The Shadow
(VR) – For the 2026-2027 term, Department of Virginia President Kathy Voss has chosen the Joint National Special Project for the VFW and its Auxiliary, Operation Bring Them Home.
The DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) is a Department of Defense agency that works to account for and repatriate U.S. service members who were prisoners of war (POW) or missing in action (MIA) from past conflicts. Its mission is to provide families and the nation with the most complete possible record of these missing personnel. The DPAA uses a combination of historical research, recovery operations, and forensic science, including DNA analysis, to identify remains and bring them home. Their families need to know they are not forgotten.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) is committed to providing the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel from past conflicts. A crucial part of this mission is the Disinterment Program, which focuses on identifying remains that were previously designated as unknowns.
Unknowns are remains recovered from conflict zones that could not be identified using the technology and information available at the time of recovery. These unknowns often underwent multiple burials, exhumations, and examinations before ultimately being declared unidentifiable and permanently interred in a cemetery overseen by the American Battle Monuments Commission or the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
As part of the ongoing Korean War Identification Project, DPAA personnel on June 29 disinterred eight caskets from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The remains were safely transferred to the Senator Daniel K. Inouye DPAA Center of Excellence in Hawaii, where forensic experts and scientists will begin the analysis required to restore these heroes’ names and return them to their families.
Senator Inouye was a Medal of Honor recipient who served in the U.S. Army with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II before becoming Hawaii’s senator for five decades. Inouye was a dedicated warrior with a passion for finding missing veterans.
This operation took place during the final phase of the Korean War disinterment project. The DPAA remains committed to providing the fullest possible accounting of missing service members to their families and our nation.
The latest statistics show that since 1973, more than 1,000 Americans killed in action during the Vietnam War have been identified and returned to their families for burial. There are still approximately 1,500 unaccounted for.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, located in Washington, D.C., is deeply tied to the DPAA’s mission. The DPAA regularly participates in Vietnam War Commemoration activities held there to honor the nearly 7 million living Vietnam veterans.
Following World War II, the U.S. government launched The Return of the World War II Dead Program to locate aircraft and crash sites, search former battlefields for isolated graves, and disinter temporary cemeteries around the globe. The program identified more than 280,000 individuals. It operated from 1945 to 1951, continuing until all known leads were exhausted. Today, 71,983 American service members remain unaccounted for from World War II. The search continues.
The DPAA Honolulu Laboratory is located at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii. It is the largest skeletal identification laboratory in the world. Veterans and families can arrange tours to see forensic anthropologists and archaeologists working on active cases from past conflicts, including the Vietnam War.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency continues to investigate, recover, and identify these missing personnel, recently achieving a record-setting 231 identifications across all past conflicts in a single year. Of the nearly 72,200 unaccounted-for service members, approximately 41,000 are presumed lost at sea.
Operation Bring Them Home is dedicated to searching for POW/MIA veterans from all wars. The effort brings hope to families who continue to wait for their loved ones to come home.
To donate to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) to support the recovery and identification of missing service members, donations can be mailed to:
Director, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
ATTN: Comptroller
2300 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-2300
Let us never forget the tremendous number of men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for America. Some gave all, so let us give our all for this effort.
Thank you.
