Photo by Tech. Sgt. Rusty Frank
U.S./Vietnam Repatriation Ceremony
DPAA Detachment Two and the Vietnam Office for Seeking Missing Persons (VNOSMP) helding a remains turnover ceremony Dec. 14, 2021, in Da Nang, Vietnam. Two sets of possible remains and material evidence are being returned to the DPAA Laboratory in Hawaii for further analysis. The repatriated remains were recovered by unilateral and joint excavation teams during the 144th and 145th Joint Field Activity (JFA).
DPAA seeks families’ help for WWII Soldiers lost in Market Garden
DPAA historian Dr. Ian Spurgeon interviews Maj Moffatt Burriss (Ret), former commander of Company I, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, at Den Heuvel, Netherlands, in September 2014. Three soldiers from Major Burriss’ company are still missing from combat at Den Heuvel during Operation Market Garden. The agency is currently tracking 52 soldiers still missing in the Netherlands and some neighboring German communities from Operation Market Garden.
USS Oklahoma Reinterment Ceremony
On the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy, in partnership with DPAA, hosted a reinterment ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific for the 33 remaining Sailors of the USS Oklahoma who were unable to be individually identified. Through all modern efforts, 361 of the 394 Sailors and Marines originally buried as Unknowns were individually identified.
You can watch the ceremony at either of the links below.
Photo by Staff Sgt. Apryl Hall
USS Oklahoma Group Remains Initial Ceremony
The U.S. Navy and DPAA held an interment ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu Dec. 1. The partial re-interment ceremony was for USS Oklahoma Sailors who perished during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and could not be individually identified during our six-year USS Oklahoma Project. The final remains from the ship will be buried on Dec. 7, 2021, the 80th anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor, in a formal ceremony at the Punchbowl and will officially mark the end of project, which individually identified 92 percent of the Sailors and Marines from the USS Oklahoma.
U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Michael O'Neal
Humanitarian Outreach
U.S. Army Capt. Muhammad Mansoor, an Internal Medicine Physician, assigned to a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) recovery team, examines a local villager in Xiangkhouang Province, Laos, Nov. 18, 2021. During the DPAA recovery mission, members of the medical team provide health care to local villagers as part of DPAA’s humanitarian outreach initiative. There are currently 1,584 missing service members from the Vietnam War. DPAA’s mission is to achieve the fullest possible accounting for missing and unaccounted-for U.S. personnel to their families and our nation.
Photo Courtesy of U.S. Embassy in Laos
Ambassdor visits DPAA site in Laos, brings Thanksgiving meal to team
On Nov. 24, U.S. Ambassador to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Peter Haymond, visited two Defense POW / MIA Accounting Agency Joint Field Activity Sites, along with representatives from the Lao Government, and met with the technical experts who are conducting a humanitarian mission in the north. The Ambassador and his team brought some traditional Thanksgiving foods like turkey along with desserts from the Embassy community to help the service members celebrate the holiday away from their friends and families.
DPAA Year in Review
The FY 2021 Year in Review magazine is here!
Our annual magazine chronicles our efforts throughout the previous fiscal year to fulfill our sacred mission to bring home those still unaccounted for from our past wars and conflicts.
You can view or download it by clicking on the link below or going to the Year In Review website page.