A Complete Restart Not Necessary   This article is on the right track it it were just reorganized   In general other articles start with a background of the history of the term  In this case when did the designation of MIA begin  The idea was used as long ago as the American Civil War and surely the concept was known in the Napoleonic wars as many prisoners were taken  However it is also likely that the designation of MIA was a product of the expected survival or capture of opposition  In PreNapoleonic times most wounded soldiers died and many would be killed rather than taken prisoner  I am not enough of an expert on this to say when the changes took place but it surely has something to do with MIA as a designation  I think that the Kerry issue is not germane at all to the overall topic although may be worthy of exploration  Mentioning VietNam and Korea are not US centric either as Korea was a UN sponsored war and many countries sent soldiers  While less widely supported British Australian and Korean soldiers were also present in South VietNam as were Chinese and Soviet soldiers in the North  However there were many wars that were fought by countries other than the US that bear mentioning especially those fought by Israel    LT OCT