Joint Prisoner of War (POW) and Missing in action (MIA) accounting command, aka JPAC. A mouthful of a title conveniently summed up in a useful military acronym.
JPAC has the mission of recovering, identifying, and returning the remains of unnamed soldiers from past wars.
More than 83,000 Americans are classified as missing in action from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War. So, the burden is great for hundreds on Department of Defense personnel charged with the duty of identifying the remains
The ceremonies held for the returning of deceased soldiers.
Forensic Anthropologists are held in high regard for their importance in missions like these.
The scientists are an absolute necessity, they have the training skills to identify bodies off of almost no information, except the bodies themselves.
They have to work with very limited information, sometimes not even full bodies. But yet, they are still able to compare the information they have to records of the military.
Not only are they are able to bring closure to hurting families, by bringing lost soldiers home, but they are able to find out if soldiers are still living.
The scientists are an absolute necessity, they have the training skills to identify bodies off of almost no information, except the bodies themselves.
They have to work with very limited information, sometimes not even full bodies. But yet, they are still able to compare the information they have to records of the military.
Not only are they are able to bring closure to hurting families, by bringing lost soldiers home, but they are able to find out if soldiers are still living.
The military didn't start using identifying tags until 1912, already two years into WWI.
And even then, the tags were not a perfected identification tool until the late 1950's
Now, the military has more exact records to keep track of our modern day soldiers. Such as dog tags, DNA, body records (height, weight, jaw x-rays, etc.)
And even then, the tags were not a perfected identification tool until the late 1950's
Now, the military has more exact records to keep track of our modern day soldiers. Such as dog tags, DNA, body records (height, weight, jaw x-rays, etc.)
http://www.jpac.pacom.mil/index.php?page=home&size=100&ind=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_in_action
http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_in_action
http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/
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