Remains Returned
Includes:
Vietnam Conflict
Mayaguez
Glomar Java Sea
Bay of Pigs

WWII/Korean/Cold War remains returned

REMAINS

I  hate the sound
the word in my ears
hate the meaning
the connotation
of pain and tears -
I hate the word
“Remains”.
Bits of bone
and shreds of cloth;
perhaps a piece of plane
physical remnants
of someone’s life -
“Beloved” was
his name;
Someone brave who died
amid the chaos
and the flames
someone young
someone strong
he is not
“remains”.

… and though he slumbers far away
he lives on in someone’s heart
as real today as yesterday
though they’ve been long apart…
he smiles out of
yearbooks
and grins from
picture frames
Oh, he is so much
more to her
than a simple word
“Remains”

©Christina

Some of these announced identification have been disputed or rejected ( * ) by family members. 
Even when I.D.s are officially rescinded (+), names remain on this list forever.
Group Burials (~)are noted.
Category 5 Remains (#) were considered UNRECOVERABLE.

P.O.W. NETWORK NOTES:

AMERICANS IDENTIFIED:   There are now 1,651 Americans listed by the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) as missing and unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War.  04/2013

 

A difference of 532 ??   Currently there are 73,681 missing from WWII, 7,995 missing from Korean War, 126 from Cold War, 1,664 missing from Vietnam War and 6 missing from the Iraq & Other Conflicts for a total of 83,432 missing action from WWII, Korea, Vietnam War, Iraq & other Conflicts.     06/2012 VVA A total of 74,213 U.S. service members remain missing from World War II, with 19,000 deemed recoverable. There are also 127 missing from the Cold War, 8,034 from the Korean War, and 1,723 from the Vietnam War, according to the command's latest figures.      02/14/2010 http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20100214/NEWS01/2140381/Hawaii%E2%80%99s+Hickam+AFB+preparing+to+upgrade+lab+to+ID+war+dead The number of Americans announced as returned and identified since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 is now 917. Another 63 US personnel, recovered post-incident and identified before the end of the war, bring the officially listed total recovered and identified to 980.....NLF 05/14/2012

 

Still others have been ID’d, not yet announced by DPMO, perhaps due to delays in scheduling ID consultations with the primary-next-of-kin (PNOK).  The reality is that PNOK no longer retain decision-making capability before official ID, but the pretense has been retained.     

Due to circumstances as noted below - we question the validity of ANY of the numbers.

Some of these announced identification have been disputed or rejected (*) by family members. 

Even when I.D.s are officially recinded (+), names remain on this list forever.

Group Burials (~)are noted.

Category 5 Remains (#) were considered UNRECOVERABLE.

<I.D. DISPUTED 02/76, not listed by the USG - Robert Lee Luster>

** NOT LISTED BY USG when posted - Announced by family, not DoD

// - Remains were identified in 2000 - family did not receive remains for burial until 10/2003

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 523-11
June 17, 2011

Airman Missing from Vietnam War Identified
 

            The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

            Air Force 1st Lt. David A. Thorpe of Seneca Falls, N.Y., will be buried June 23 at Arlington National Cemetery.  On Oct. 3, 1966, Thorpe's C-130E, with four other men aboard, failed to arrive at Nha Trang Air Base following their departure from Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam.  Rescue personnel found their remains at the crash site in South Vietnam eight days later approximately 40 miles west of Nha Trang. The cause of the crash is not known.

            Between 1984 and 1996, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) received human remains tentatively linked to Thorpe and the other crew members from various sources including refugees from the Vietnam War and Vietnamese citizens. Lacking advanced scientific tools and complete records during this time period, JPAC was unable to make an individual identification of Thorpe's remains, so he was buried as part of a group at Arlington.  Other remains associated with the entire group were held at JPAC's laboratory for future testing.

            As DNA testing procedures improved in the late 1990s, JPAC's forensic anthropologists applied the latest technologies from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory to include mitochondrial testing, a sample of which matched the DNA from Thorpe's sister.  His dental records also helped confirm the identification.

            With the accounting of this airman, 1,687 service members still remain missing from the Vietnam War.

            For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call 703-699-1169.
 

===============================

Marengo Airman Returns Home Again after 44 years

Published on May 04, 2011

By Mike Bigalke, Marengo Historian

VIETNAM-This story begins in Vietnam in 1966. First Lieutenant James H. Graff was a co-pilot on a U.S. Air Force C-130 with four other crew members when their plane crashed into a mountain side in Khanh Hoa Province, South Vietnam. The date was October 3, 1966. The crash was listed as, “caused by ground fire or sabotage.” First Lieutenant Graff had been in Vietnam just four months. Jim, and his wife Charlene, had two daughters-- Lora Beth, who was 3 years-old, and Janette Carol, who was only one years-old at the time of her father’s death. He also left behind: his mother, Geraldine; his father, Howard; his older brother, David; and his younger sister, Carol. Captain James H. Graff was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia on October 26, 1966. Jim was posthumously given a Captain’s Commission and also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Metal, and the Purple Heart. At the time, their remains were recovered by the military eight days after the crash. DNA research was in its infancy; therefore, Captain Graff and his C-130s navigator’s remains could not be distinguished and were buried together as they could not be separated. Jim’s last mission they flew was into the northern part of South Vietnam. The group of refugees had been delivered; and Jim’s plane was on a return trip to pick up more people for relocation when the C-130 exploded. Later, evidence proved that there had been a bomb planted. It was an act of sabotage that took the lives of Jim and the crew members......................

==============================

..... Graff and the navigator (Thorpe???) were buried as group at Arlington in  1966.   Does this mean Clayton, Smith and Wheeler were individually id'd in 1966.  Or DOD is not mentioning them because it would raise questions......     LO
 

[#] These individuals were "CATEGORY 5"

Categories of Degrees of Information
Enemy knowledge of POW/MIA

Category 5, Category unrelated to degree of enemy knowledge.

A. Individuals whose remains have been determined to be non-recoverable as outlined in Department of the Army Technical Manual 10-286, January 1964, section 39.

Category Data from Defense Intelligence Agency
January 20, 1982

AMERICANS IDENTIFIED SINCE 1994
WWII, KOREA, COLD WAR

Hanoi Jane Fonda