DefenseLink.mil - Honoring the Pledge

“We are showing today's servicemembers and the families of today’s servicemembers that these people that we send in harm's way will not be forgotten, if, God forbid, something should happen. We will do everything in our power to bring them home and that we will remember their sacrifices.” Air Force Capt. Mary R. Olsen, Pentagon POW/MIA Office in Arlington, Va.

Robert Mann, deputy scientific director at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, talks about its Central Identification Laboratory, the world's largest skeletal forensic lab and home to the largest concentration of forensic anthropologists in the world. Defense Dept. photo by Fred W. Baker III

About 88,000 servicemembers from past wars are still buried on foreign shores and at sea. Quietly, almost behind the scenes of the current conflicts, hundreds of military troops and civilians have gone about the business of bringing them home one by one. They're honoring the nation's pledge to leave no one behind.

Army Sgt. Jared Michalek, a JPAC recovery team noncommissioned officer, looks for any pieces of evidence that can help identify a missing servicemember recovered at a site in Germany. Defense Dept. photo by Fred W. Baker III

Feature Stories

Leaders Pledge Support on POW/MIA Day
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 2008 – On a small parade field at the steps of the Pentagon and across the river from the skyline of the nation’s capital, top military and political leaders today pledged to continue looking for missing servicemembers no matter the cost. Story

Agencies Search For, Bring Home Missing Troops
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2008 – Hundreds of military troops and civilians are going about the business of bringing missing servicemembers from past wars home, one by one. Story

Command Identifies Missing Soldiers' Remains
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2008 – Until six years ago, U.S. Navy Seaman Apprentice Thomas Hembree, who was killled in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, laid in a grave marked "unknown" at the national cemetery there. Now, his family knows where "Uncle Tommy" is because of the work of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. Story | Slides

JPAC Teams Serve on Front Lines of Recoveries
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2008 – Tech. Sgt. Valda Wilson is an Air Force photographer. But last month in a harvested wheat field in the village of Strass near Germany's Hurtgen Forest, she spent most of her days with her hands full of dirt, looking for the remains of a servicemember.
Story | Slides

U.S. Military Vows to Bring Every Troop Home
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2008 – No U.S. servicemembers are now listed as missing or captured during operations in Afghanistan. One U.S. soldier is currently listed as missing-captured in Iraq. The remains of three other U.S. soldiers who had been reported as missing-captured in Iraq were recovered and identified earlier this year. Story