JPAC JOINT POW/MIA ACCOUNTING COMMAND

‘Closure’ is a term that signals the first stage of a family’s ability to move on after the death of a loved one.  Equally, the long term emotional and psychological effects on persons denied closure can be excruciating.

“Closure is our ultimate goal,” says Ron Ward, Casualty Resolution Specialist at Detachment Two, the Hanoi branch of ‘JPAC’, the Joint POW/MIA Account Command. 

“Not only that, but our continual efforts in the field to achieve the fullest possible accounting of Americans who did not return from the war in Southeast Asia is a great comfort to today’s soldiers.  They know they will not be forgotten.”

‘You Are Not Forgotten’ is, in fact, JPAC’s motto.  Headquartered in on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, the command was activated on Oct. 1, 2003, created from the merger of the 30-year-old U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory and the 11-year-old Joint Task Force - Full Accounting. The laboratory portion of JPAC, referred to as the Central Identification Laboratory, is the largest forensic anthropology laboratory in the world.

‘You Are Not Forgotten’ is also emblazoned on the wall of Ron Ward’s Hanoi office, along with scattered maps of the Vietnam countryside where teams deploy approximately ten times a year in search of remains.  More than two thousand Americans who served in Vietnam remain unaccounted for.

“The pace can seem painfully slow sometimes,” admits Ward, himself a Vietnam vet, “but it’s improving.  When the war ended in 1975, we knew the number of our missing personnel, but had no mechanism to recover them—diplomacy wasn’t working.  Now, with an improving  diplomatic of the Vietnamese government, red tape is being cut and access to archival information made easier.  We still have a way to go—the issue of MIAs is only one aspect of the normalized relationship between any two governments who’ve been at war.”

“To some extent,” Ward, , says, “the scope of what we do is a testimonial to a new cooperation.”