Still Searching

From the Stars and Stripes:

"List of troops missing since WWII still tops 83,000"

 

They still weep. Even after all these years. For their men who vanished in war -- fathers, sons, brothers, husbands whose remains were never found. For the shadows that have haunted their families. And the vigils that won't end until there's no one left alive who remembers and still hurts Time is not on your side, Jack Kull reminded those who came to the Norfolk Waterside Marriott on Saturday for an update from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. That's the government department responsible for determining the fate of America's missing service members once hostilities end and for recovering remains where possible. More than 83,000 are unaccounted for from World War II to the latest conflicts. Politics keep recovery teams out of North Korea. In Vietnam, acidic soil eats at remains in rugged regions that are hard to reach. Roughly 75 percent of the missing were lost somewhere in the Pacific, most in deep water. No one is getting those family members back, Kull said. Around 26,000 others are considered "pursuable -- cases where we have something we can work with. Where there's a chance." There is hope. Since the agency last came to Norfolk nearly 20 years ago, the remains of 1,473 once-missing service members have been sent home.

 

^ It's hard for many people to imagine the enormous task that it is to find the remains of soldiers in faraway places that contain: jungles, deserts, oceans, mountains, forests, etc. With that said it is good to see that the US Government hasn't stopped looking for their men and women that have been missing since the 1940s. Some countries would just have given-up long ago. ^

http://www.stripes.com/list-of-troops-missing-since-wwii-still-tops-83-000-1.367885