously as possible. 

We have two panels of witnesses for our hearing. And the first 

panel is comprised of members from a variety of organizations 

which all have a passionate interest in identifying and recovering 

our missing. All of the organizations have a wealth of knowledge. 

We really appreciate that. We know how long you have been working on these issues and how important and passionate you are 
2 

about them. So we know your wealth of knowledge and the experience that you have in matters of POW/MIA recovery, and we are 

very happy that you could be here to provide us with your thoughts 

and your ideas on how to improve the process. 

So let me welcome here today—and let me just say before I introduce you that it looks like we are going to have a vote coming up 

shortly. But we think we probably can hear from—well, if we can, 

if you are all to three minutes, we might be able to get through 

all of you, and we are going to do our best. 

Let me welcome Mr. Michael Wysong, director of national security and foreign affairs, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). And Mr. 

Phil Riley will be on his way shortly. He is the director of national 

security and foreign relations of the American Legion; Ms. Ann 

Mills Griffiths, the executive director of the National League of 

Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia; Ms. 

Lisa Phillips, president of World War II Families for the Return of 

the Missing; Ms. Lynn O’Shea, director of research for the National 

Alliance of Families; Mr. Frank Metersky, the Washington liaison 

for the Korea-Cold War Families of the Missing; Ms. Robin Piacine, 

president of the Coalition of Families of Korean and Cold War 

POW/MIAs; and Mr. Ron Broward, a POW/MIA Advocate. 

Our second panel—and we were very pleased to have them participate also in July—will be the Honorable Charles Ray, Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for POW/Missing Personnel 

Affairs, and Rear Admiral Donna Crisp, Commander, Joint POW/ 

MIA for the Accounting Command (JPAC). 

I want to welcome you all. And, again, if you can give us your 

testimony in three minutes—do you all have that information that 

we were hoping that you could do that? 

That is great. And we always make it a habit to come back and 

make sure that you have had a chance to say something that is 

really critical and important to you at the end. 

And Mr. Wilson, do you have any comments to add? And as you 

know, we are trying to rush through them a little bit—— 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Davis can be found in the Appendix on page 45.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

SOUTH CAROLINA, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Chairwoman Davis. And, indeed, I appreciate your efforts that nobody is going to be cut short. 

Chairwoman Davis has been terrific about providing for time. 

And we will be back. 

I want to begin by thanking the distinguished members of our 

two panels. We look forward to hearing your testimony and working with you to fulfill our commitment to our American heroes who 

are missing in action or prisoners of war. 

At the outset, I want to highlight some of the strategic themes 

outlined in the recent Personnel Accounting Community Strategy 

set out by the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office 

(DPMO). The first theme is also a national priority. We as a government seek the fullest possible accounting of those Americans 

who become missing while supporting U.S. national objectives. 
3 

The second theme is that we, both the executive and legislative 

branches, serve the interest of the missing individual. As a 31-year 

Army veteran, as the son of a World War II veteran, as the father 

of four sons currently serving in the military, I especially believe 

that every man and woman whom we send in harm’s way in the 

service of the United States must be confident that our government 

will not leave them behind. 

When I look at what has been accomplished over the last three 

decades, I believe that America has met the mandates of those two 

themes for the 1,559 prisoners of war and missing personnel in action who have been identified from Vietnam, Korea, the Cold War 

and World War II. 

However, we have neither fulfilled the requirements for the fullest possible accounting nor made good on the requirement to serve 

the interest of the missing individual for more than 84,000 people 

who remain unaccounted for from the four conflicts I have cited 

above. 

Under current policies, organization and structure, manning, and 

funding personnel accounting agencies, the Department of Defense 

(DOD) have made on average since 2000, 76 identifications per 

year. That number of annual identifications is not consistent with 

a national priority of achieving the fullest possible accounting. 

Furthermore, if we do not do something to significantly increase 

the numbers of annual identifications—say, for example, by a factor of three, four or five—this will soon preclude the Nation’s ability to fully account for those 84,000 still missing or prisoners of 

war. We must do more as a Nation to better serve those who have 

gone in harm’s way with the implicit commitment by our government that we would not leave them behind. 

Before we close, I want to give a special recognition to a witness 

on the second panel, Ambassador Charles Ray, Deputy Assistant 

Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs. Ambassador Ray has served in this current capacity since September 

2006, and will be returning to his duties at the State Department. 

This will be the last time he appears before this subcommittee. I 

want to extend my thanks for his service to this Nation and for the 

contributions he has made to the effort of fully accounting for our 

POWs and missing personnel. 

Madam Chairwoman, I am pleased that you are holding this 

hearing in an effort to seek ideas on how to improve the personnel 

accounting process. I join you in welcoming our witnesses and look 

forward to their testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson can be found in the Appendix on page 47.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

And Mr. Wysong, why don’t you start? Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL H. WYSONG, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS, VETERANS OF 

FOREIGN WARS 

Mr. WYSONG. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

On behalf of the 2.2 million members of the Veterans of Foreign 

Wars, I want to thank you for the opportunity to share our views 

on this most important issue. The VFW has long been committed 
4 

to achieving the fullest possible accounting for all military personnel still missing from all of our Nation’s wars. 

It has come to our attention once again that JPAC has been shortchanged in their budget by over $2 million, which will translate into curtailing operations. This points to a funding stream that 

flows from DOD through the Navy and then from U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) to JPAC, which puts JPAC’s mission in competition with war fighting priorities. And when agencies are called 

upon to cut their budget and that figure trickles down to JPAC, it 

equates to a disproportional mandate for a command with a relatively small budget. 

The VFW is not convinced that this is the best funding method 

for JPAC. Therefore, we suggest a fully funded dedicated line item 

appropriation in the DOD budget and exempt JPAC from agencymandated reductions. JPAC’s mission is unique, and in our view, 

will be able to operate more efficiently and effectively under a direct and dedicated funding stream. 

Construction of a new JPAC facility, which was originally set to 

begin in fiscal year (FY) 2010, has been delayed until fiscal year 

2011 because the Navy diverted construction monies to other priorities. 

It has also come to our attention that a Navy audit team recently 

recommended reducing the size of the facility by over 16,000 

square feet. Such a reduction mostly likely will reduce laboratory 

space and have an adverse effect on identification efforts. 

The VFW believes this project should continue to be fully funded 

and remain on the present ground breaking schedule without any 

further delays and recommends the size of the new facility remain 

as originally designed. 

The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, 

Md., is essential, as we all know, to the JPAC mission. We are concerned that the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process 

threatens to significantly delay the identification process because 

critical and timely decisions concerning facility and funding issues 

have yet to be made for the relocation move to Dover Air Force 

Base, Delaware. 

The VFW asks Congress to look into this matter and extract 

from DOD how this process is moving forward in a manner that 

will provide adequate facilities and minimize the delay in DNA 

analysis for identification of American remains. 

The U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIA Affairs was established in 1992 at the presidential level to serve as a forum 

through which both nations can seek to determine the fate of their 

missing servicemen. In 2005, progress was halted when the Russian president reorganized its side of the commission. On the U.S. 

side, leaving the House Democrat Commissioner post vacant since 

January 2006 sends a message to the Russian government that 

this body is not interested in the workings of the commission. Your 

help is needed to convince Speaker Pelosi to appoint a qualified 

member of the House to actively serve as the Democrat Commissioner. 

Madam Chair, in closing I want to thank you and all the members of your committee for your interest, your oversight, your support of America’s national priority of accounting for our missing 
5 

service members. Your continued support will help to bring closure 

to the families of the missing who have been waiting so long for 

answers and their loved ones. You also send a very powerful message to those who serve in harm’s way today that they will not be 

left behind, that this Nation will do all in its power to return them 

to their family. Thank you for the opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wysong can be found in the Appendix on page 48.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Riley. And welcome. We introduced you already. 

STATEMENT OF PHILIP D. RILEY, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL 

SECURITY AND FOREIGN RELATIONS, THE AMERICAN LEGION 

Mr. RILEY. Thank you very much. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. RILEY. Chairwoman Davis, members of the subcommittee, on 

behalf of the American Legion we thank you for the honor and the 

opportunity to participate in this important hearing to examine 

ways for improving recovery and accounting of POW/MIAs from 

previous conflicts. 

The American Legion believes the following high-priority actions 

should be taken by the U.S. Government: 

Continue to provide sufficient personnel the resources so that the 

investigative case efforts for conflicts from World War II forward 

can be broadened and accelerated. 

Continue to provide necessary personnel and resources so field 

operations can be conducted at a greater rate of activity. 

Continue to declassify all POW/MIA information (except that revealing intelligence sources and methods) in a form readily available for public view. 

Initiate or strengthen joint commissions with Russia, China, 

North Korea, to increase POW research and recovery opportunities. 

Establish a joint standing congressional committee to ensure continued action by the executive branch in addressing the POW/MIA 

mission with requisite priority. 

The American Legion is concerned the POW/MIA mission is fading as a high national priority, and the federal government has not 

provided sufficient resources or attention to the POW/MIA issues. 

As a result, many in the veterans community and military family 

members are losing confidence in both the commitment and the 

ability of the federal government to resolve the fate of this Nation’s 

many unaccounted for service members. 

Along with this establishment of the interagency group created 

to oversee the U.S. POW/MIA policy, lack of independent intelligence and analytical capability dedicated to the POW/MIA issue, 

and efforts to downsize and reorganize the Defense Missing Personnel Office when their workload is increasing, particularly with 

respect to Korean War initiatives and the opportunities that are 

now extant, all of these are clear examples of how the importance 

of this issue is eroding. 

The establishment of a joint standing committee is necessary to 

keep the promise to all past, current and future service members 

and families so that they will not feel that they are abandoned and 
6 

necessary to rekindle national interest and national will for this 

morally imperative mission. 

It has been over a decade since we have had close and comprehensive examination of our national POW/MIA policies and recovery requirements. The 2.6 million members of the American Legion urge you to establish a joint standing committee on POW and 

MIA affairs necessary to conduct a full and convincing investigation of all unresolved matters relating to any United States personnel unaccounted for from our conflicts, wars, cold wars and special operations. 

We thank you for this honor to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Riley can be found in the Appendix on page 58.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Griffiths. 

STATEMENT OF ANN MILLS GRIFFITHS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL LEAGUE OF FAMILIES OF AMERICAN PRISONERS AND MISSING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA 

Ms. GRIFFITHS. Thank you Madam Chairwoman and members of 

the committee for the opportunity to again appear before the committee. Due to the need for brevity, I will ask that my full statement be included. 

I just returned late yesterday from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia 

on the umpteenth trip that I have been there. I am writing a final 

report on that and would like to also include that in the record. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. All the testimony will be included in the 

record. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 191.] 

Ms. GRIFFITHS. Okay. 

The proposals that were made in Hanoi were particularly interesting, and they, I think, warrant serious consideration as the 

basis for increasing JPAC funding and personnel, full engagement 

and support for Stony Beach, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s 

POW/MIA specialists, and, if needed to ensure continuing priority 

and focus, fencing of the budgets and manpower of both organizations. We will be bringing these proposals to the attention of the 

executive branch at the earliest opportunity. 

The first stems from Vietnam’s proposal to expedite the pace and 

scope of investigations and excavations, stating clear but ambiguously their commitment to meet U.S. requirements for additional 

personnel and willingness to be flexible. Their rationale had to do 

with growth and expansion, development that could easily destroy 

incident sites. 

Early identification of these and other sites is crucial regardless 

of JPAC’s ability to schedule rapid excavations. Increasing the 

backlog on these sites is a good thing, not a negative as sometimes 

portrayed. 

When questioned about specific numbers that will be allowed to 

come in, they responded again clearly, but noted that with additional commitment of personnel and funding they would match the 

U.S. and with flexibility. 
7 

Now, all senior U.S. officials—the Ambassador, the defense 

attache ́, the deputy chief of mission and others were with us in all 

of our meetings and were most supportive. We don’t have our own 

information to propose to the Vietnamese, so we get it all from the 

Defense POW/MIA Office and JPAC. 

As to the validity of their commitment, I try to be optimistic. But 

time will tell, especially on the use of the U.S. Naval Ship (USNS) 

Heezen, the Navy vessel that was promised a long time ago and 

pledged again by the Prime Minister last June. 

In Laos, changes at the top in attitude and receptiveness to 

multifaceted engagement and cooperation were visible and welcome. The evolving relationship, including long-sought establishment and exchange of defense attache ́s, is very good for the U.S.- 

Laos bilateral relationship and POW/MIA in particular, something 

we fought for for 12 years, they finally agreed and it is now in 

place. 

A small increase in airlift funding in the case of Laos would expedite the effort as well. I am not in a position to suggest a number 

of additional personnel that would be required. I do know, in agreement with these gentlemen, that JPAC funding is inadequate for 

the fiscal year 2009 budget. And that doesn’t even include operations for North Korea if that happens to open up. 

So an increase of at least one-third or 20-plus million would likely be needed with a plus-up of forensics anthropologists and other 

scientific staff as necessary. We would also need more linguists and 

specialists from Defense Intelligence Agency’s Stony Beach team to 

expedite in-country research and investigations. You will be hearing from Ambassador Ray and Admiral Crisp, so they will have to 

consider this. But it is too soon to expect them to have an answer 

now. 

Our positions—I know I have to stop—our positions on all the 

questions are in the full testimony that I provided. But I would like 

to say that having Admiral Crisp as head of JPAC has been a 

blessing. It has helped tremendously improve the quality and the 

situation for their own employees as well as operations. That and 

having Special Forces detachment commanders have been real improvements. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Griffiths can be found in the Appendix on page 68.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Phillips. 

STATEMENT OF LISA PHILLIPS, PRESIDENT, WWII FAMILIES 

FOR THE RETURN OF THE MISSING 

Ms. PHILLIPS. Madam Chairman and members of the committee, 

on behalf of the friends and family of over 78,000 World War II 

service personnel still missing in action, I thank you for this opportunity to speak today. 

With my deepest sincerity, I want to tell you that I really wish 

I wasn’t here. Not that I wish I had not lost a relative in World 

War II, for we are proud of his service, nor does my wish to not 

be here stem from the fact that my uncle is one of the MIA from 

World War II. 
8 

My wish comes from the fact that family groups such as WWII 

Families for the Return of the Missing should not have to exist 

today. All relatives and friends of all U.S. MIA should be confident 

that their government is working in an objective, fair and determined manner to ensure the code of ‘‘no one left behind’’ is being 

adhered to with the utmost urgency and dedication. I thank you for 

trying to make this so. 

As a relative of a WWII MIA and a member of a family support 

group that has over the past seven years worked with thousands 

of MIA family members and every U.S. Government agency involved, I kindly request that you consider the following four points. 

First, the three government organizations primarily responsible 

for the POW/MIA recovery—Defense Prisoner of War (DPMO), 

Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), and military service 

casualty offices—are disjointed and do not effectively cooperate, 

often at times working against each other due to the lack of unity 

of one command, turf wars and personality differences as well. 

While DPMO states they are the portal for all family members, 

they do not have control over the individual records. Service Casualty controls the records. Nor do they have control over research 

and recovery. JPAC is in charge of the missions. 

A family member should not have to contact all three agencies 

individually just to receive a status on their case or to require 

records to conduct individual research. 

Secondly, the entire process of MIA recovery is politicized by personnel within the U.S. Government overseeing the research and recovery efforts as well as individuals belonging to certain groups. 

These alliances are well known in the MIA community but so far 

have effectively impeded all efforts to improve efficiency or equity. 

Third, lack of congressional oversight enables this inefficiency 

and politicization. The system is unable to correct itself. There are 

too many people too ingrained to allow effective and needed 

change. 

Fourth, JPAC’s manning and structure is inefficient. With an intelligence and research section of about 66 personnel, only five are 

assigned to World War II, one of which just resigned. Likewise, 

hundreds and hundreds of MIAs remains go unidentified in the lab 

due to the shortage of forensic anthropologists. 

Not only is retention a problem in a place such as Hawaii, but 

there appears to be a problem with priority of efforts. Forensic anthropologists are forced to split their time between field recoveries 

and lab identifications. 

Every U.S. service member past and present lives by the code 

‘‘no one left behind.’’ This code is much more than a code. It is a 

promise and an obligation from our government to those that paid 

the ultimate price. We owe it to every service member and every 

family member regardless of conflict to uphold this code. 

I ask you to please remember this code, this promise, this obligation, has no expiration date. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Phillips can be found in the Appendix on page 75.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

Ms. O’Shea. 
9 

And I think we can do this, if everybody is okay. We are going 

to run a little late getting over there. 

But go ahead, please. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF LYNN O’SHEA, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, 

NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF FAMILIES 

Ms. O’SHEA. Okay. 

Today we would like to address a specific aspect of the accounting effort. In far too many cases, safe determinations have been 

made in spite of evidence of wartime survival. These premature 

and often erroneous determinations were reached by dismissing 

evidence once deemed credible, resulting in searches for individuals 

at their loss locations in spite of evidence that the individuals were 

moved or being moved to another location. 

As part of the accounting effort, the National Alliance of Families 

fully supports House Resolution 111 calling for the formation of a 

House Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. And I would like to 

add we would definitely support the call for a joint standing committee. 

When the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs issued 

their final report in 1993, they recommended their work continue. 

Unfortunately, that recommendation was not carried out, and committees such as this simply do not have the investigative staff or 

the resources to continue and expand on the work of the committee. 

Among the leads yet to be fully examined are numerous sightings 

of U.S. servicemen from World War II, Korea, and Cold War in the 

camps and prisons of the former Soviet Union. No less a figure 

than the commanding general of Soviet forces operating on the Korean peninsula during the war years spoke of the transfer of U.S. 

POWs from North Korea to Moscow. Acknowledging such transfers 

have come from former U.S. and Soviet officials and defectors as 

well. 

All of this suggests that much more effort needs to be made before we can truly say we have accounted for our missing servicemen. We recognize the difficulties dealing with North Korea. However, a thorough review of contemporaneous U.S. documents relating to Korean and Cold War losses under the direction of a House 

committee will provide valuable information and new leads on the 

fate of many unaccounted-for servicemen. 

Searching for men at loss locations when contemporaneous documents indicate the men were captured will not lead to recovery. 

When these recovery operations fail, as they will, remains are then 

declared unrecoverable. 

This is not accounting. It is fiction. For example, in one Vietnam 

case involving four soldiers, DPMO maintains that the four were 

ambushed and killed. They cite a report of 20–30 rounds of small 

arms fire heard in area to support their conclusions. 

The facts do not support the DPMO analytical review. Multiple 

documents including letters from the U.S. Army to the families of 

the missing men all state the gunshots heard involved another 

squad and did not relate to this incident. 

This brings us to a series of memos written by Sedgwick 

Tourison, a former Senate analyst with the Defense Intelligence 
10 

Agency (DIA), during his tenure as an investigator with the Senate 

select committee. In one memo dated August 1st, 1992, Tourison 

wrote: My review of POW/MIA case files discloses Joint Task 

Force-Full Accounting (JTFFA) and DIA message traffic referring 

to individuals DOD now has information survived into captivity. 

Among the servicemen named are the four soldiers DPMO insists 

were ambushed and immediately killed. 

An earlier memo by Tourison states: My review of Joint Casualty 

Resolution Center (JCRC) casualty files has surfaced several messages which list a total of nine American servicemen Vietnam has 

acknowledged were captured alive. Named among the nine is Marine Corporal Gregory Harris, whose family is here today. 

I know I am a little bit over. I’ve just got a little bit left. Can 

I go on? 

Mrs. DAVIS. Very fast. I think what we will do is we will go vote 

right after you finish and come back. 

Can you be very, very succinct, because I know that we asked everybody to be? 

Ms. O’SHEA. I will wrap it up, yes. 

As I said, Corporal Harris’s family is here today. Yet DPMO insists in spite of the message that Vietnam acknowledged his capture, DPMO insists Corporal Harris died at his loss location, and 

that is where they continue to look for him. 

It is time that we have an honest accounting of these men. We 

have to review all the documents in the files. When we know that 

men are still not at their loss locations, we have to accept that and 

move on to new avenues of pursuit. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. O’Shea can be found in the Appendix on page 80.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

We are going to go vote. We will be back. I really appreciate your 

patience. 

Okay. We should be back early. It won’t be too much longer. 

Thank you very much. 

[Recess.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you all for your patience. We are going to get 

started if everybody would just quiet down. Thank you. 

Mr. Metersky, please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF FRANK METERSKY, WASHINGTON LIAISON, 

KOREA-COLD WAR FAMILIES OF THE MISSING 

Mr. METERSKY. On behalf of the Korea-Cold War Families of the 

Missing, I want to thank you for giving us this opportunity to testify here today. 

The Korea-Cold War Families of the Missing fully supports any 

and all of the changes recommended by the current DASD of 

DPMO, Ambassador Charles Ray, that would dramatically alter 

the structure of the POW/MIA community and thereby increase its 

capabilities to identify 180 sets of remains annually for all wars 

combined. This would represent an increase in identifications of 

150 percent per year. 
11 

The DASD recommends that the lab be moved to the mainland 

because of the serious ongoing short staffing problems that the lab 

has never been able to overcome located in Hawaii. 

A study requested by Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)– 

DPMO to address the moving of the JPAC Lab is currently being 

conducted by the Institute for Defense Analysis, and its results will 

be available in the next 45 days. The move to the mainland will 

allow the JPAC lab to acquire a level of professionalism that it has 

greatly lacked for years, which is necessary to reach the DASD’s 

goal of 180 identifications annually for all wars. 

To complement this effort, the DASD has written a new policy 

paper that redefines the strategy of how to make the best use of 

all of the government’s assets used in the recovery and identification of remains. This policy paper is currently available on the 

DPMO website. 

There is also a DPMO paper which should be available shortly, 

detailing by percentages how the assets of DPMO–JPAC should be 

used based on today’s realities for each of the past conflicts. 

To assure that the goal of 180 identifications take place, we recommend that JPAC be removed from the oversight command of 

PACOM and that oversight be returned to Army Casualty. 

PACOM, a war fighting command, has shown little to no interest 

in performance levels at JPAC. It has appointed incompetent military commanders and allows equally incompetent civilian commanders to run JPAC. 

We further recommend that the current and future DASD at 

DPMO be placed in unqualified command of the entire U.S. Government commitment to this highest of humanitarian missions: the 

fullest possible accounting of all POWs from all wars, past, present 

and future. DPMO is fully capable of overseeing all aspects of this 

mission, since it is its only mission. 

If these changes are implemented, the Korean War families will 

finally have what they have long been lacking: 

An identification team working full time on the 853 unknowns 

buried at the Punch Bowl Cemetery in Hawaii, where with recent 

advances in scientific identification, it has been determined that as 

many as 400 of these unknowns could be identified. 

A forensic team working full time on the 540 sets of remains 

from the Korean War that have been warehoused at JPAC mostly 

since 1993. 

A full time investigative and recovery team working in South 

Korea instead of the limited number of operations we have now due 

to the serious lack of qualified personnel at JPAC. This team 

should also be there to work with the South Korean version of 

JPAC, known as Republic of Korea’s Ministry of National Defense 

Agency for KIA Recovery and Identification (MAKRI), to ensure 

that no U.S. remains recovered are accidentally disposed of as they 

have been in the past. 

A fully staffed JPAC will allow recovery operations to be conducted in North Korea and also in South Korea, not as in the past 

an either/or situation. Currently, JPAC defines this as an either/ 

or situation as they continue to cover up its serious lack of personnel with a meaningless study of their own. 

I have also—— 
12 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. METERSKY [continuing]. Been asked to make a statement—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. One last statement. 

Mr. METERSKY [continuing]. By Irene Mandra, president of the 

Korea-Cold War Families of the Missing, regarding a meeting with 

Admiral Crisp on April 4, 2008, in her offices in Hawaii, accompanied by four members of our organization, with Johnnie Webb, 

the senior civilian of JPAC was in attendance. 

The most important issue to discuss was the moving of the JPAC 

lab to the mainland that the admiral was aware of. When this 

issue was raised, she immediately said she was doing this study, 

while in actuality four months later it was found that she was not 

doing the study. 

To date, the admiral—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Mr. Metersky, I am going to—— 

Mr. METERSKY [continuing]. Admiral has never explained or 

apologized for this. And is this any way to run a business? 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Metersky can be found in the 

Appendix on page 121.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. I appreciate that, and of 

course your whole statement is in the record. 

Ms. Piacine. 

STATEMENT OF ROBIN PIACINE, PRESIDENT, COALITION OF 

FAMILIES OF KOREAN AND COLD WAR POW/MIAS 

Ms. PIACINE. Chairwoman Davis and distinguished members of 

the House Armed Services Subcommittee for Military Personnel, 

thank you so much for having this hearing today and affording me 

the opportunity to be the voice of many family members my organization represents. 

We, who are family members and friends and comrades, all share 

one thing in common, that is we wait for the day that we can bring 

our missing loved ones home. We want to understand what has 

truly happened to them. These unanswered questions haunt us. 

Birthdays, anniversaries, special days all are lived with emptiness 

and questions of what truly happed to the ones we love and miss. 

With me today, I bring a picture of my uncle, William Charles 

Bradley. He served with the Army during Korean War, and he was 

a medic. He was first listed as killed in action (KIA) on December 

1st in the area of Kunu-ri, in Unsan County in North Korea. 

Through years of research by the analysts at DPMO and with the 

help of my dear friend and colleague John Zimmerlee, my family 

learned that he was actually a POW and died on a march route towards a holding camp. 

Now, we can ask when negotiations resume in North Korea that 

this specific area be researched. It is so important to truly know 

what happens to our missing so that we can move forward. His remains are still in North Korea waiting to be returned home. Like 

many, he is homesick in Korea. 

Having served as president of the Coalition of Families for over 

five years, I have received a lot of suggestions of what can be accomplished to make the process work a little better. 

We strongly support and endorse plans to construct a new facility for the accounting process in Hawaii by JPAC. We believe that 
13 

this will facilitate a reduction in the time of identification and thus 

speed the return of remains and much awaited information to the 

families. 

On a related point, we do not support relocation of this activity 

to continental United States (CONUS). The current location is 

ideal, being in the proximity where the majority of recoveries actually take place. A move would also hamper that very important 

international partnership with the South Korean Forensic Team 

which benefits our recovery process. Additionally, the cost of such 

a move in these times of financial strife makes no sense at all from 

the view of the concerned taxpayer. 

There is a critical need also to have access to files that still are 

held as classified for over 50 years in the National Archives and 

Records Administration (NARA) at College Park. A press release 

dated March 11, 2009, notes that President Obama has approved 

a $459 million budget for the National Archives. 

One million of those dollars has been allocated solely for the development of a new Office of Government Information Services created by a 2007 amendment to the Freedom of Information Act. It 

will monitor compliance of federal agencies, and ensure that the 

records of government remain open and accessible to the public. 

We ask that you also support House Resolution 111, as we believe that it will aid in the much needed assistance in the accounting process. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Piacine can be found in the Appendix on page 126.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Ms. Piacine, your time is up. I think that we will 

have an opportunity to get back to some of your other issues. 

Thank you very much. 

And Mr. Broward, please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF RON BROWARD, POW/MIA ADVOCATE 

Mr. BROWARD. Well, Madam Chairwoman and members of the 

committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. 

Turf wars, bureaucratic sabotage and unethical behavior on part 

of a few continue to exist in the POW/MIA mission. To have a complete account of what the mission needs would require department 

managers of JPAC to testify under oath before your committee. 

They know the problems that exist and have excellent ideas to correct those problems. 

For several years we have advocated for a strong central authority to manage the agencies involved in the U.S. Government POW/ 

MIA program. Ambassador Ray has worked very hard to make the 

mission more effective. The merging of joint task force for all accounting and the central identification lab in 2003 was a good 

move. But it has led to some unanticipated consequences that need 

remediation. 

Please refer to a DPMO draft report in response to the Senate 

Armed Services Committee Report 109–254. This DPMO draft report was completely ignored by JPAC and PACOM when the final 

report was drafted and sent by DOD to the Senate Armed Services 

Committee. Both of these reports are attached to my statement. 

These two documents tell the problems that exist within the current structure. In fairness to Admiral Crisp, she was not the JPAC 
14 

commander in 2007 when the final report was sent to the Senate 

Armed Services Committee. The draft DPMO report in just four 

pages addresses the problems that exist and ways DPMO was considering to correct those problems. 

Since 2004, there have been 364 identifications or 73 per year. 

This means it takes seven staff members working full time for one 

year to make one identification. During this time, 65 percent of recoveries and identifications were from World War II and Korea. Yet 

75–80 percent of resources were devoted to Southeast Asia. 

In the Central Identification Lab (CIL), there are 1,433 unknown 

remains. For several years, we advocated for a more effective outreach program for obtaining family reference samples—that is 

mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The Defense Science 

Board Report of 1995 recommended an aggressive outreach program which could be used today. But this report has not been accepted. 

Finally, in June 2008 I went to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for help. 

The Joint Chiefs of Staff directed that a plan be developed. But as 

of this date, nine months later, no plan has been developed either 

by the Service Casualty Offices or DPMO. 

In 2003, we presented a plan to JPAC for the possibility of associating MIAs to unknowns interred in Punchbowl. In 2004, Dr. Holland, the CIL director, saw merit in the plan and hired a forensic 

anthropologist in early 2005 to work on the plan. A historian was 

to be hired, but there were no funds to do so. Since that time, there 

have been seven exhumations, six have been identified, and one is 

pending DNA processing. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Could you wind up your statement? That would be 

helpful. Thank you. 

Mr. BROWARD. Yes. 

Twenty-five additional possible associations of MIAs to unknowns in the Punchbowl have passed the preliminary dental 

screening. This is research that I do. Yet, there has only been two 

exhumations in the last two years. And it is not the part of the laboratory. It is critical shortage of forensic anthropologists and professional historians. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Broward can be found in the Appendix on page 140.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. 

Thank you very much. I certainly appreciate all of your testimony here and your statements. I know it represents tremendous 

background on your parts, and it is very difficult to condense that 

in a few minutes. But as you can tell by the size of the panel, I 

think we are going to have an opportunity to get to some of the 

issues that are important to you. 

But more than that, we really want to try and think about where 

we go from here. And that is going to be the focus, I think, of a 

lot of our questions. 

I want to just ask that we all welcome and ask unanimous consent that Ms. Kilroy be allowed to participate in the hearing today. 

I am hearing no opposition. 

And also unanimous consent that the statements of Mr. Hall, Mr. 

Phillips, Mr. Tenney and Mr. Jones also be submitted to the record. 
15 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 197.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Many of you have touched on the organizational structure of the 

POW community and the problems that you see with that. Some 

of you have stated the problems. Others have additional concerns 

about the ability to move through and work as efficiently as possible under that structure. 

If you could, if you could talk to us a little bit about what you 

see as bringing the POW/MIA community under one formal structure instead of the current structure that we have, with several entities that play a role in this but don’t necessarily have the ability 

to do the work that you see that is required. 

What are some of those issues? What do you see as some of the 

downsides as well to that kind of restructuring? 

Ms. GRIFFITHS. Well, I think it would be the worst possible time 

to consolidate this all in Washington, DC, under the Defense POW/ 

MIA Office. First of all, it is a too low level. 

But secondly, the—I have never, in all my 30 years as executive 

director, and umpteen trips to the field with the operators who are 

conducting the missions there—I have never yet seen as high an 

operational professionalism supported by tremendous assets and 

resources. Not enough. And that is exactly the wrong thing to do 

is to have a political based organization that is supposed to be policy guidance and oversight handling operations that Admiral 

Keating, the current PACOM commander, has been very supportive 

of in all his testimony to the House and to the Senate. 

And, yes, there are budget problems with that. And that is the 

reason that I was suggesting at least the one-third-plus up in 

JPAC’s budget, but to ensure that increasing anything in Southeast 

Asia in no way jeopardizes anything on World War II, Korea War, 

Cold War. We need to increase, not have one set of circumstances 

in competition with another, but under no circumstances bringing 

operations into Washington, DC, to cost more and charge more in 

terms of bureaucracy. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Let me see if anybody else wants to respond to that. 

I think there are differences. 

Mr. Metersky. 

Mr. METERSKY. Yes, and serious differences. 

Obviously, I wouldn’t have any problems if 75–80 percent of the 

assets were being directed in my, you know, in what I advocate. 

Then I wouldn’t—you know, it would be great. 

But the problem is, no matter how much money you throw at 

JPAC, how many buildings you put up, they do not have the table 

of organization that they are supposed to have. And to that end, 

they have never provided anyone, and when it was requested, that 

table of organization, show you what their level of personnel is. 

They cannot—when I mentioned in my statement, they can’t do 

the job because they don’t have the personnel. I don’t care how 

much money you want and who you put in command, if you don’t 

have the personnel, it is meaningless. 

And structured in Hawaii, it will never do justice to World War 

II, Korea, Cold War. Yes, there is a narrow political and personal 
16 

agenda, which is directed in one area. And that is what has just 

been testified to. 

But if you don’t make those structural changes, and in command—Admiral Keating didn’t even know who Johnnie Webb was, 

who is supposed to be the senior civilian commander at JPAC. And 

if someone in this panel can testify to that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I can tell we are not going to have a—no, I understand that there are real differences coming out of your experiences. 

Would anybody else like to weigh in? And any thoughts—I mean, 

how do you see really resolving—— 

Ms. GRIFFITHS. Well, I think it is important to understand it all 

started with the Vietnam War. If it wasn’t for the Vietnam War, 

we wouldn’t have the organization, the personnel and the assets 

and resources devoted that are today. 

They have not been plussed up in personnel and funding to the 

extent that they are expected and should pursue answers on the 

other wars. Frank is absolutely right: There are inadequate numbers of personnel and funding for the expanded mission. 

If Congress and the American people are going to expect more 

from Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and its lab, the first 

thing they need to do is plus up personnel and plus up funding. 

And right in my little abbreviated statement we talked about 

forensics anthropologists. We can’t do any of it—field or lab—without increasing that element. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yes, I wanted to—— 

Mr. METERSKY. There is one—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mr. Met—— 

Mr. METERSKY. There is one serious deficiency in that argument. 

You are not going to get the people working in Hawaii. They have 

been leaving Hawaii on a consistent basis. 

So why would you want to fund up something in a location that 

will never be fully staffed with professional personnel—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr.—— 

Mr. METERSKY [continuing]. To properly do the job? 

Mrs. DAVIS. I want to make sure I turn to anybody else who 

would like to comment on this issue. 

Yes, Ms. Piacine. 

Ms. PIACINE. I think what is important here is the focus on how, 

again, we can make this a better situation and really do what is 

necessary for the accounting effort. 

I think that we really need to also look at the most current 

progress that JPAC has made. My understanding is not that they 

are losing anthropologists right and left. I think currently they set 

up a college there and are actually retaining people. 

So I think, whenever the JPAC folks come in, I think that those 

questions need to be asked. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Yes, Mr. Broward. 

Mr. BROWARD. On the same—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. And I know my time is up. But if everybody doesn’t 

mind if we could try and hear from everybody, that would be great. 

Mr. Broward. 

Mr. BROWARD. Yes, thanks. 
17 

When we first went to JPAC about 8 years ago, they had 36 anthropologists. Today they are down to 19. 

We have been going there about 100 days a year doing research. 

To keep forensic anthropologists there, I don’t think is possible because attrition of them coming back to the mainland to be with 

their colleagues and for better jobs is just going to happen. 

The first thing that you asked was how can you make these 

agencies work with three different commanders? That is virtually 

impossible. You need somebody in charge. You have a four-star, a 

two-star and then Ambassador Ray. Ambassador Ray makes policy, 

but to get JPAC to carry that policy out when there is a four-star 

in charge, that is virtually impossible, as we observed over the 

years. 

That is what I had to say. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Let us go on to Mr. Wilson now. 

I am sorry, was there anybody who really wanted to weigh in? 

Mr. RILEY. I just wanted to weigh in that I think the military 

can figure things out when they actually do look at what is the 

mission and what requirements need to be put to it? 

But there are problems of turf. And so what I would ask for is 

that you look at how you do that and have a good study done of 

it which really will match the resources to the identified requirements and structure it that way. It hasn’t been done in ages. 

Thank you. 

Mr. Wysong. 

Mr. WYSONG. We can—the VFW doesn’t subscribe to the theory 

or the position of moving everything to the mainland when over 90 

percent of the investigative and recovery operations for all wars are 

in the Pacific region. That is just one addition to. 

And I agree with Ann Mills Griffiths on her statements, also. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Great. Thank you very much. 

I am going to move on to Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

And thank each of you for your dedication. It is very impressive 

to me on behalf of our veterans and our persons who haven’t returned how dedicated you are. 

A question for each of you: You have made several recommendations on how the personnel accounting process should be improved. 

Going back to my opening statement, I believe we must make 

changes in the personnel accounting system that will dramatically 

increase the number of annual identifications by a factor of three 

to five. 

Achieving this goal would mean an annual identification—these 

annual identifications would go from 76 per year to 230–380 per 

year. If that significant increase in identifications became one of 

the goals of the personnel accounting process, what are the two or 

three most important changes beyond the obvious need for more 

people and resources to the status quo that you believe would have 

to be made? 

Ms. GRIFFITHS. I think some of the steps that Admiral Crisp has 

been taking—and someone just alluded to the new JPAC academy 

that Dr. Bob Mann is leading; it is in Hawaii. And Admiral Crisp 

has developed several programs for recruiting recent graduates in 
18 

forensics anthropology for compensation for education. You will 

have to ask her all the details. 

What I know is that in my many trips to talk with the anthropologists, including the younger generation, new recruited anthropologists, the people out in the field—there were five that we 

talked to just on this one trip when we went out to the field in 

Laos—four or five. But they love their jobs, love deploying to the 

field. 

Now, yes, they shouldn’t have to deploy as much as they do. And 

yes, we need more anthropologists and other odontologists, different kinds of scientists to participate in these things. They don’t 

all have to be Ph.D.s. 

With this new JPAC academy they are forming including exchanges with a Thai university in Konkan. They are going to be 

getting constructive credit. They are developing all kinds of imaginative solutions for getting more anthropologists into the program 

and for advancement within that program to expand their numbers. 

So that is all, to me, very positive. And I think that absolutely 

is crucial to the identification process. In fact, the league supports 

additional laboratories that would be devoted solely to—and some 

of those could be in the continental U.S.—adjunct labs to focus 

strictly on identification of remains, not deployable labs that do all 

the fieldwork but strictly focus. And that could be in an addendum 

to the existing laboratory structure. But so long as they are under 

the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command so that they don’t become politicized or controlled by policy ups and downs in the community but in fact continue to focus on the work at hand. 

Mr. BROWARD. The number one thing I believe that can be done 

is you have to professionalize the staff, be it more professional historians, maybe more forensic anthropologists. The reason that 

these fellows aren’t being worked on, there are items to be done 

and exhumed, it is because there is not the staff the staff there to 

do it, either professional historians or anthropologists. 

It is a shame. Some of these go back over two years. They have 

been approved by an odontologist. Let us get them out of the 

ground. They still sit. And I think that is—that really disservice to 

the officers missing. 

Regard to funding, I don’t think you need to increase the funding. You just need to professionalize the staff. There is so many 

people that work there. They have, I think, 66 analysts. And I really don’t know what the analysts do. They are good people. I like 

them. 

But who gets the job done is either a professional historian or forensic anthropologist. That is who the identifications come from. 

The historians tell you where to go to find remains. Thank you. 

Mr. RILEY. I would say one other thing to look at is the diplomatic piece: Who can really influence the countries that we need 

to influence and make the arrangements and the coordinations? I 

think we have to look at that piece and look at it hard. 

Mr. WILSON. And aside from the obvious problem of dealing with 

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), which other countries do you think we need to work with more closely? 

Mr. RILEY. I will defer to Ann on that. 
19 

Ms. GRIFFITHS. Well, clearly we need to focus at a higher level 

as we did in earlier years. I don’t know that we even have. I have 

been gone for two weeks to Asia. 

But assistant secretary, that level of intervention on this issue 

in all the countries, including Russia—North Korea obviously is a 

problem—but Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. But it needs to be engagement on a humanitarian basis regardless of all the political and 

other issues to push for the kind of priority by those governments 

to give what they can in response. 

Because we just learned that the certification decision on Vietnam is being dropped in Congress so that there is no longer a reason that the Administration will have to certify that Vietnam is 

doing what it can and cooperating as they should to unilaterally 

provide records. It was in there from 2001 until now. And we understand now it is being dropped. 

Mr. METERSKY. Excuse me, a comment about North Korea. 

As of yesterday, ‘‘North Korea’s ready to reengage on the POW/ 

MIA issue. And we didn’t shut it down.’’ And North—from the 

North Korea Ambassador Kim Jong Il, ‘‘You shut it down in 2005, 

your country.’’ 

So as far as getting back into North Korea, it is a U.S. decision. 

And that is, you know, that is a fact. You will never increase recovery of remains and identifications if you do not have the personnel. 

I don’t care how many buildings you put up. 

And if you want to find out for yourself that I have been telling 

this committee for a long time now, go to Hawaii and talk to the 

personnel on the ground. You will find out that a lot of what you 

are hearing supposedly being done, quote-unquote, by Admiral 

Crisp is just a smokescreen. 

Nothing positive has ever come out of any of her recommendations. And I will testify under oath to this. And if you go out to Hawaii, you will get the answers you need to make an intelligent decision. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

I move to Dr. Snyder. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you. 

Mr. Wysong, during the vote I took your written testimony over 

with me to the floor. And I was intrigued by the comment on something I am not familiar with, the U.S.-Russia Commission. And lo 

and behold there was the speaker. And she was talking to someone, 

but her staff person was standing there, and I said, I am going to 

give you—and I took along your written statement, too, Mr. Riley. 

You mentioned it also. And I opened the page and said, these folks 

just testified that there is an unfilled position here. 

And the staff member I talked to has been around here for 

awhile. He said, you know, ‘‘we have a list.’’ He received a list of 

all the statutorily authorized appointments. And he says, this is 

not on that list. And he is going to look into it. It could be an oversight. But when you think about it, elected officials love to appoint 

people. I mean, there is no reason for her not to do that. This 

would be a—I mean, these kinds of things mean something to her. 

So anyway, one of her staff members has your written statements, the two of you, in his hand. And so when we get back from 

the spring recess, we can follow up on that. But he said, and he 
20 

seemed to be very familiar with it when he said, these are not— 

he said, I have seen the list. I have the list of appointments, and 

this is not on that list. So we will follow up on that. 

Mr. WYSONG. Thank you for that quick action, sir. 

Dr. SNYDER. Oh, yeah, well, every once in awhile. 

I just want to give a, just an open-ended question. But maybe we 

will start with you, Mr. Broward. 

I would like for you, each of you, to tell us how you got involved 

in these issues, and what do you tell people about why this is still 

important? I mean, we think it is important. But I suspect you run 

into people in your, you know, your friends back home who say, 

‘‘Well, that is a long time ago. Why is this so important?’’ 

I would like to start with you, Mr. Broward, about how you got 

involved in this and why this should be important to all Americans. 

Mr. BROWARD. I got involved when I learned that there was such 

an organization called Cell-I. After the Korean War, we were told 

not to talk about MIAs. It might cause problems with Russia. 

I was with Marines in both North and South Korea that are 

missing. Some of them I was raised with. And it has been on my 

mind for many years. So that is how I got involved, to try to do 

research and bring some of these—we were all very young at that 

time—to bring them home. So that is how I got involved. 

Ms. PIACINE. Thank you for this opportunity. I got involved in 

this issue when I, I guess it was around 1999, and my mother and 

my aunt both donated the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) reference 

sample, because my uncle obviously had not returned from the Korean War. And so I got involved in also the commemoration of the 

Korean War and went out. 

I think that it is very important for all Americans to care and 

be concerned about all those that are still unaccounted for. For one 

thing, every day when they get up and they have all these freedoms, they need to remember that those people have given the ultimate sacrifice. They are not back home with their loved ones. 

And I would just like to see, not just my uncle, but everybody 

be able to give all of their loved ones the type of a funeral that they 

are so deserving of. 

And also, we have to also remember that all those people that 

are out there serving right now and intend to serve in the future 

that, you know, how can we send them out if we are not doing 

what we always have promised, not to leave anybody behind? 

It is our obligation. It is our duty to account for every single person. 

Mr. METERSKY. Myself, 25 years ago, I was sitting in California, 

and I opened the paper, and there was a Vietnam demonstration 

to their credit advocating the POW/MIA issue. And I read the number 2,200-and-something, and I said, ‘‘My God, there is over 8,000 

from the Korean War. What is wrong with the Korean War MIAs? 

Where is anybody advocating?’’ 

The following Monday when I returned to New York, I picked up 

the phone. And the rest was history. And that is how I got involved. I am a Korean War veteran. I have memories of carrying 

dead out of Korea that I have lived with for over 50 years. And I 

have been advocating for the Korean War MIAs. 
21 

And if we don’t do the right thing, it sends a message to our men 

in uniform, ‘‘Hey, once you are gone, you are forgotten.’’ And that 

is not what this country is supposed to be about. This issue actually was started in 1954 by government commitment to the men 

who died for this country. We owe them for their commitment, and 

silence, and the ultimate sacrifice to do whatever we can to get the 

fullest possible accounting from all wars. 

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. O’Shea. 

Ms. O’SHEA. I got involved like many other people in the late 

1960s and early 1970s by buying a POW/MIA bracelet. And I drew 

the name—it was luck of the draw—of a young Army sergeant who 

had disappeared. 

And back then, in my naivete, I believed that he was, you know, 

just one person; it was an isolated incident. And as I came to learn, 

he went missing with two other men, and I thought to myself, 

‘‘How is it possible that the Army could lose track of three men at 

once?’’ That is how naive I was. 

And I would come to learn that, you know, whole teams and 

whole aircrafts would simply disappear with no evidence of what 

happened to these men. And I decided I was going to find out what 

happened to this particular individual. And I started researching. 

Eventually, I joined the National Alliance of Families when they 

formed. And I continued my research with them. We did learn— 

and my guy and his three teammates were recovered. They are 

resting at Arlington now. 

And, in fact, it was 11 years ago this month that we came and 

buried them at Arlington. And that is something every family 

should have. It is a commitment we owe to every fighting man that 

we will bring them home. 

And I am sad, and I am embarrassed to say it is a commitment 

our government has not lived up to. We see today that, looking 

back, it would have been so easy after World War II to recover the 

men missing, especially in the South Pacific, because we are finding aircraft relatively easily and pretty often in the South Pacific. 

If we had taken a harder stance at Panmunjom and demanded 

our POWs, if we had taken a harder stance on the intelligence of 

POWs crossing into the former Soviet Union and China, perhaps 

we all wouldn’t be sitting here today. A lot of the families would 

have the answers. They deserve the answers. 

And we are going to keep pushing at Congress. Sorry. But we are 

going to keep pushing. And we are going to be seeking the answers. 

We are seeking declassification, because in spite of what you have 

heard, all the information is not declassified and available to the 

families. 

Thank you. 

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Phillips. 

Ms. PHILLIPS. I became involved in this doing research on my 

uncle. 

What I found out was my uncle was shot down, had burns on 90 

percent of his body, taken POW, received beatings on top of that, 

and died in the prison camp weighing 80 pounds. After the war, 

his remains were placed on a C–47 with other POW bodies, and 

that C–47 went missing with the POW bodies. 
22 

However, what I found was a bigger picture that there were 

78,000 men who their own stories to tell. When I started going to 

the family update meetings, I was told—you know, and I questioned why is nothing being done for World War II?—I was told I 

would have to form a family group if I wanted anything done. And 

that is what I did with other family members. 

A big problem World War II families have are our records are 

still classified. The X-files are not opened. Although I found out we 

are now opening the X-files. And World War II families have to do 

their own research, provide documentation to take to JPAC before 

anything can be done. We have to do our own research and provide 

the documentation—photos and all of that—before they will even 

look at a case. 

And that shouldn’t be the case. The family members should not 

be paying out of their pocket to fly over to another country to find 

their relative in order for Congress to do something to bring our 

men home. 

Thank you. 

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Griffiths. 

Ms. GRIFFITHS. My brother has been missing in North Vietnam 

since September 21st, 1966. To be a member of our organization, 

that has to happen. I took over from my father, who was a former 

executive director. And after a couple of years, I have been executive director now since 1978—so over 30 years—and have been to 

Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia countless times, and was a member 

of the interagency group, which I believe Mike or Phil, one referred 

to, with a top secret clearance that was discontinued in 1993. 

So even though we probably won’t ever get anything on my 

brother, I believe in this obligation. And I think the league’s legacy 

is important to ensure that those who serve now and in the future 

have the absolute confidence that our government won’t walk away 

from trying. So, not everyone will ever be accounted for, and we all 

know that. 

Mr. RILEY. Well, we work for an organization that since 1919 has 

been concerned about taking care of our brethren. 

From a personal standpoint, I can tell you I can’t imagine not 

having assurance in my mind that in fact my country is going to 

follow and take care of me whether I am dead or alive, having been 

in combat and thought about that. You are scared to death of becoming a POW, but you are also—I mean, you just—your frame of 

mind if you didn’t think your country was going to get you back 

to your family one way or another was just unimaginable to me. 

And I think it would absolutely cut at the core of our ethic. And 

we are lucky that we have people that go out and do what they do. 

But this is a big part of it. 

Mr. WYSONG. As a Vietnam veteran, this issue has always been 

important to me. 

But it really came to light back in the late 1970s when Ann sent 

me a bumper sticker that said ‘‘Hanoi: Release Our POWs/MIAs.’’ 

And I really got involved in it. 

And since coming to Washington to work for the VFW, this has 

been an issue under my directorate. But the VFW has been concerned about our missing for many, many years. 
23 

We have traveled—our national officers and Washington staff 

have traveled to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia every year since 

1991 to press the governments of the host nations for better cooperation and to allow us more access to their military archives to 

find the answers. 

Over the last five years, we have traveled to the PRC—the People’s Republic of China—spoke with their ministers of defense, 

ministers to foreign affairs, to press upon their government for better cooperation. To Russia the last five years to meet with their 

high-level government officials to press upon them the importance 

of this issue and how important it is to the American people. 

And I believe the common thread here—why is this important?— 

the common thread between all of us is the answers for the families, to bring closure to the families, and to send the message, as 

I said in my oral, to the men and women serving today that you 

will not be left behind. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you all for your time. 

Thank you, Madam Chair, for your indulgence. 

Also, Mr. Wysong, it is reassuring as elected officials to know the 

power of a bumper sticker. [Laughter.] 

So thank you all for your eloquence. I appreciate you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

And I would like to—first of all, I will apologize for not being 

here on time. But there were several other things that prevented 

me from doing so. But I will tell you—and I don’t fully understand 

what you or family members or those that you represent, the kind 

of trauma, it is only natural for you people to have, when they can’t 

properly funeralize their loved ones for whatever reason. 

And I am gaining a better understanding, as many people here 

in Congress will continue to do, particularly as we hold these oversight hearings. And I would like to point out to you, if it has not 

already been pointed out, that this is the only the second hearing 

in the last 11 or 12 years. And the other hearing took place in the 

110th Congress, and we are now in the 111th. 

I would say that there is some definite momentum here for there 

to be—it has already been a new look. And I appreciate the chairwoman for bringing this up today. And I know that it will continue 

to be an issue. And someone said, once you are gone, you are forgotten. I don’t think that that is going to hold true in the future. 

And I don’t know how many of Congress people have the missing 

in action flag up as you enter their office along with the American 

flag, but there is quite a few, I believe. And my office is one. 

But I would like to think, you know, that represents people on 

both sides of the aisle who are attuned to this issue. And so, you 

know, I am sure that it will get more coverage. 

I appreciate you all for keeping the issue alive, because it is 

something that I am sure the people who are directly affected, you 

know, need advocacy so that we can bring them—and I hate to use 

this word because it is so overused—closure. 

So that is—I have no question, Madam Chair. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you for your comments, Mr. Johnson. 

Ms. Kilroy. 
24 

Ms. KILROY. Thank you, Chairwoman Davis. 

And thank you, members of the panel. I particularly want to 

thank those of you who have served in our military and served in 

our conflicts. I want you to know that we honor and respect your 

service. And I believe that we owe a debt as a Nation to those 

served and to their families. And we need to recognize that, I 

think, the families also sacrifice a great deal when loved ones are 

called up. And when loved ones don’t come home, that loss is excruciating. 

I am the daughter of a World War II veteran who served in the 

Pacific theater, who served in New Guinea. He came home, but his 

brother Leo did not come home. My grandmother didn’t have any 

hope of having remains returned. He was lost at sea. But I am sure 

that would have meant a great deal to her if that would have been 

possible. 

And another uncle was a Korean era veteran. And, of course, I 

grew up in the time of the Vietnam War conflict and, you know, 

my good buddy from a couple doors down was lost in action in Vietnam. And that had a very big impact on me as a teenager high 

school student. 

So this is an important hearing today. And I thank the chairwoman for allowing me to participate even though I am not a member of this committee. This is an issue that is important to us and 

to our country. 

And I listened very carefully to your testimony and to your answers to the question about how you got involved. And it seems to 

me that you are very concerned that each soldier got what we 

promised him as a Nation, that those families got that respect that 

they were due to have their loved one’s remains come home, and 

that it also meant something to soldiers currently serving that we 

weren’t going to leave them behind in a foreign conflict. 

So what it says to me is that regardless of conflict that you believe that each of you would be committed to trying to find and 

bring home the remains of our soldiers. And that would be a good 

reason not to have any particular divisions between which conflict 

somebody served in or was lost in. 

And so I was wondering if you had thoughts about the allocation 

of resources. You know, Ms. O’Shea referenced the planes that 

have been identified in the Pacific theater from World War II. 

And that is recently something that has been brought to my attention because the remains of a resident and service member from 

my 15th congressional district—Second Lieutenant John Funk, who 

was a navigator aboard a C–87 aircraft in 1943 that disappeared 

in that dangerous area known as the Burma Hump, the region between India and China. His plane was returning from airlifting 

supplies, equipment and personnel to the Chinese government and 

allied forces after the mainland route through Burma was seized 

by the Japanese. These missions were certainly key to getting supplies to the coast and to helping our Pacific theater operations. 

It was called the ‘‘forgotten theater’’ of World War II. And I just 

want to make sure that these men are not forgotten now. So I was 

wondering, particularly since you made the comment about the 

planes that have been identified, you know, what we can do to expedite the investigations of those planes that were gone down and 
25 

to bring home the remains of people like Second Lieutenant John 

Funk? 

Ms. O’SHEA. More funding and more staff. We need to have additional teams that are able to go out, not at the expense of another 

conflict but rather to elevate all conflicts, all wars, to the same 

level, the same priority, the same professionalism. And fund it so 

that you can have teams going out and recovering the World War 

II, the Korea losses. While North Korea, there is a problem; we all 

acknowledge that. There are many American servicemen resting in 

the grounds of South Korea. They need to be brought home. They 

need to be identified. We need a project of such massive proportions that will allow this mission to be accomplished. 

And I would also like to just add that while we are focusing on 

recovering and identification of remains, I would like to go back to 

my testimony and remind this committee that there are cases 

where the individuals survived their loss. There is intelligence that 

they were being moved or at other locations. And searching for 

those individuals at loss locations, quite frankly, will be a waste of 

time. We have to determine who those men are. We know who 

some of them are. But we have to reinvestigate those cases and 

pursue new avenues with the governments that are accountable for 

these men. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Ms. Kilroy, I am going to go ahead and let the rest 

of you respond to that question. 

I wanted to ask that as well, about the flexibility and changing 

the strategy that we have before us today. And so if a few of you 

want to comment on that, and then we are going to break for a 

vote. And we are going to take the next panel after that. 

So I just wanted to let you know if you wanted to weigh in on 

this question in terms of the strategy ‘‘most recent first,’’ which is, 

you know, up in terms of a discussion, really, of how we look at 

this strategy differently. 

Ms. PHILLIPS. I think a couple of things that would help is new 

technology, like the ground penetrating, you know, radar side scan 

sonar, and research. 

World War II, we have to do our own research. All the records 

are here in DC. I don’t know if you want to hire an independent 

group to help JPAC with that. You know? I mean, you are going 

to have to fly someone from JPAC up here to look at records. It 

is kind of crazy. And even if DPMO looks at the research, you are 

not always sharing information. 

And we do need new technology like the ground penetrating 

radar for the aircrafts that you are talking about being down, or 

side scan sonars of aircraft underwater. 

So I wanted to add that, and—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. 

Ms. PHILLIPS [continuing]. More research needs to be done. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

I wonder if anybody wants to respond to a change in strategy 

quickly, because we are going to have to stop. 

Go ahead, Mr. Broward, I think you had your—— 

Mr. BROWARD. I don’t know whether you would call this a change 

of strategy, but there is new technology called radiograph matching 

that is terribly important—— 
26 

Mrs. DAVIS. Right. 

Mr. BROWARD [continuing]. Developed in January. And it is going 

to need funds for research and development. 

Currently, the JPAC budget does not have any funds for research 

and development. And I think that with such a possibility of identifying so many unknowns with this new radiograph matching technology that it is really going to need some attention both for hiring 

forensic anthropologists and historians with this technology. But 

they are going to need funding to develop the software. 

Ms. GRIFFITHS. What I wanted to say is, quickly, and agreeing 

with the technology, there have significant advances. 

What Ms. O’Shea said about people last known alive, those require investigations, and many of them were alive and on the 

ground. We have been talking in terms totally of remains today, 

which always distresses me. But it is one of the reasons that the 

Defense Intelligence Agency specialists that are investigators are 

so important to the Vietnam War effort. 

But I would point out, too, in terms of strategy and timing, it 

isn’t just looking at remains, recoveries from 50 and 60 years ago. 

In the Korean War, there were people last known alive that 

haven’t come back. And in the Vietnam war. That is not true, obviously, on World War II. And yes, there are about 30,000 that went 

in sea—maybe it is more; I don’t know the exact numbers—that 

are considered buried at sea. 

But there is a wide variety here. And each war needs to be addressed in its own circumstances, including investigations on people who were last known alive. And that is not to say they are all 

running around alive somewhere today. I am saying those have 

been the highest priority of our government. 

Some of us differ with how serious it has been. But nevertheless, 

it has been a separate priority, and that is the focus on most recent 

wars because of last known alive cases being the priority. As they 

should be, I believe, in the Korean War as well. 

Ms. O’SHEA. If I may, I would just like to add to that that our 

organization does believe that there were last known alives from 

World War II. There is evidence in the gulag study that was done 

by the Joint Commission Support Directorate that is the investigative arm of the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission that talks about 

that. As Ann said, we don’t know that they are alive today. But 

certainly there is evidence that needs to be looked at because if we 

are looking for those men at the loss locations, we are not going 

to find them. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Ms. Piacine. 

Ms. PIACINE. Yes. I would like to say that what I think is really 

important in the accounting process and to move forward, we definitely need your support desperately on having our files declassified, even though they have been—there is a presidential order 

out to do so—this has not been done. 

And most recently, a research team from the Coalition of Families went to the National Archives and went through boxes where 

they had multiple slips that just the files had been taken out, and 

they were debriefing files. And no one has even looked at these 

files for over 15 years. We really need your help. 
27 

Thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I want to thank you all so much for your participation today. It has been very important for all of us to hear from 

you. And, as I said, we do have your full testimony, but we certainly welcome any other written statement that you choose to give 

us and to stay in touch and engaged as you certainly have been. 

And we hope to be very responsive to that. 

When we come back, we will have the second panel. And you are 

certainly all, of course, welcome to stay. 

Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Ambassador Ray and Admiral Crisp. 

We want to welcome you to the hearing today. And we know that 

you have probably been listening in on the testimony earlier. We 

certainly appreciate the fact that we had everybody attending. And 

now we look forward to hearing from you. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES A. RAY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR POW/MISSING PERSONNEL 

AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Ambassador RAY. Thank you, ma’am. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Congressman Wilson. I very 

much appreciate you giving us the opportunity to lay out our views 

toward improving the critical mission of accounting for missing 

Americans from all our past conflicts. 

I know your time is limited, so I would ask that the extended 

version of my remarks be entered for the record. 

Your invitation is most welcome at this time. One of the primary 

reasons our agency was formed in 1993 was to ensure the families 

of all our MIAs and the public in general received all—I repeat, 

all—the information that the government had assembled on their 

cases. 

In my agency alone, we devote approximately one-third of our resources to keeping the families, the public and the Congress fully 

informed. Also, as you may know, families are entitled to receive 

information previously classified, which has had the sources and 

methods removed. 

We take this commitment very seriously, and we work hard to 

prove it every day. We continue to strive to provide equitable treatment to all groups representing all conflicts. Our strategy has been 

revised to reflect sound management and business practices and to 

honor the sacrifices of all of our personnel regardless of the conflict. 

Now, when I meet with a group of family members, as I do virtually month, I don’t see conflicts. I see Americans who have sacrificed so much for this country and who are entitled to have that 

sacrifice honored and respected. 

There are more than 80,000 Americans missing from past conflicts. Each month, when we hold our family updates in cities and 

towns across the country, we see the grief and the pain that so 

many of our families still suffer. 

So long as this Nation remains committed to finding its missing 

sons and daughters, we will continue to carry out this mission. 

We are looking at ways to improve how we carry out our mission, 

keeping the promise that this government has made to account for 
28 

our missing. But in the first instance, our goal is to bring our people back alive. 

To be sure, our primary obligation is to bring everyone home 

alive from foreign battlefields. I am sure you have seen the heroic 

stories of those rescued from today’s conflicts. But a little known 

fact is that there is only one soldier missing from Iraq and none 

from Afghanistan, when you compare that to the 80,0000 who are 

still missing from Vietnam, the Cold War, the Korean War and 

World War II. 

We see this dramatic shift in response to at least two areas. The 

first, of course, is technology, which enables us to keep track of our 

own people on the battlefield, and to bring them out of harm’s way 

if need be. The second is the fact that there are lessons learned 

from previous conflicts applied to the combat soldiers of today. 

For the future, I believe we need to leverage technology more effectively to include using information technology to communicate 

better with our constituents and to gather the information that is 

essential in resolving cases. We must avoid getting locked into 

fixed strategies or ways of doing business. 

Today’s mission of accounting for the missing arose from the government’s efforts during and following the Vietnam War. But although warfare has changed, and technology has changed, the pain 

of a missing loved one has not. I see that every day as I interact 

with our families. The effort to account for the missing from all 

conflicts is one promise that I will never abandon. 

In order to effectively serve our constituents, we must constantly 

evaluate and assess our methods of operations, resource bases and 

command relationships to ensure they are doing what must be 

done if we are to continue to be successful. 

While we must continue to honor the sacrifices of our heroes of 

past conflicts, we must also keep our eyes on both the present and 

the future. We owe a debt to those currently serving and to those 

who will serve in the future to do all we can to assure them that 

we will keep the promise. 

We need to encourage out-of-the-box thinking on this issue. And 

while we shouldn’t reject tradition just for the sake of doing things 

differently, neither should we allow tradition to become a straightjacket to innovation. 

I have touched, I know, on several issues directed at our future 

efforts and our future commitments, and I will be more than happy 

to take your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Ray can be found in the 

Appendix on page 172.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you. 

Admiral Crisp. 

STATEMENT OF REAR ADM. DONNA L. CRISP, USN, 

COMMANDER, JOINT POW/MIA ACCOUNTING COMMAND 

Admiral CRISP. Madam Chair and members of the committee, 

thank you for this opportunity to appear before you. And I am 

pleased to update you on the Joint Prisoner of War Missing in Action Accounting Command after my first year as commander, and 

following the last appearance nine months ago. 
29 

First, on behalf of the men and women of JPAC, I want to express my sincere appreciation for your continued support for personnel accounting efforts. You heard from family members, veterans and concerned citizens at the first panel, each from very diverse backgrounds and perspectives. All are important to us, and 

we listen to their recommendations, and we appreciate their support to our humanitarian mission. 

Delegation visits like Ms. Ann Mills Griffiths and those of veteran service organizations serve to reinforce the United States Government’s commitment to the POW/MIA mission and demonstrate 

the importance of our issue to the families of those who remain unaccounted for as well as the veterans who served with these men. 

In addition to our field operations, much of my focus in JPAC 

has been to structure it to effectively accomplish our mission and 

to provide a quality of work environment for the men and women 

of JPAC, and to establish processes that will sustain and improve 

the organization and mission in the future. 

In 2008, we worked in 15 countries and completed 72 missions. 

We identified 80 Americans who lost their lives in the service to 

our Nation. This is a 14 percent increase over the 2004–2007 identification average. 

This year, we are working in 12 countries, conducting 62 missions to account for missing for World War II, the Korean War, 

Vietnam, and have already identified 29 individuals. 

In addition to continuing our operational focus, we have also concentrated on process improvements, both in our partnerships with 

foreign countries as well as internal to JPAC. We conducted a 20- 

year assessment with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. 

We have also realized very positive progress with the Laos People Democratic Republic and how we conduct our joint field activities, enabling us to save money and maximize the team’s time on 

site. The Kingdom of Cambodia continues to be extremely supportive of our humanitarian mission, and we also received support 

from the Republic of Korea, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of 

India, the People’s Republic of China, and many other countries 

throughout the world. 

In the area of JPAC improvements, recruiting and retention of 

our scientific staff has been my focus for the past year. We have 

implemented several programs, such as student loan repayment, 

creation of developmental positions to leading to senior positions, 

the establishing of a forensic science academy to name a few. 

We are already realizing results from these initiatives. Federal 

employment in the laboratory is 78 percent, with 15 full-time fellows, that brings the laboratory numbers 110 percent of our workload requirement. Our scientists continue to excel in research and 

development of innovative forensic identification tools and techniques. 

Over the past two years, our focus has been on video superimposition and radiographic clavicle bone matching. Once validated 

and accepted in the forensic science community, our identification 

rates should increase. This new identification technique is going to 

make a significant capability applicable to the Korean War unknowns. 
30 

Since my last opportunity to speak with you, we have more than 

doubled our total laboratory analytical space. When I departed Hawaii last week, the remains of more 80 American service members 

were under analysis. This is almost twice the number that were 

under analysis at this time last year. 

By this summer, I expect 50–60 more remains unilaterally 

turned over by the North Koreans in the early 1990s and often referred to as K–208 to be completely moved to the facility at Pearl 

Harbor. This will more than triple the analytical table space. And 

for the first time in 19 years, the scientists will be able to analyze 

these remains in detail without interruption of other cases. 

We are quite pleased with the additional space, and we look forward to the completion of our military construction project, when 

our entire organization will be in the same location. And that will 

increase capabilities and effectiveness at JPAC. 

This is a brief update on JPAC, and we believe we are poised for 

the future, we are in the right location, we have the full support 

of the United States Pacific Command and the Defense Prisoner of 

War Missing Personnel Office. 

Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for this 

opportunity, and I await your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Crisp can be found in the 

Appendix on page 183.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

And, of course, we are here today to try and see how we move 

forward, recognizing the gains that have been made and some of 

the difficulties in trying to bring together so many interests when 

it comes to the issue that we are dealing with, which we know is 

just so terribly important, I think, to our country. 

I am wondering, Ambassador Ray, going back to the structure 

question that we talked about in the earlier panel, will the study 

by Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) assess the POW/MIA community organizational structure to see if changes, in fact, do need 

to be made? 

Ambassador RAY. Madam Chairman, the IDA study is focused on 

how to improve the rate of identifications. 

Referring to comments made by Congressman Wilson in his remarks, we have recognized that we do need to look at increasing 

the rate. Given the circumstances of the conflicts, the Vietnam War 

sites are deteriorating at a remarkably accelerating rate. World 

War II, those family members that we are aware of are getting no 

younger day by day. And so we owe it to them as well as to honoring those who have sacrificed for the country to do all that we 

can to increase the pace. 

What we don’t have a very firm handle on at the moment is to 

what level can we increase this. We are currently doing some 70 

per year. The study initially focused on a number of 180 per year. 

That is subject to modification as we look at what is feasible. 

And it is looking at the entire identification process. It is too 

easy—or I should it is rather the view that if we make a change 

in the lab that we will materially affect the identification process 

ignores the fact that there are other elements that play into it. 

If you increase the numbers, for example, of bone cuttings in the 

lab of remains for identification (IDs), you also have to consider the 
31 

impact on the workload of the Armed Forces DNA Identification 

Lab. You also have to consider how much research support, how 

much analytical support has to go into working with that anthropologist to make that ID. 

So what the firm that is doing the study has been directed to do 

is to look at the entire process, look at what is feasible—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Are they also focusing on the structure? 

Ambassador RAY. They are focusing on the structure, the funding, and the manning of the lab and other aspects of the identification procedure to see how we can achieve increases. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. 

Do you have some thoughts as well, though, when creating more 

of a defense field agency? 

Ambassador RAY. Well, I constantly look at how we are organized. And, of course, one of the ideas that I have given to people 

to look at would be, is it more effective to have a defense agency 

concept as opposed to having a geographic commander responsible? 

There are no—I am not wedded to one way or another. What I 

have asked people to do is to look at the various configurations that 

are possible and try and decide what is the most effective way not 

only to do the mission that we currently have, which is to account 

for the missing from the wars of the past, but to configure ourselves to position ourselves so that we can effectively serve the Nation for current and future wars. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

And just turning to Admiral Crisp before my time is up: Do you 

think a more direct funding stream would help JPAC receive the 

required resources that it needs? 

Admiral CRISP. Right now the funding stream is called out in the 

budget. So for that I think we have the visibility. 

I believe that the U.S. Pacific Command supports the funding for 

JPAC. The only reason we had a reduction this year was a congressionally mandated mark. 

And so I am comfortable that we have this ability of what we are 

doing at JPAC for our funds. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. Thank you. 

My time is up, and I will move to Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

And thank both of you for your obviously dedicated service. It 

has been inspiring to me to hear both of you speak. 

Additionally, Ambassador Ray, I want to reiterate my appreciation for your military service, your extraordinary diplomatic service 

and wish you well on your return to the State Department. 

And this is really a question for each of you. In the different Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs) that we heard from, their commitment was also inspiring, and that is what creates this question. 

We have heard some testimony that contracting for professional 

historians, archivists, genealogists, and researchers could assist 

both DPMO and JPAC in carrying out current missions. 

Given that JPAC is only 84 percent manned at this date, to what 

extent has the use of contractors been evaluated to increase JPAC’s 

ability to meet mission requirements and help reduce the backlog 

of remains that must be identified? 
32 

Admiral CRISP. The contracts that we use, I have contracted forensic anthropologists. I have coming onboard this summer a contracted odontologists. 

For the area of historian, I am taking the command from four 

historians to eight this year. And so I am using the military-to-civilian (mil-civ) conversion when we are talking about the numbers 

in that to shape the numbers of historians that we need to get the 

job done. 

Ambassador RAY. In regards to DPMO, part of the decision on 

how we allocate analysts and researchers will depend on the final 

decisions on the conflict strategy, which is, as you heard in the earlier testimony, has been put in draft and is available for review. 

We have made some changes, in fact, in the allocation of researchers to various conflicts to ensure a little more equitable coverage. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we have achieved all the 

goals that we set for ourselves. 

We were fortunate last year in working within the defense system to get some authorized increases in personnel. Of course, my 

first priority because I do also have to manage the flow of information to families was to increase the staffing available to man that 

function. And that is the declassification process to ensure that we 

comply with the intent of the regulation, that those documents relating to POW/MIA cases that are classified are declassified and 

placed in a place that they are accessible not only to the families 

but to the public. We are working now to increase our staff in that 

area as well. 

Mr. WILSON. And both you have identified advances in technology—the clavicle identification. 

I am somewhat surprised not to hear about DNA capabilities of 

technological—— 

Admiral CRISP. Well, I could tell you about what Armed Forces 

DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) is doing. It was their 

demineralization process. 

So it was when the Korean War men came back and were buried 

in the Punchbowl and exhumed, they found that they had—the 

mortuary in Japan—had soaked the remains in formaldehyde and 

put a formaldehyde past over it. So that challenge of not having 

DNA has put AFDIL on the cutting edge of trying to find ways of 

finding DNA in different ways. 

That said, the demineralization process which they did just several years ago impacted the entire forensic capability of the United 

States, the difference being instead of having to have a piece of 

bone half the size of the palm of your hand, now you only have to 

have a piece the size of your fingernail. 

And that made a tremendous difference for the remains from 

Vietnam, because the soil deteriorates them so much. In many 

cases, at that point in time, the pieces of bone we couldn’t get DNA 

out of, now we can. So you will see that making a difference there. 

I know that AFDIL is working on not only advances for their 

mitochondrial DNA but also their paternal DNA and, again, advancing their demineralization process. 

If you would like me to talk about the advancements in JPAC on 

the clavicle bones, I would be happy to talk about that. It is pretty 

fantastic. 
33 

Mr. WILSON. I think I would be interested. 

Admiral CRISP. Basically, if you look at how forensic anthropologists have in the past looked at it, they take a clavicle bone and 

they try to match a few places, trying to guess who that person 

could be. 

I brought a young scientist, a Ph.D. in forensic anthropology, 

who had the idea of doing clavicle bones with the lower neck and 

doing eight different bones with 30 different points of identification. And he has worked industriously on this for a year. And we 

are up to the point where he has identified 9 of 10 correctly. So 

he is excited. I am excited. 

And so we started out on this journey. The first thing you had 

to have were the x-rays of the men who died and now are unknowns. So we have been working to get the x-rays. We got them 

from the Army and the Air Force. We just recently found the Navy 

and Marine Corps. 

And basically you have to go through entire spools of every x-ray 

that was done at a hospital to find that one person you want. So 

this is—we are working on it. But we are getting all the x-rays in. 

I had one photographer working on it. I now have a team of four 

photographers capturing these x-rays digitally. After that is done— 

and they are doing that on two shifts right now. After that is done, 

instead of having a Ph.D. outline the bones on the x-ray, I am 

going to look to see if maybe a draftsman or a Master’s level person 

to work on that so we can accelerate that. 

So it started out with a process that would take four years. We 

have now shrunk it to two years. And I am trying very hard to try 

to compress it to one year by watching how they do their work, 

keep adding extra things they think that will make them go faster. 

Because I think when we are done we will have—assuming that 

it is accepted by the forensic science community—we will have a 

fabulous identification process. The entire—you know, there are 

scientists all over the world that are aware of what we are doing, 

because they come and drop by. They want to just sit and watch 

what we are doing because it is so cutting edge. So I am very excited about it. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Dr. Snyder. 

Dr. SNYDER. There was a reference just made to your school. Will 

you talk about that, please? 

Admiral CRISP. Forensic Science Academy started out as I began 

to look, and our whole team began to look, at recruiting and retention for JPAC. There was a variety of reasons, and I can discuss 

them later, why the manning was going down. 

But one of the things that I noticed is that we had talent in the 

command, but they needed to go to that extra level in order to be 

a Ph.D. level candidate. They needed extra training. 

In addition to that, many of the Ph.D.s that work for us would 

love to be associate professors at universities. By putting together 

an academy that not only self-trained the people you needed to pull 

them up by their bootstraps, you were also giving your own Ph.D.s 

the opportunity to earn associate professor credit. 
34 

We have taken that further by working with the University of 

Hawaii, who has a Ph.D. program in anthropology. And we continue to link with other medical universities worldwide to build 

this into a fantastic training and recruiting and retention tool. 

Dr. SNYDER. Why don’t you talk about the manning and if they 

are related. 

Admiral CRISP. The manning, when I first started looking at it, 

was only at forensic anthropologists that were deployable. So much 

of the information that you asked from me was just focused on 

those deployable anthropologists. 

But as we got involved going back and forth between your committee and myself, we got into the whole lab. So let me just go 

through the entire laboratory. 

The laboratory is authorized 46 people. And they have 36 assigned. Those are federal employees. There are 15 fellows. A fellow 

can either be a Ph.D. or a Master’s level person. 

So when you get done, you had 51 work years against 46 authorization. That is 110 percent manning. 

Keep in mind from my perspective to have a robust command of 

any function, you should have federal employees. You should never 

rely on mission critical execution in augmented manpower. Okay. 

So the whole focus that I am doing this year and into the following 

year is to bring aboard federal employees. 

That said, if you looked at just the anthropologists, we have 26 

anthropologists that are authorized. We have 18 that are assigned. 

Ten of those fellows are anthropologists. So that means I have 28 

anthropologists for an authorization of 26. Okay? 

If you go into just deployable, which is what so many people look 

at, I have 22 deployable anthropologists, 14 assigned, 4 fellows, for 

18. That is the critical area I am looking at because it is 64 percent 

for federal and 81 percent with the fellows. 

That said, if you compare that to Army manpower study that 

was done that required 27 anthropologists, our 26 is very close. In 

addition to that, we mitigate that by archaeologists, because many 

times when you go out on burials what you are really looking for 

is a change in the soil composition. And so the archaeologists take 

up that load. 

So if you look at the entire manpower study that was done by 

the Army, with the requirement of 37 and JPAC having 46, I think 

we are in good stead. But not satisfied with that, I asked the Pacific Command to hire someone. And they are bringing in an Air 

Force team of manpower and industrial engineers, and they start 

this month. And they will go all the way to September. 

And we are going to do a complete requirements documents for 

the command. And that will include—you know, first it gives you 

the quality and quantity that you need to do the job you are currently assigned to do. And it will also allow us to say: If we were 

to increase identifications, or if we were to increase recoveries, 

what would that manpower skill set be? 

And so that is what will be ready and available come the end of 

this year. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Ms. Shea-Porter. 
35 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Thank you. 

Thank you both for being here and for the work that you—very 

difficult, sensitive work. And many people are depending on you, 

so thank you. 

Mr. Ray, I had a question about what kind of relationship your 

organization has with the family members, listening to those who 

lost loved ones in Vietnam versus those who lost loved ones in 

World War II or Korea or other wars. And could you talk a little 

bit about some of the problems that you are encountering and some 

of the solutions you think might be there? 

Ambassador RAY. Well, I would say that our relations with the 

family members as an organization, and we meet with them eight 

times a year in cities around the country at family updates and 

twice a year in Washington—one for the Vietnam War and one for 

the Korea/Cold War. Although this year because of economics, we 

will be doing our Washington meeting in St. Louis. 

But what I see, and I go to almost all of these or as many as 

I can, and I try to talk with every family member that attends. I 

don’t really see an appreciable difference in how we interact with 

a family based on the conflict. 

Each case is an individual case. Each family is handled individually. And what I have observed is that the interaction is based 

more on the circumstances of the individual lost than on the conflict that it occurred in. 

We have in the time since we have been organized in our family 

updates reached out to over 14,000 people. We just recently, last 

weekend in fact, did one here in Bethesda, Maryland. We had 122 

family members attending. Over 70 of those, by the way, were firsttime attendees. And over, I want to say, 60 percent of the 

attendees were Korea/Cold War. 

But as you walked around the room and talked to people, unless 

they told you what war their relative was missing in, you couldn’t 

tell. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Shared sacrifice. 

And you said that you are going to provide transparency in community efforts as part of your strategy. 

Ambassador RAY. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. And what will be different? 

Ambassador RAY. Well, when I took this job in September 2006, 

the strategy was most current conflict. 

And on the surface that sounds like it maybe makes sense. But 

then when you start to think about it, there are similarities in conflicts. When you talk, for example, about the danger in loss of sites 

and the danger that you are losing witnesses. Losing witnesses is 

far more a critical problem in World War II than it would be in 

a more current conflict. 

I also asked myself, what do we do when the current conflict becomes the most recent historic conflict when this war is over? How 

do we reapportion resources if we are going to talk about most recent conflict? 

And even though we only have a very small number of cases that 

might still be unaccounted for at the end of this conflict, the circumstances will make it very labor intensive. We will be dealing 

with hostile populations. We will be dealing with a much more 
36 

complex issue than we do in many of the other theaters that we 

have to work in. I doubt very seriously if—we have very good relations with former foes for some of the other conflicts. I don’t see 

that being the case in a conflict in the Middle East. 

So that caused me to start questioning whether most current 

conflict was actually a viable strategy or perhaps we should be 

looking at it more in terms of look at all the conflicts and then look 

at those cases that are in most danger of us losing if we don’t do 

something, and then evaluate them across all conflicts. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Keeping resources available. 

And if I have one more second, Admiral Crisp, I know that the 

personnel who work with you have extreme challenges in the actual physical setting where they go. I remember hearing about this 

last year. 

How is the morale, and how are things going in terms of the 

physical risk that they undertake in order to go to these sites to 

recover our beloved servicemen and women who have died? 

Admiral CRISP. Well, I think the morale is great. 

I just had a report from the Indian officials that came back from 

the mission in Arunachal Pradesh, and they talked about our men 

basically climbing on their hands and knees as they went over very 

steep areas to make it to the jungle. So the sites in India are extreme elevations. 

So they are working hard. They are in arduous situations. I do 

prepare them. For instance, if they are going into high altitude, 

mountaineering kinds of recoveries, I make sure that they maintain a higher level of physical fitness in order to accomplish those 

missions and not be harmed. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. I thank them. I thank both of you and the 

families of service people. 

Ambassador RAY. Ma’am, if I might add one thing, please. 

And I think Admiral Crisp is being overly modest when she describes what her people do. 

Like her, I go out and visit these people in the field when they 

are on excavation sites and actually have been doing it even before 

this job when I was consul general in Ho Chi Minh City and ambassador in Cambodia. And I am impressed with the morale and 

dedication of the people in the field. 

But I would go so far as to say that in her modesty she did not 

mention that even in Hawaii they face risks. She was talking about 

the x-ray project, for example. These are old x-rays that emit toxic 

fumes when used, and she has people who are risking their health 

in order to settle these cases. 

And I think that is a fact that should be noted. And they are to 

be applauded for the risks they take to pursue this mission. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. And we certainly thank them. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

And I certainly hope we are doing everything we can to mitigate 

those health risks as well. And please let us know if there is something else that we should be doing. 

Ms. Kilroy. 

Ms. KILROY. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And thank 

you for allowing me to participate. 
37 

I have learned a great deal from both of the panels that have 

presented here this afternoon. 

And thank you, ambassador and admiral, for participating. 

Admiral, you referred to the rigors of the recoveries in Arunachal 

Province, and I appreciate you bringing that up. As you know, I 

had sent you a letter regarding the recovery of the remains of Second Lieutenant John Funk, a resident of Madison County, who as 

a navigator aboard a C–87 aircraft disappeared. And they have 

been located by a Mr. Clayton Kuhles, a private citizen, outside a 

village in that province. 

And as we know, you know, time is a very valuable and limited 

commodity for each and every one of us. But for the families of 

these men, the days are getting shorter. 

Lieutenant Funk’s radio operator was also one of the five whose 

remains were uncovered. His wife is still alive. She is 93 years old. 

And I think it is imperative that we make the recovery of the remains of our World War II fallen aviators and others a priority. 

Admiral CRISP. I agree with you. I mean, I have a widow that 

is in a mission just on the hill right from where I was at in her 

nineties that emails me very concerned to have her husband back 

with her before she goes on. 

So we are working very hard. In the case of people that go and 

find sites, and in the case of Mr. Kuhles, we have asked for the information and documentation. So very, very important to us when 

people go out—and there are many groups that go out and find 

things—that they return to us very detailed reports of what they 

have seen. 

Normally, we would prefer to wait till we had the documented 

information before we would ever go to a family member to say we 

were looking at going to somewhere for their loved one. So in the 

case of Mr. Kuhles, we have asked for all the documentation. And 

we hope to get it all. 

Ms. KILROY. Thank you. 

Admiral CRISP. And the government of India is very forward 

leaning in helping us. 

Ms. KILROY. That is good to hear. 

Admiral CRISP. And so I look forward to a long partnership. 

Ms. KILROY. In terms of the overall issue and reassessment of 

how resources should be deployed, in 2006 the Department of Defense stated that, quote, ‘‘Our long-term strategy for addressing 

World War II accounting is very much a work in progress’’ and 

noted that Congress mandated that the Department make a reasonable effort to recover remains of U.S. servicemen lost in Pacific 

theater air operations, particularly in New Guinea, that it contemplated a limited effort. 

Besides some of the physical challenges like you described with 

the altitude and other issues, what is holding back, or what can we 

do to help you to complete this particular mission? And I don’t 

mean—— 

Admiral CRISP. We are talking to—— 

Ms. KILROY [continuing]. Necessarily Lieutenant Funk, I mean 

the mission of recovery of the World War II missing. 
38 

Admiral CRISP. I believe we are focused on getting out to these 

sites and making positive relationships with all the countries. And 

that is the most important thing. 

If you desire to increase the number of missions, then that would 

be something that I would work into the calculus of what manpower would be required to do that. 

But right now if I were to look at level of effort in World War 

II, I spend 21 percent of my recovery and investigation missions in 

World War II, 12.8 percent in Korea, and 65.8 in the Vietnam War. 

So that is how I have parceled out doing the recovery and investigation teams. 

Ms. KILROY. Would outsourcing—I think variations of this question have been asked earlier, and I heard you talk about how important the mission-critical items were. But certainly there are 

some private labs and others that could be used to augment some 

of the Department’s efforts? 

Admiral CRISP. If I were to speak on behalf of my scientists, they 

would tell you that when you go out and have someone else disturb 

a site, many times you can destroy that very important piece of information that would have made the difference in being able to 

identify that hero or not. 

So on their behalf, they would say that they need to have very 

structured, stringent rules and regulations, and the identifications 

need to be done in a scientific laboratory. And they would most 

likely say contracting out would lead to error rates that our families would find unacceptable. If that is what you are asking. 

Ms. KILROY. Thank you. 

My time is expired. Thank you very much for your answers. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

And I just want to let you know, Ms. Kilroy, we really appreciate 

your being here today and sharing your interest in this issue. 

Thank you. 

Before I ask a question, I am going to go to Mr. Wilson. And then 

we will come back. And then we are going to stop the hearing in 

just a few minutes. 

Mr. WILSON. And Admiral, I am particularly happy to hear of the 

cooperation with the government of India, which is now a very 

strong strategic ally of the United States. And in particular, my father flew the ‘‘Hump,’’ and so he served with the 14th Air Force 

Flying Tigers in India and China. So as you were reviewing that, 

it had special interest for me. 

My final question for each of you: Would a congressional mandate, a new law, that DOD must ensure the fullest possible accounting of the missing and prisoners of war from Korea and World 

War II be helpful in addressing some of your concerns? 

Ambassador RAY. Congressman Wilson, Madam Chairwoman, 

any congressional authorization that we get—a congressional mandate is most helpful to us, particularly as we try to gather the resources needed to do any extra missions. 

So if there is a clear congressional mandate, it is always helpful. 

Admiral CRISP. And I will yield to Ambassador Ray on that. It 

is clearly a policy area. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 
39 

I would note that in the 2004 Defense Authorization Act, really, 

they reiterated the sense of Congress that the U.S. should continue 

to be relentless in those POW/MIA efforts. 

And I am wondering, Ambassador Ray, when it comes to trying 

to delineate perhaps a new direction or strategy that you spoke to 

earlier, do you see that in need of legislative action at all? 

Ambassador RAY. At this point, ma’am, I am trying to get as 

much input as I can from those in the community. And the community, I might point out, is—although we are the two large gorillas 

in the zoo, it is a fairly large menagerie of people who have an equity in it, who have a role to play in it, and whose input I would 

like to assess before we try and shape the strategy. 

At this point, I don’t that the remedies needed are legislative and 

not administrative changes in how we do this. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Do you have the flexibility that you need—— 

Ambassador RAY. So far—— 

Mrs. DAVIS [continuing]. To adjust that as you see fit? 

Ambassador RAY [continuing]. I have been given fairly free rein 

to try and herd the bureaucracy in the direction it needs to go. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. Thank you. I certainly acknowledge and recognize that, you know, many people who care so deeply in this issue 

are coming at it from different perspectives. And it is very difficult 

sometimes to blend all of those together in a way that works for 

everybody. 

Looking at the need to find family reference samples and how 

difficult that is, I wonder if you could just turn to the issue of 

where at this time, as I understand it, we allow the service casualty offices to assist in seeking those family reference samples for 

identification. 

Do you see that JPAC could play a larger role in this? I guess 

this is really to you, admiral. 

Admiral CRISP. Well, what we are doing—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. What do you see as some of the issues surrounding 

that question? 

Admiral CRISP. The family reference sample issue was primarily 

an ability to surge in genealogical research. So I know that the 

joint staff and others—we have basically a process improvement 

working group, which would be joint staff, OSD, AFDIL, JPAC. 

There is a need for a surge in genealogical work. So if you were 

to look at right now 64 percent of the—we have on hand 64 percent 

of the family reference samples, and we need the rest. It is around 

3,000. And most of them are in the Korean War area. 

And so we do need that to be surged. In addition to that, we are 

looking at scrubbing the data. Each group has a different language 

that they use to account for their numbers. So very important in 

any common operating picture is to standardize the language. That 

needs to be done this year. 

Ambassador Ray and I are proposing putting together a working 

group of just the people who do the numbers. We will sit them 

down in one room and scrub that information. 

And then after we get that common operating picture in paper, 

then our recommendation would be to automate that with some 

kind of middle ware that goes into the legacy software so that ev-
40 

eryone can see what the other person is seeing with family reference samples. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Is there an area in which JPAC should have a larger 

role in this? 

Admiral CRISP. We work on it in a process improvement group. 

So I don’t see it as a larger role. 

I think the stumbling block was infusing the services with more 

money for their genealogical work. 

Ambassador RAY. And I might add, Madam Chairwoman, the 

joint staff recently conducted a study regarding this issue and is 

looking for ways that they can be helpful. 

It is really less of a matter of asking can this or that organization do more, but how can we all do the job so that the whole job 

gets done better? 

And as Admiral Crisp alluded to, one of the biggest problems 

with this issue and with many other defense issues is every service 

has its own language. Every organization we deal with has its own 

language. I spent the first year on the job having people interpret 

for me at staff meetings because I didn’t understand most of what 

was being said coming from State. 

So we have spent a lot of time just trying to make sure that in 

fact the problem is a problem and not a matter of we are simply 

saying the same thing in different ways and leading us to the conclusion that there is. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. I certainly appreciate that. 

It was mentioned that we were here about nine months ago. And 

I am pleased that I had a chance to visit with you, Admiral, as well 

in Hawaii at JPAC. And what I am wondering is, you know, where 

should we be next year? What would you like to see have changed 

in the interim? And what questions would you hope we might ask 

next year? 

Admiral CRISP. Well, definitely I would like to have my addition 

finished this summer so I could have already tripled the amount 

of table space and seeing what positive results come from being 

able to lay out for the first time those unknowns from the Korean 

War that came in in the 1990s. 

So that has been a long time coming to have that opportunity. 

And I would look forward to some kind of results from that effort. 

Ambassador RAY. I think the ideal situation, in my view, would 

be that we determine an increased pace of output, be that identifications or recoveries, find ways to achieve it, and discover next 

year that we need to do more. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Right. 

Thank you very much. We certainly appreciate your being here. 

Again, thank you to our first panel as well. We know that you 

have traveled to be here. 

And I think that everybody who sits on this panel has a very 

clear sense of your commitment. And it is quite inspiring. 

Thank you very much. 

Ambassador RAY. Thank you, ma’am. 

Admiral CRISP. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 4:56 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

APRIL 2, 2009 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. DAVIS 

Mrs. DAVIS. Do you think creating a Defense Field Agency to consolidate all POW/ 

MIA affairs will help create a more efficient unity of effort especially with respect 

to funding and providing resources? 

Ambassador RAY. While unity of effort is highly desired, and we have been working hard to obtain it in the accounting mission, creating a Defense Field Agency 

that consolidates all the organizations involved in POW/MIA affairs is problematic. 

Organizations such as the service casualty and mortuary affairs offices, the Armed 

Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, and the Air Force’s Life Sciences Equipment 

Laboratory play an important role in the personnel accounting community, but they 

also have other missions as well. They would not be as effective if incorporated into 

a new Defense Field Agency, and it would not be efficient to duplicate the parts that 

support the personnel accounting community. Some efficiencies might be achieved 

by combining DPMO and JPAC into a single agency or under a single headquarters, 

but this needs careful study. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Collecting Family Reference Samples for comparison to remains is a 

slow process. Currently the service casualty offices are responsible to interface with 

the families and collect the samples for CIL. CIL will often send request for samples 

for remains they are examining and often wait over a year to receive the sample. 

Although the services state it is a priority, there are other challenges they face with 

the current conflict and managing the families of recent casualties. Should JPAC 

have a larger role in the collection of Family Reference Samples? 

Admiral CRISP. JPAC has taken a larger role in overall management of the Family Reference Sample (FRS) issue by hosting the first ‘‘FRS Summit’’ (8–10 June 

2009). All organizations involved with this critical portion of the accounting effort 

were present. DPMO is also leading an FRS working group and Lean Six Sigma 

project and PACOM and the Joint Staff are committed to supporting a genealogical 

surge effort to begin in 2010. JPAC has a significant role in providing requirements 

for the collection but the actual family contact and collection remains with the 

SCO’s. Although the Services are the primary interface with families, they are understandably focused on current death and support to current war families. Therefore, JPAC is recommending a temporary 3 year, 17 to 21 person ‘‘Task Force’’ to 

meet a requirement to obtain 90% of currently requested samples within 3 years. 

OSD is coordinating with Joint Staff to ascertain the best approach to managing 

this project. If determined appropriate, with additional resources, funding and personnel, JPAC is poised to manage this 3 year project. 

Mrs. DAVIS. JPAC is attempting to hire l6 anthropologists. The job announcement 

closed on 29 March 2009. How many applicants did you receive from this job announcement? 

Admiral CRISP. JPAC is not attempting to hire 16 Anthropologists. JPAC added 

5 physical anthropologist positions to the laboratory effective 1 March 2009 which 

brought our total vacant physical anthropologists billets to 8. JPAC is attempting 

to hire forensic Anthropologists at 4 different levels, entry through Senior, Board 

certified. We maintain open job announcements for qualified candidates at all of 

these levels. Since March, 4 qualified applicants have been offered positions, 3 have 

accepted. 

Mrs. DAVIS. There is concern that you are misleading your personnel strength, especially with Anthropologist, by including interns in your strength numbers. You 

stated this brings your manning from approximately 86% to 115%. If the interns 

are not qualified anthropologist, how can you realistically include them as part of 

your operational strength? 

Admiral CRISP. The reference to 86% manning in my written and oral statement 

referred to the percentage of JPAC’s military and civilian authorized strength and 

did not include interns or Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education (ORISE) 

Fellows; the statement was not specific to the Laboratory. Interns were not included 

in our strength numbers. I reported two categories of manning for the laboratory, 

federal civil service and ORISE Fellows. When reviewing the total work effort, 

ORISE Fellows, the majority of who have master’s and doctorate degrees in anthropology with significant case work experience, work full time within JPAC per-
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forming similar jobs as our federal civil service employees. Federal employment, 

military and civil service civilian personnel, in the laboratory was at 78% in April. 

To ensure clarity, JPAC will no longer report ORISE Fellows when discussing personnel manning. 

Mrs. DAVIS. What is the cost of this new Radiograph matching technology that 

is being developed and tested. How promising is this technology and how soon can 

it be in place to help the identification effort? 

Admiral CRISP. The total cost (to date) for the project is $450K. We anticipate an 

additional $230K will be required in FY2010/2011 to complete the project. These 

costs do not include the federal civilian service labor costs associated with the scientists working the project. 

The method promises to provide a means of matching remains to antemortem 

records that has greater probative value than mitochondrial DNA and comparable 

value to dental radiographic matching or nuclear DNA profile matching. It has the 

potential to play a key role in as many as 200 identifications from the Korean War 

Punchbowl Unknowns and numerous other Korean War cases. While JPAC is accelerating the project, estimated completing date is 1.5 to 2.2 years. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON 

Mr. WILSON. Please explain what you believe the study you have contracted for 

will provide in terms of the organizational structure of the personnel accounting 

community, the manning and the resources required to double the identifications? 

Ambassador RAY. DPMO tasked the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) to identify viable alternatives for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the JPAC 

Central Identification Laboratory’s current operations. This should include how various structural, resource and manning changes in the laboratory, as well as the personnel accounting community, can impact the rate of identifications. 

Mr. WILSON. Would the study provide a basis for decisions related to increasing 

identifications three-, four-, or five-fold? 

Ambassador RAY. The study was aimed at increasing the number of identifications to 180 per year by 2014—a 100% increase over the five-year average for years 

2003–2007. Once we receive and evaluate the study results, we will determine 

whether it provides a basis for an increase beyond that level. 

Mr. WILSON. You will be gone from your position well before any implementation 

of the study’s recommendations. To what extent have officials in the DOD staff and 

the Joint Staff committed to carrying out the recommendations of the study? 

Ambassador RAY. Once we have received and evaluated the study’s conclusions, 

we will brief the senior OSD policy leadership and appropriate members of the Joint 

Staff on the findings and recommendations. At this point, it is not possible to say 

what the reaction to the study will be. 

Mr. WILSON. What factors contribute to the low manning percentage at JPAC? 

Admiral CRISP. Our current manning is 86% with 97% military and 70% civilian; 

we are authorized 407 billets, 246 military and 161 civilian. We currently have 239 

military and 112 civilians onboard. The low percentage is due to two primary factors; 74 military to civilian conversions and the closing of the Navy Human Resource Service Center (HRSC)-Pacific, our servicing personnel center. The HRSC-Pacific was part of a base realignment and closure which directly impacted JPAC’s 

ability to hire personnel. As of January 2009, HRSC-Northwest has managed 

JPAC’s personnel actions and made our requirements a top priority. 

Mr. WILSON. When do you believe that JPAC will be fully manned at 100 percent 

of your current authorizations? Does current manning guidance from PACOM or the 

Navy set a prescribed manning level for JPAC that is below 100 percent? If so, what 

is the directed manning level? 

Admiral CRISP. Our current manning is 86% with 97% military and 70% civilian; 

we are authorized 407 billets, 246 military and 161 civilian. We currently have 239 

military and 112 civilians onboard. It is unlikely JPAC will achieve and sustain 

100% manning due to the dynamics of military and civilian personnel systems. 

There is no prescribed manning guidance from US Pacific Command or Department 

of the Navy that drives our military or civilian manning below 100%. 

Mr. WILSON. To what degree is the Hawaii location of the Central Identification 

Lab contributing to your difficulties in recruiting and retaining qualified specialists 

like anthropologists? 

Admiral CRISP. Forensic scientists with the requisite skills are a high-demand, 

low density demographic. The demand for forensic scientists has grown in recent 

years throughout the world which has impacted the available candidate pool. This 

situation is not unique to JPAC or Hawaii, but is a common challenge facing any 
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organization largely dependent on personnel drawn from highly specialized fields. 

The high cost of living associated with Hawaii and geographic separation from professional colleagues presents additional challenges. JPAC is attempting to overcome 

some of these challenges by aggressive recruiting efforts and offering special incentives such as assistance in student loan repayment, relocation/recruitment bonus, 

paying for relocation to Hawaii for new employees, and creating additional promotional opportunities to retain and recruit Anthropologists. JPAC is currently requesting the use of Target Local Market Supplement. 

Mr. WILSON. To what extent should your budget be protected from budget cuts 

in the year of execution? 

Admiral CRISP. Budget cuts in the year of execution result in the cancellation or 

reduction in scope of JPAC recovery missions and identifications. The unique mission of JPAC requires significant planning and coordination with host nations, with 

negotiations often occurring more than one year in advance. Last minute changes 

to negotiated arrangements, due to budget cuts in the execution year not only impact the mission but affect forging partnerships. 

Mr. WILSON. Could you elaborate on what ‘‘checks and balances’’ would be lost 

through a more centralized authority over the personnel accounting process? 

Ms. GRIFFITHS. Since the end of the Vietnam War, I have witnessed several moves 

to centralize and decentralize over nine administrations under six presidents. With 

centralized control, political agendas, self-interest, self-promotion and self-preservation can become the paramount objectives, as can expansion of the core power base, 

leading to self-reinforcement, instead of clear focus on an organization’s mission. 

With one central authority over both developing and establishing policy and planning and controlling implementation of operations, priorities become misplaced and 

criteria to judge success becomes self-fulfilling. With total control, there is little 

competition for excellence and even less tolerance for outside inputs and opinions. 

Those in total control hold all the keys, have all the answers, control the funding 

and can readily manipulate the personnel, yet still go unchallenged. 

A sense of entitlement seems to come with centralized control. This can generate 

excessive focus on justifying the organization, rather than utilizing the system to 

address issues of importance to the mission of achieving defined objectives though, 

with total control, even the objectives are self-determined. Protection of centralized 

control induces fear of recrimination, and fear of recrimination dampens open dialogue, introduction of concepts and honest critiques of established processes. 

Before long, the mission is left with one set of self-important, but comparatively 

uninformed officials talking with each other, and another set of self-preservationists 

simply going along to get along and retain employment. The combination contributes only to what is expected and desired, rather than the best judgments, based 

on experience, of people who are led by the example of inspired leaders. 

The central authority finds greater comfort in hearing from those who are likeminded, or feign such, than in dealing with those whose opinions raise questions 

or require solutions. Such are the apparent reasons behind the current push for 

DPMO to be the central control of all matters pertaining to the POW/MIA accounting effort and the basis for insulating policy decision-making by cautioning US officials involved in the process to refrain from ‘‘pre-decisional consultation’’ outside 

their own organization or certainly outside official channels. 

Frustrations stem from the penchant of some to keep secrets, even withholding 

vital information from others on the misplaced theory that knowledge is power, 

rather than recognizing the utility of sharing relevant data with those who have a 

legitimate need to know and are working to solve problems and find solutions. Selfconfident, inquiring officials from all the organizations with different funding 

streams, if unafraid to raise questions and offer comments, have the best set of circumstances for creating smart policy and providing guidance for successful implementation. This openness, however, is feared most by those afraid to expose to the 

outside world their own ineptness or lack of serious interest. At its best, an openminded interagency approach is useful in drawing out recommendations and concepts for improvements that can then be balanced against the policy objectives and 

vested interests espoused throughout an interagency community. The advantages of 

interagency coordination and cooperation far outweigh the negatives, especially with 

highly qualified people of integrity in each diverse organization. 

Ironically, in no other official priority is such insulation either sought or allowed; 

in fact, it is quite the contrary, especially as thus far undertaken by the current 

administration. We look to this Subcommittee for closer oversight and preservation 

of an open decision-making process, with input from all agencies involved as stakeholders under policy guidance from OSD and implementation at the lowest possible 

level by personnel closest to the problems and challenges on the ground. 
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Mr. WILSON. If JPAC were resourced and funded to expand the number of detachments it could field, would you still object to deploying JPAC detachments to improve the personnel recovery process of the 80,000 World War II POW/MIAs? 

Ms. GRIFFITHS. For purposes of understanding the question, I will assume the 

word ‘‘detachments’’ equates to ‘‘teams’’ . . . . believing that may be what the question 

is truly asking. Several other points in the question, however, require clarification, 

including the differences in outcomes of the various wars that impact JPAC’s expanded accounting mission, including the fact that there are not ‘‘80,000 World War 

II POW/MIAs.’’ 

Without going into numerical detail, the term ‘‘POW/MIA’’ does not realistically 

depict the status of unaccounted for Americans from WWII. Roughly half of the 

78,000 still unaccounted for from WWII are and will remain KIA/BNR; thousands 

of these personnel are officially considered buried at sea due to the sinking of many 

US Navy vessels during that worldwide tragedy. This estimate is based on DPMO’s 

publicly available statistics and on-the-record statements by Ambassador Ray. 

As to differences in each war’s outcome, WWII was won by the United States and 

her allies so, to a large extent, there was access to the battlefield, unlike the endresult of the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The Cold War is in its own realm, 

equating more to spy episodes than to combat, though no less heroic and, in many 

instances, much more critical to our nation. 

Approximately 90% of sites estimated as potentially recoverable and possibly over 

land masses are in the U.S. Pacific Command’s area of operations. It is entirely feasible that with increased funding and personnel, JPAC could field more investigation and recovery teams, thereby addressing more cases across all conflicts each 

year. As I testified on April 2nd, with those increased teams would also come a requirement for support personnel in JPAC headquarters, as well as increased personnel requirements in the Service Casualty Offices to support family outreach and 

notifications. 

Specific to the question of adding JPAC Detachments, placing one in Papua New 

Guinea (PNG) could serve a regionally useful role to facilitate WWII-related investigations and recoveries in Palau, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and other such locations. However, in countries such as South Korea where US Armed Forces are stationed, these personnel can be tapped for support within existing structure and 

manpower, as is done routinely by JPAC today. 

Likewise, in Europe, there is no compelling need for a JPAC Detachment. There 

are plenty of US Armed Forces stationed in Germany, Belgium, England, Spain and 

other countries with mortuary and other skills for simple exhumations. The U.S. 

Army Mortuary-Europe supports JPAC operations and, with increased training, personnel and funding, to include adding a JPAC liaison and research historian, this 

existing mortuary could potentially assist in more European missions. 

Burial locations of U.S. and Allied forces in Europe, former states that comprised 

the Soviet Union and Russia will continue to be discovered for decades, as populations shift and grow, as fields once farmed become locations for shopping centers 

or other development. In Russia and former Eastern European countries, JPAC’s 

work is augmented by the U.S. personnel of the Joint Commission Support Directorate (JCSD), manned by specialists who conduct interviews, investigations and 

surveys. When discoveries are made, there should obviously be an attempt to recover and identify the remains of any American veteran, though uncertainty is unlikely for their immediate families at this point in history. The families of 

unreturned WWII veterans long ago accepted the reality that their loved ones are 

deceased. In fact, many ‘‘unknowns’’ are buried as ‘‘Unknowns’’ in American Cemeteries throughout Europe. 

The truce that halted combat in the Korean War left the U.S. without access to 

vast areas north of the 38th parallel, but with a large number of forces stationed 

in what became South Korea. This was particularly tragic in relation to known 

POW camps, controlled by the Communist Chinese People’s Liberation Army. At 

least 389 Americans known to have entered these camps alive were not returned 

in the ‘‘Big Switch’’ and ‘‘Little Switch’’ operations called for at Panmunjom. Many 

U.S. and Allied POWs died in these camps and were buried in cemeteries located 

adjacent to the camps, as evidenced by photographs taken in the early 1980s, and 

U.S. archival records. 

Pursuing answers on Korean War losses was halted by the U.S. for reasons having nothing to do with the POW/MIA issue and linked to national security, nuclear 

proliferation and political considerations. Unless there is high level administration 

willingness to seek cooperation from the PRC for access to sources and archival documents related to the POW camps, and to talk bilaterally with DPRK officials on 

a separate, humanitarian basis to reach agreement on access and compensation 

terms, there will be no accounting in the near term for those missing and KIA/BNR 
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in North Korea, even those initially listed as POWs. The U.S. can and does pursue 

surveys and remains recoveries of those killed and buried in unknown locations in 

South Korea. For that to occur, no JPAC Detachment is needed, due to the presence 

of U.S. Armed Forces, the longstanding role of the United Nations Command, and 

the priority that the South Korean Government has placed on accounting for their 

own people by forming MAKRI, their version of JPAC and its Central Identification 

Laboratory. 

There has recently been a ‘‘strawman’’ raised in the context of establishing JPAC 

field operation priorities that no POW/MIA Is more important than another in terms 

of scheduling, that all are equal. On its face, this statement appears valid, but it 

also ignores the differing outcomes from various wars and the different approaches 

required for achieving the fullest possible accounting from all wars. Gaining cooperation from, and access to, countries where U.S. losses occurred during the Vietnam War was a product of intense, high-level negotiations, once internal U.S. priority was established. The same will be true for North Korea. Recovering KIA/BNR 

personnel from WWII sites does not require such efforts since many of the governments involved are former allies and/or non-hostile. 

The answer lies in expanding resources and personnel to meet increased requirements, not shifting them from operations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In conformity with all being equal in priority, it should not be a zero-sum-game, and families with loved ones missing from one war should not be pitted against one another. 

The League supports increased resources and personnel, smartly deployed, to account as fully as possible for those missing from all of America’s wars and conflicts. 

As for the priority placed on the Vietnam War veterans still missing and unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, the country of Vietnam was and remains the controlling factor in 90% of all loss locations. Due to comparatively advanced wartime communication capabilities, much is known about the degree to which the Vietnamese 

government can, on its own, account for missing U.S. personnel. This is especially 

true on discrepancy cases of U.S. personnel last known alive in captivity or alive 

on the ground and in immediate proximity to capture. Unilateral provision of archival records would also facilitate joint field operations by identifying potential witnesses who could be located and interviewed for relevant case-specific data. In that 

interview process, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s POW/MIA investigation specialists, known as the Stony Beach Team, augments JPAC’s capability by applying their 

skills and experience to obtaining relevant information. 

At the time of my testimony, I had just returned from a trip to Vietnam, Laos 

and Cambodia where meetings were held with each country’s senior officials. We 

were accompanied in all meetings by the U.S. Ambassador to each country, the 

JPAC Detachment Commanders and by Defense Attache ́s in Vietnam and Cambodia. While I reported previously on the very positive outcomes in Laos and Cambodia, the focus continues to be on Vietnam due to its unique ability to contribute 

to the accounting, if motivated. That is why their consensus proposal to expand the 

pace and scope of joint field operations is particularly important. Their rationale for 

proposing the expansion were expressions of earlier U.S. concerns, i.e. potential destruction of incident sites due to development, and death or failing recollections of 

witnesses. 

This timely expansion should be accomplished by increasing U.S. capability, not 

by reducing remains recoveries related to earlier wars and conflicts. Meeting Vietnam’s proposal to expand accounting efforts will require a commitment by the 

Obama Administration to increase the budget and number of people involved despite the necessary continuing focus on counter-terrorism and the wars in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. The increases for JPAC, from their headquarters and laboratory complement to field operators, would also require plus-ups in support organizations, casualty offices, LSEL and AFDIL, but there should be little to no impact on DPMO 

as the DoD office responsible for providing policy guidance and oversight, not conducting operations, except for JCSD–Moscow, the only forward-deployed operational 

element of DPMO. 

Again, we must rely on the Committee to advocate and closely monitor the Administration’s effort to honor commitments to America’s POW/MIAs and their families. Our Armed Forces serving today depend on all of us to ensure that we are 

there for them, that we have their backs, should they be captured or become missing. Because of America’s commitment to our POW/MIAs, nations around the world 

are now doing much the same, and that leadership is important to our country’s 

core values. 

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