The Department of Defense agency that is trying to determine what happened to the 83,000 service men and women still unaccounted for since World War II will come to Portland next week to try to help families find some answers.
And to ask those same families for some help, in the form of DNA samples.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency will hold a daylong meeting for families of the missing on Nov. 14 at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel on Maine Mall Road in South Portland, Staff Sgt. Kristen Duus said in an email announcing the event.
About 200 people from Maine and other parts of the Northeast already have registered to attend, Duus wrote, and about 30 agency members will be on hand.
Agency staff members use the registrations to gather information about specific missing soldiers and personnel, and give family members the latest information. In some cases that information is about searching records or investigations in other countries, and what progress is being made. Sometimes it’s about talks with another country about gaining access to records. The goal of research is to get enough information to “connect a particular site with an MIA,” according to the agency’s website.
A big part of the effort to identify missing service members is DNA testing. DNA specialists will be on hand to take DNA samples to be used by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, in Dover, Delaware, in its efforts to identify remains. Duus called DNA testing a “key component” of the effort to identify the missing dead and give families closure.
She also said the meetings provide crucial face-to-face contact for family members, who may only have gotten information on their loved ones through correspondence in the past.
“Often we have found this is the first time many have received any information on their loved ones from the government,” Duus wrote. “Many are younger generations who continue to seek answers” about missing family members.
The agency has been conducting these meetings since 1995, usually holding eight to 10 a year, and has met with 17,000 people hoping to find news of a loved one. Most of the meetings are in cities bigger than Portland. Others held this year were in Sacramento, California; Memphis, Tennessee; Oklahoma City; Denver; and Norfolk, Virginia.
One is scheduled for Boston on May 21, 2016.
About 75 percent of the 83,000 missing personnel were presumed lost in armed conflicts in Asia or in the Pacific Ocean, according to the agency’s website. The largest group, 73,515, went missing during World War II, while 7,835 are missing from the Korean War and 1,626 from the Vietnam War.
People can register for community meetings and find out information on the agency’s latest efforts, including lists of recently accounted-for personnel, online at www.dpaa.mil.
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