Federal officials will give updates on nation’s MIAs

Friday, Jan. 19, 2001 | 10:48 a.m.

MIA briefing

Thousands of U.S military personnel from the last four significant wars still are unaccounted for, and despite claims to the contrary the government says it has not given up efforts to find them or keep the public informed of the progress.

Government officials, however, say turnouts by the general public and veterans groups at their monthly visits to major U.S. cities for missing-in-action updates have been poor.

At 7 p.m. Friday, representatives of the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office will stop in Las Vegas at the Alexis Park Resort, 375 E. Harmon Ave. It will be the only such local MIA briefing for the next three to four years, officials said.

"Those who attend are interested and some are quite vocal, but only about a dozen people show up," said Lt. Col. Thomas Erstfeld, chief of the Political/Military Outreach Program in Washington, D.C.

"We feel it is pretty important that members of the various veterans groups attend, then report back to their organizations about our efforts to make a full accounting."

Erstfeld said the problem is not a lack of interest, but rather a poor job of getting the word out about such meetings, especially by veterans service groups.

Erstfeld admits that while it is doubtful that the missing from World War II, Korea and Vietnam are still being held against their will, efforts are made to check out legitimate reports.

"There is always some group or Internet website making claims that servicemen are still being held against their will, but to date we have not found any credible evidence of that," he said. "We recently found that four (ex-American military personnel) were living in Korea, but they had (long ago) defected to the other side."

The Bring Them Home Alive Act of 2000 grants U.S. refugee status to any foreign national who can produce a living American military member who is listed as missing in a foreign land. No one has yet come forward with American MIAs.

To families of MIAs, Erstfeld said, it is important to learn what happened to the missing warriors -- alive or dead -- to bring closure to their lives.

"I had a case recently where a woman had a brother who was missing in Korea, and I was able to provide her with just a single piece of paper with an account of the incident," Erstfeld said. "She was so grateful and said that in many years of searching this was the most information she had received. It had been available, but she did not know how to access the information. That's part of our job."

On Saturday, at an undisclosed time and location, Las Vegas relatives of people who are missing in action will meet privately with the same military officials for updates on their lost family members. Erstfeld said traditionally those meetings in cities across America are well-attended.

Currently, there are 78,000 World War II American military members who still are unaccounted for, 8,100 missing U.S. Korean War military members, 1,991 missing U.S. Southeast Asia military members and one Persian Gulf War pilot whose whereabouts is unknown. The number of missing Las Vegans from past wars was not immediately available.

Until earlier this month, Erstfeld said, there were no Persian Gulf War MIAs, only those who were missing and presumed dead. Recently, the government changed the status of Lt. Cmdr. Michael Speicher, the first bomber pilot shot down over Iraq. His body was never found, and the government now believes it is possible he might not have died in the crash.

Missing military men do turn up, but often not alive. For instance, in mid-December, the remains of 19 World War II Marines were discovered at the Makin Atoll in the Pacific. The remains of one of them was returned to his family for burial in his home state. The other 18 are scheduled for burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

"Often all we find are bones and there is no way we can identify them," Erstfeld said. "About 1,000 (sets of bones) are buried in the 'punch bowl' section of a national cemetery in Hawaii. They remain unaccounted for because we could not get positive IDs."

For future wars, Erstfeld said, that may not be a problem.

"Today, a DNA sample is taken from everyone who goes into the military," he said. "It will make identifications easier."