A tattered rotor blade jutting from the hillside served as a grim marker over a valley of emerald-green rice paddies. Local police secured the area and confiscated the camera of an Associated Press photographer. Curious villagers watched from the valley as officials recovered wreckage from the mountain. Childress said no decision has been made whether the MIA mission would go on. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the overall program of accounting for MIAs and recovering their remains will continue.
Every mission is a dangerous mission.
It's a very difficult area to operate in. The Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, based in Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, has searched for MIA remains from the Indochina War in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and southern China since 1992, and in recent years has expanded operations to include World War II and Korean War MIA recovery cases. Since 1973, the remains of 591 American service members formerly listed as unaccounted for have been identified and returned to their families. There are 1,992 Americans still unaccounted for from the war in Southeast Asia, including 1,498 in Vietnam. Quang Binh province was the southernmost province of North Vietnam during the war, just north of the former demilitarized zone.