use our online form to report a potential recovery site,

available at www.jpac.pacom.mil

The Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command (JPAC) is a special U.S. Depart-

ment of Defense unit based in Hawaii. Each year, JPAC teams deploy to Europe and around the globe to investigate and excavate sites in the search of Americans who died during wartime but were never recovered. Possible human remains and material evidence recovered by JPAC team members are brought back to Hawaii, where JPAC forensic scientists attempt to establish the identity of the remains in our laboratory, the largest foren-sic anthropology center in the world. Each year, JPAC identifies about 100 individuals. All identified Americans are returned to their family to be buried with full military honors. There

Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command

www.jpac.pacom.mil 2006

How you can help us identify World War II American war dead

are thousands of U.S. military crash and burial sites around Europe, most from World War II. That means that there are thousands of families in the U.S. awaiting answers about their loved ones who are still missing. Here's how you can help. If you have information about a crash site or a burial location where you

believe missing Americans may lie, we ask that you immediately contact JPAC and do not disturb the site. The best way to assist us is to help us protect sites from tampering or scavenging until we can get there.

JPAC experts recover sites and estab-lish identifications of unaccounted-for Americans based on a rigorous process that meets both scientific and legal requirements. Forensic anthropology is a discipline that takes many years to learn. Our forensic anthropologists are certified experts in their field. It would not be

practical or possible to train private citizens to do this work. Recovery operations are a destructive process that can only be done right the first time. Valuable and potential-ly crucial evidence will be lost if the site is not profession-

ally excavated and documented. Improper excavation of a site often slows down our mission and, in some cases, destroys our chances of identifying a lost service member.

Accounting for America's missing military members can be a long and complicated process that must be left to our professionally certified forensic scientists and technical experts. This process is conducted within strict scientific guidelines to ensure each identification we make is

scientifically and legally valid.

www.jpac.pacom.mil 2006

"Until they are home"

Disturbing the suspected site of an unaccounted-for American is similar to disturbing a crime scene – when ama-teur historians, archeologists, or hobbyists dig up a site, remove evidence, or rearrange a site it may make it impossible for our forensic anthropologists to piece together evidence to establish an identification. People generally only see what they perceive as the success of private recovery expeditions, not the failures. If a private citizen decides to dig up a site and discovers potential evidence, this does not help us more rapidly identify an individual. By way of example, an amateur in Europe recently used a backhoe to dig up the remains of a possible American. While this gentleman found a tooth fragment, the crude method used to dig the site may have ruined our chances of ever finding the remaining

teeth. Teeth are the best source of identification available to our forensic experts. At worst, this may have cost us the proof needed to establish a legal identification of the remains. At a minimum, this will lead to a lengthier and costlier identification. This is but one example of why this work must be left to our trained, certified professionals. We are often asked by private citizens and family members of unaccounted-for Americans to immediately excavate a particular site. We respect and share this sense of urgency. However, JPAC is responsible for the investigation and recovery of tens of thousands of cases all over the globe. We put great care into prioritizing our missions to ensure we get the most out of our limited staff and budget size. We may not get to a particular site tomorrow, but we will get there

Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command 310 Worchester Ave, Bldg. 45 Hickam AFB, HI 96853-5530 Phone: +1 (808) 448-1934

Fax: +1 (808) 448-1998 public_affairs@jpac.pacom.mil

as soon as possible. JPAC has an excellent track record of completing sites. The number of recovery sites continues to grow each year, but every site that is endangered by good-inten-tioned efforts forces another case to be delayed. JPAC’s goal is to excavate sites in a fair and methodical fashion. At any given time, JPAC has a queue of more than two hundred sixty sites that are ready for excavation, but the unit is limited to investigating or excavating about one hundred fifty incidents per year. Visit our web site or contact us for more information, and thank you.

During a JPAC excavation, the forensic scientist in charge divides the site into grids with stakes and string, similar to an archeological site. Then, each section is excavated one at a time. Just as at a crime scene, the JPAC team must precisely track what the teams find and where they find it. This information is used to recreate the circumstances of the case, evidence that is critical to the remains identification process. Above (inset, left) is an example of a detailed map created by a JPAC scientist to document an excavation. On the right (inset), all items relating to an unresolved case, excluding skeletal or dental remains, are considered material evidence and are carefully examined in the field. Artifacts like this piece of an aircraft console are important pieces of evidence for JPAC forensic scientists.

8,100 — Korean War

78,000* —

World War II

88,000 Americans are still missing

1,800 — Vietnam War120 — Cold War

1 — Gulf War