[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 111-40]
IMPROVING RECOVERY AND FULL
ACCOUNTING OF POW/MIA PERSONNEL
FROM ALL PAST CONFLICTS
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
APRIL 2, 2009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#13
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
51-069 WASHINGTON : 2009
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MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California, Chairwoman
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas JOE WILSON, South Carolina
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam JOHN KLINE, Minnesota
PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
Craig Greene, Professional Staff Member
John Chapla, Professional Staff Member
Rosellen Kim, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2009
Page
Hearing:
Thursday, April 2, 2009, Improving Recovery and Full Accounting
of POW/MIA Personnel from All Past Conflicts................... 1
Appendix:
Thursday, April 2, 2009.......................................... 41
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2009
IMPROVING RECOVERY AND FULL ACCOUNTING OF POW/MIA PERSONNEL FROM ALL
PAST CONFLICTS
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Davis, Hon. Susan A., a Representative from California,
Chairwoman, Military Personnel Subcommittee.................... 1
Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Ranking
Member, Military Personnel Subcommittee........................ 2
WITNESSES
Broward, Ron, POW/MIA Advocate................................... 13
Crisp, Rear Adm. Donna L., USN, Commander, Joint POW/MIA
Accounting Command............................................. 28
Griffiths, Ann Mills, Executive Director, National League of
Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia... 6
Metersky, Frank, Washington Liaison, Korea-Cold War Families of
the Missing.................................................... 10
O'Shea, Lynn, Director of Research, National Alliance of Families 9
Phillips, Lisa, President, WWII Families for the Return of the
Missing........................................................ 7
Piacine, Robin, President, Coalition of Families of Korean and
Cold War POW/MIAs.............................................. 12
Ray, Hon. Charles A., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
POW/Missing Personnel Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense...... 27
Riley, Philip D., Director, National Security and Foreign
Relations, The American Legion................................. 5
Wysong, Michael H., Director of National Security and Foreign
Affairs, Veterans of Foreign Wars.............................. 3
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Broward, Ron................................................. 140
Crisp, Rear Adm. Donna L..................................... 183
Davis, Hon. Susan A.......................................... 45
Griffiths, Ann Mills......................................... 68
Metersky, Frank.............................................. 121
O'Shea, Lynn................................................. 80
Phillips, Lisa............................................... 75
Piacine, Robin............................................... 126
Ray, Hon. Charles A.......................................... 172
Riley, Philip D.............................................. 58
Wilson, Hon. Joe............................................. 47
Wysong, Michael H............................................ 48
Documents Submitted for the Record:
POW/MIA Accounting Requires Full--Not Selective Accounting,
testimony submitted by Roger Hall, Executive Director of
Studies Solutions Results, Inc............................. 197
Statement of Dr. Lester Tenney, Commander, American Defenders
of Bataan and Corregidor................................... 240
Statement of Gary Jones, National Chair, Vietnam Veterans of
America POW/MIA Committee.................................. 242
Statement of Keith E. Phillips............................... 223
Trip Report: League Delegation to Southeast Asia, March 15-
31, 2009, submitted by Ann Mills Griffiths, National League
of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast
Asia....................................................... 191
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mrs. Davis................................................... 251
Mr. Wilson................................................... 252
IMPROVING RECOVERY AND FULL ACCOUNTING OF POW/MIA PERSONNEL FROM ALL
PAST CONFLICTS
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Military Personnel Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Thursday, April 2, 2009.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:04 p.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Susan Davis
(chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SUSAN A. DAVIS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CALIFORNIA, CHAIRWOMAN, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE
Mrs. Davis. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much
for being here. The meeting will come to order.
This hearing I certainly want to thank our witnesses for
coming today. We appreciate your being with us.
Our hearing today focuses on improving recovery and full
accounting of the Prisoner of War (POW)/Missing in Action (MIA)
personnel from all past conflicts, which this committee, as you
well know, has been tasked with overseeing.
The subcommittee held an oversight hearing on the status of
POW/MIA activities on July 10th, 2008. It was the first hearing
the subcommittee held since October 1998, over 10 years ago.
As I stated during the July hearing, while the subcommittee
did not hold hearings in the intervening years, it has
certainly not forgotten its oversight responsibility, nor has
it been sitting idly by on this issue.
Over the past several years, this committee has passed
legislation focusing on ensuring the POW/MIA effort remains a
national priority and continues to receive sufficient funding
to accomplish the mission.
The subcommittee remains dedicated to the full accounting
of all American prisoners of war and those missing in action.
We owe it to their families, but most importantly we owe it to
the men and women who are currently serving in uniform.
Today we will hear testimony and discuss ways to improve
the recovery and full accounting of those missing and bring
them home to their families expeditiously as possible.
We have two panels of witnesses for our hearing. And the
first panel is comprised of members from a variety of
organizations which all have a passionate interest in
identifying and recovering our missing. All of the
organizations have a wealth of knowledge. We really appreciate
that. We know how long you have been working on these issues
and how important and passionate you are about them. So we know
your wealth of knowledge and the experience that you have in
matters of POW/MIA recovery, and we are very happy that you
could be here to provide us with your thoughts and your ideas
on how to improve the process.
So let me welcome here today--and let me just say before I
introduce you that it looks like we are going to have a vote
coming up shortly. But we think we probably can hear from--
well, if we can, if you are all to three minutes, we might be
able to get through all of you, and we are going to do our
best.
Let me welcome Mr. Michael Wysong, director of national
security and foreign affairs, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).
And Mr. Phil Riley will be on his way shortly. He is the
director of national security and foreign relations of the
American Legion; Ms. Ann Mills Griffiths, the executive
director of the National League of Families of American
Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia; Ms. Lisa Phillips,
president of World War II Families for the Return of the
Missing; Ms. Lynn O'Shea, director of research for the National
Alliance of Families; Mr. Frank Metersky, the Washington
liaison for the Korea-Cold War Families of the Missing; Ms.
Robin Piacine, president of the Coalition of Families of Korean
and Cold War POW/MIAs; and Mr. Ron Broward, a POW/MIA Advocate.
Our second panel--and we were very pleased to have them
participate also in July--will be the Honorable Charles Ray,
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for POW/Missing
Personnel Affairs, and Rear Admiral Donna Crisp, Commander,
Joint POW/MIA for the Accounting Command (JPAC).
I want to welcome you all. And, again, if you can give us
your testimony in three minutes--do you all have that
information that we were hoping that you could do that?
That is great. And we always make it a habit to come back
and make sure that you have had a chance to say something that
is really critical and important to you at the end.
And Mr. Wilson, do you have any comments to add? And as you
know, we are trying to rush through them a little bit----
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Davis can be found in the
Appendix on page 45.]
STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH
CAROLINA, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Chairwoman Davis. And, indeed, I
appreciate your efforts that nobody is going to be cut short.
Chairwoman Davis has been terrific about providing for
time. And we will be back.
I want to begin by thanking the distinguished members of
our two panels. We look forward to hearing your testimony and
working with you to fulfill our commitment to our American
heroes who are missing in action or prisoners of war.
At the outset, I want to highlight some of the strategic
themes outlined in the recent Personnel Accounting Community
Strategy set out by the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing
Personnel Office (DPMO). The first theme is also a national
priority. We as a government seek the fullest possible
accounting of those Americans who become missing while
supporting U.S. national objectives.
The second theme is that we, both the executive and
legislative branches, serve the interest of the missing
individual. As a 31-year Army veteran, as the son of a World
War II veteran, as the father of four sons currently serving in
the military, I especially believe that every man and woman
whom we send in harm's way in the service of the United States
must be confident that our government will not leave them
behind.
When I look at what has been accomplished over the last
three decades, I believe that America has met the mandates of
those two themes for the 1,559 prisoners of war and missing
personnel in action who have been identified from Vietnam,
Korea, the Cold War and World War II.
However, we have neither fulfilled the requirements for the
fullest possible accounting nor made good on the requirement to
serve the interest of the missing individual for more than
84,000 people who remain unaccounted for from the four
conflicts I have cited above.
Under current policies, organization and structure,
manning, and funding personnel accounting agencies, the
Department of Defense (DOD) have made on average since 2000, 76
identifications per year. That number of annual identifications
is not consistent with a national priority of achieving the
fullest possible accounting.
Furthermore, if we do not do something to significantly
increase the numbers of annual identifications--say, for
example, by a factor of three, four or five--this will soon
preclude the Nation's ability to fully account for those 84,000
still missing or prisoners of war. We must do more as a Nation
to better serve those who have gone in harm's way with the
implicit commitment by our government that we would not leave
them behind.
Before we close, I want to give a special recognition to a
witness on the second panel, Ambassador Charles Ray, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel
Affairs. Ambassador Ray has served in this current capacity
since September 2006, and will be returning to his duties at
the State Department. This will be the last time he appears
before this subcommittee. I want to extend my thanks for his
service to this Nation and for the contributions he has made to
the effort of fully accounting for our POWs and missing
personnel.
Madam Chairwoman, I am pleased that you are holding this
hearing in an effort to seek ideas on how to improve the
personnel accounting process. I join you in welcoming our
witnesses and look forward to their testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson can be found in the
Appendix on page 47.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
And Mr. Wysong, why don't you start? Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL H. WYSONG, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL SECURITY
AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS, VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS
Mr. Wysong. Thank you, Madam Chair.
On behalf of the 2.2 million members of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, I want to thank you for the opportunity to share
our views on this most important issue. The VFW has long been
committed to achieving the fullest possible accounting for all
military personnel still missing from all of our Nation's wars.
It has come to our attention once again that JPAC has been
shortchanged in their budget by over $2 million, which will
translate into curtailing operations. This points to a funding
stream that flows from DOD through the Navy and then from U.S.
Pacific Command (PACOM) to JPAC, which puts JPAC's mission in
competition with war fighting priorities. And when agencies are
called upon to cut their budget and that figure trickles down
to JPAC, it equates to a disproportional mandate for a command
with a relatively small budget.
The VFW is not convinced that this is the best funding
method for JPAC. Therefore, we suggest a fully funded dedicated
line item appropriation in the DOD budget and exempt JPAC from
agency-mandated reductions. JPAC's mission is unique, and in
our view, will be able to operate more efficiently and
effectively under a direct and dedicated funding stream.
Construction of a new JPAC facility, which was originally
set to begin in fiscal year (FY) 2010, has been delayed until
fiscal year 2011 because the Navy diverted construction monies
to other priorities.
It has also come to our attention that a Navy audit team
recently recommended reducing the size of the facility by over
16,000 square feet. Such a reduction mostly likely will reduce
laboratory space and have an adverse effect on identification
efforts.
The VFW believes this project should continue to be fully
funded and remain on the present ground breaking schedule
without any further delays and recommends the size of the new
facility remain as originally designed.
The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in
Rockville, Md., is essential, as we all know, to the JPAC
mission. We are concerned that the Base Realignment and Closure
(BRAC) process threatens to significantly delay the
identification process because critical and timely decisions
concerning facility and funding issues have yet to be made for
the relocation move to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.
The VFW asks Congress to look into this matter and extract
from DOD how this process is moving forward in a manner that
will provide adequate facilities and minimize the delay in DNA
analysis for identification of American remains.
The U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIA Affairs was
established in 1992 at the presidential level to serve as a
forum through which both nations can seek to determine the fate
of their missing servicemen. In 2005, progress was halted when
the Russian president reorganized its side of the commission.
On the U.S. side, leaving the House Democrat Commissioner post
vacant since January 2006 sends a message to the Russian
government that this body is not interested in the workings of
the commission. Your help is needed to convince Speaker Pelosi
to appoint a qualified member of the House to actively serve as
the Democrat Commissioner.
Madam Chair, in closing I want to thank you and all the
members of your committee for your interest, your oversight,
your support of America's national priority of accounting for
our missing service members. Your continued support will help
to bring closure to the families of the missing who have been
waiting so long for answers and their loved ones. You also send
a very powerful message to those who serve in harm's way today
that they will not be left behind, that this Nation will do all
in its power to return them to their family. Thank you for the
opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wysong can be found in the
Appendix on page 48.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Riley. And welcome. We introduced you already.
STATEMENT OF PHILIP D. RILEY, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY AND
FOREIGN RELATIONS, THE AMERICAN LEGION
Mr. Riley. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Riley. Chairwoman Davis, members of the subcommittee,
on behalf of the American Legion we thank you for the honor and
the opportunity to participate in this important hearing to
examine ways for improving recovery and accounting of POW/MIAs
from previous conflicts.
The American Legion believes the following high-priority
actions should be taken by the U.S. Government:
Continue to provide sufficient personnel the resources so
that the investigative case efforts for conflicts from World
War II forward can be broadened and accelerated.
Continue to provide necessary personnel and resources so
field operations can be conducted at a greater rate of
activity.
Continue to declassify all POW/MIA information (except that
revealing intelligence sources and methods) in a form readily
available for public view.
Initiate or strengthen joint commissions with Russia,
China, North Korea, to increase POW research and recovery
opportunities.
Establish a joint standing congressional committee to
ensure continued action by the executive branch in addressing
the POW/MIA mission with requisite priority.
The American Legion is concerned the POW/MIA mission is
fading as a high national priority, and the federal government
has not provided sufficient resources or attention to the POW/
MIA issues. As a result, many in the veterans community and
military family members are losing confidence in both the
commitment and the ability of the federal government to resolve
the fate of this Nation's many unaccounted for service members.
Along with this establishment of the interagency group
created to oversee the U.S. POW/MIA policy, lack of independent
intelligence and analytical capability dedicated to the POW/MIA
issue, and efforts to downsize and reorganize the Defense
Missing Personnel Office when their workload is increasing,
particularly with respect to Korean War initiatives and the
opportunities that are now extant, all of these are clear
examples of how the importance of this issue is eroding.
The establishment of a joint standing committee is
necessary to keep the promise to all past, current and future
service members and families so that they will not feel that
they are abandoned and necessary to rekindle national interest
and national will for this morally imperative mission.
It has been over a decade since we have had close and
comprehensive examination of our national POW/MIA policies and
recovery requirements. The 2.6 million members of the American
Legion urge you to establish a joint standing committee on POW
and MIA affairs necessary to conduct a full and convincing
investigation of all unresolved matters relating to any United
States personnel unaccounted for from our conflicts, wars, cold
wars and special operations.
We thank you for this honor to testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Riley can be found in the
Appendix on page 58.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Ms. Griffiths.
STATEMENT OF ANN MILLS GRIFFITHS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
LEAGUE OF FAMILIES OF AMERICAN PRISONERS AND MISSING IN
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Ms. Griffiths. Thank you Madam Chairwoman and members of
the committee for the opportunity to again appear before the
committee. Due to the need for brevity, I will ask that my full
statement be included.
I just returned late yesterday from Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia on the umpteenth trip that I have been there. I am
writing a final report on that and would like to also include
that in the record.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you. All the testimony will be included
in the record.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 191.]
Ms. Griffiths. Okay.
The proposals that were made in Hanoi were particularly
interesting, and they, I think, warrant serious consideration
as the basis for increasing JPAC funding and personnel, full
engagement and support for Stony Beach, the Defense
Intelligence Agency's POW/MIA specialists, and, if needed to
ensure continuing priority and focus, fencing of the budgets
and manpower of both organizations. We will be bringing these
proposals to the attention of the executive branch at the
earliest opportunity.
The first stems from Vietnam's proposal to expedite the
pace and scope of investigations and excavations, stating clear
but ambiguously their commitment to meet U.S. requirements for
additional personnel and willingness to be flexible. Their
rationale had to do with growth and expansion, development that
could easily destroy incident sites.
Early identification of these and other sites is crucial
regardless of JPAC's ability to schedule rapid excavations.
Increasing the backlog on these sites is a good thing, not a
negative as sometimes portrayed.
When questioned about specific numbers that will be allowed
to come in, they responded again clearly, but noted that with
additional commitment of personnel and funding they would match
the U.S. and with flexibility.
Now, all senior U.S. officials--the Ambassador, the defense
attache, the deputy chief of mission and others were with us in
all of our meetings and were most supportive. We don't have our
own information to propose to the Vietnamese, so we get it all
from the Defense POW/MIA Office and JPAC.
As to the validity of their commitment, I try to be
optimistic. But time will tell, especially on the use of the
U.S. Naval Ship (USNS) Heezen, the Navy vessel that was
promised a long time ago and pledged again by the Prime
Minister last June.
In Laos, changes at the top in attitude and receptiveness
to multifaceted engagement and cooperation were visible and
welcome. The evolving relationship, including long-sought
establishment and exchange of defense attaches, is very good
for the U.S.-Laos bilateral relationship and POW/MIA in
particular, something we fought for for 12 years, they finally
agreed and it is now in place.
A small increase in airlift funding in the case of Laos
would expedite the effort as well. I am not in a position to
suggest a number of additional personnel that would be
required. I do know, in agreement with these gentlemen, that
JPAC funding is inadequate for the fiscal year 2009 budget. And
that doesn't even include operations for North Korea if that
happens to open up.
So an increase of at least one-third or 20-plus million
would likely be needed with a plus-up of forensics
anthropologists and other scientific staff as necessary. We
would also need more linguists and specialists from Defense
Intelligence Agency's Stony Beach team to expedite in-country
research and investigations. You will be hearing from
Ambassador Ray and Admiral Crisp, so they will have to consider
this. But it is too soon to expect them to have an answer now.
Our positions--I know I have to stop--our positions on all
the questions are in the full testimony that I provided. But I
would like to say that having Admiral Crisp as head of JPAC has
been a blessing. It has helped tremendously improve the quality
and the situation for their own employees as well as
operations. That and having Special Forces detachment
commanders have been real improvements.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Griffiths can be found in
the Appendix on page 68.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Ms. Phillips.
STATEMENT OF LISA PHILLIPS, PRESIDENT, WWII FAMILIES FOR THE
RETURN OF THE MISSING
Ms. Phillips. Madam Chairman and members of the committee,
on behalf of the friends and family of over 78,000 World War II
service personnel still missing in action, I thank you for this
opportunity to speak today.
With my deepest sincerity, I want to tell you that I really
wish I wasn't here. Not that I wish I had not lost a relative
in World War II, for we are proud of his service, nor does my
wish to not be here stem from the fact that my uncle is one of
the MIA from World War II.
My wish comes from the fact that family groups such as WWII
Families for the Return of the Missing should not have to exist
today. All relatives and friends of all U.S. MIA should be
confident that their government is working in an objective,
fair and determined manner to ensure the code of ``no one left
behind'' is being adhered to with the utmost urgency and
dedication. I thank you for trying to make this so.
As a relative of a WWII MIA and a member of a family
support group that has over the past seven years worked with
thousands of MIA family members and every U.S. Government
agency involved, I kindly request that you consider the
following four points.
First, the three government organizations primarily
responsible for the POW/MIA recovery--Defense Prisoner of War
(DPMO), Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), and military
service casualty offices--are disjointed and do not effectively
cooperate, often at times working against each other due to the
lack of unity of one command, turf wars and personality
differences as well.
While DPMO states they are the portal for all family
members, they do not have control over the individual records.
Service Casualty controls the records. Nor do they have control
over research and recovery. JPAC is in charge of the missions.
A family member should not have to contact all three
agencies individually just to receive a status on their case or
to require records to conduct individual research.
Secondly, the entire process of MIA recovery is politicized
by personnel within the U.S. Government overseeing the research
and recovery efforts as well as individuals belonging to
certain groups. These alliances are well known in the MIA
community but so far have effectively impeded all efforts to
improve efficiency or equity.
Third, lack of congressional oversight enables this
inefficiency and politicization. The system is unable to
correct itself. There are too many people too ingrained to
allow effective and needed change.
Fourth, JPAC's manning and structure is inefficient. With
an intelligence and research section of about 66 personnel,
only five are assigned to World War II, one of which just
resigned. Likewise, hundreds and hundreds of MIAs remains go
unidentified in the lab due to the shortage of forensic
anthropologists.
Not only is retention a problem in a place such as Hawaii,
but there appears to be a problem with priority of efforts.
Forensic anthropologists are forced to split their time between
field recoveries and lab identifications.
Every U.S. service member past and present lives by the
code ``no one left behind.'' This code is much more than a
code. It is a promise and an obligation from our government to
those that paid the ultimate price. We owe it to every service
member and every family member regardless of conflict to uphold
this code.
I ask you to please remember this code, this promise, this
obligation, has no expiration date.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Phillips can be found in the
Appendix on page 75.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Ms. O'Shea.
And I think we can do this, if everybody is okay. We are
going to run a little late getting over there.
But go ahead, please. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF LYNN O'SHEA, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, NATIONAL
ALLIANCE OF FAMILIES
Ms. O'Shea. Okay.
Today we would like to address a specific aspect of the
accounting effort. In far too many cases, safe determinations
have been made in spite of evidence of wartime survival. These
premature and often erroneous determinations were reached by
dismissing evidence once deemed credible, resulting in searches
for individuals at their loss locations in spite of evidence
that the individuals were moved or being moved to another
location.
As part of the accounting effort, the National Alliance of
Families fully supports House Resolution 111 calling for the
formation of a House Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. And I
would like to add we would definitely support the call for a
joint standing committee.
When the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs issued
their final report in 1993, they recommended their work
continue. Unfortunately, that recommendation was not carried
out, and committees such as this simply do not have the
investigative staff or the resources to continue and expand on
the work of the committee.
Among the leads yet to be fully examined are numerous
sightings of U.S. servicemen from World War II, Korea, and Cold
War in the camps and prisons of the former Soviet Union. No
less a figure than the commanding general of Soviet forces
operating on the Korean peninsula during the war years spoke of
the transfer of U.S. POWs from North Korea to Moscow.
Acknowledging such transfers have come from former U.S. and
Soviet officials and defectors as well.
All of this suggests that much more effort needs to be made
before we can truly say we have accounted for our missing
servicemen. We recognize the difficulties dealing with North
Korea. However, a thorough review of contemporaneous U.S.
documents relating to Korean and Cold War losses under the
direction of a House committee will provide valuable
information and new leads on the fate of many unaccounted-for
servicemen.
Searching for men at loss locations when contemporaneous
documents indicate the men were captured will not lead to
recovery. When these recovery operations fail, as they will,
remains are then declared unrecoverable.
This is not accounting. It is fiction. For example, in one
Vietnam case involving four soldiers, DPMO maintains that the
four were ambushed and killed. They cite a report of 20-30
rounds of small arms fire heard in area to support their
conclusions.
The facts do not support the DPMO analytical review.
Multiple documents including letters from the U.S. Army to the
families of the missing men all state the gunshots heard
involved another squad and did not relate to this incident.
This brings us to a series of memos written by Sedgwick
Tourison, a former Senate analyst with the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA), during his tenure as an investigator with the
Senate select committee. In one memo dated August 1st, 1992,
Tourison wrote: My review of POW/MIA case files discloses Joint
Task Force-Full Accounting (JTFFA) and DIA message traffic
referring to individuals DOD now has information survived into
captivity. Among the servicemen named are the four soldiers
DPMO insists were ambushed and immediately killed.
An earlier memo by Tourison states: My review of Joint
Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC) casualty files has surfaced
several messages which list a total of nine American servicemen
Vietnam has acknowledged were captured alive. Named among the
nine is Marine Corporal Gregory Harris, whose family is here
today.
I know I am a little bit over. I've just got a little bit
left. Can I go on?
Mrs. Davis. Very fast. I think what we will do is we will
go vote right after you finish and come back.
Can you be very, very succinct, because I know that we
asked everybody to be?
Ms. O'Shea. I will wrap it up, yes.
As I said, Corporal Harris's family is here today. Yet DPMO
insists in spite of the message that Vietnam acknowledged his
capture, DPMO insists Corporal Harris died at his loss
location, and that is where they continue to look for him.
It is time that we have an honest accounting of these men.
We have to review all the documents in the files. When we know
that men are still not at their loss locations, we have to
accept that and move on to new avenues of pursuit.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. O'Shea can be found in the
Appendix on page 80.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
We are going to go vote. We will be back. I really
appreciate your patience.
Okay. We should be back early. It won't be too much longer.
Thank you very much.
[Recess.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you all for your patience. We are going
to get started if everybody would just quiet down. Thank you.
Mr. Metersky, please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF FRANK METERSKY, WASHINGTON LIAISON, KOREA-COLD WAR
FAMILIES OF THE MISSING
Mr. Metersky. On behalf of the Korea-Cold War Families of
the Missing, I want to thank you for giving us this opportunity
to testify here today.
The Korea-Cold War Families of the Missing fully supports
any and all of the changes recommended by the current DASD of
DPMO, Ambassador Charles Ray, that would dramatically alter the
structure of the POW/MIA community and thereby increase its
capabilities to identify 180 sets of remains annually for all
wars combined. This would represent an increase in
identifications of 150 percent per year.
The DASD recommends that the lab be moved to the mainland
because of the serious ongoing short staffing problems that the
lab has never been able to overcome located in Hawaii.
A study requested by Office of the Secretary of Defense
(OSD)-DPMO to address the moving of the JPAC Lab is currently
being conducted by the Institute for Defense Analysis, and its
results will be available in the next 45 days. The move to the
mainland will allow the JPAC lab to acquire a level of
professionalism that it has greatly lacked for years, which is
necessary to reach the DASD's goal of 180 identifications
annually for all wars.
To complement this effort, the DASD has written a new
policy paper that redefines the strategy of how to make the
best use of all of the government's assets used in the recovery
and identification of remains. This policy paper is currently
available on the DPMO website.
There is also a DPMO paper which should be available
shortly, detailing by percentages how the assets of DPMO-JPAC
should be used based on today's realities for each of the past
conflicts.
To assure that the goal of 180 identifications take place,
we recommend that JPAC be removed from the oversight command of
PACOM and that oversight be returned to Army Casualty.
PACOM, a war fighting command, has shown little to no
interest in performance levels at JPAC. It has appointed
incompetent military commanders and allows equally incompetent
civilian commanders to run JPAC.
We further recommend that the current and future DASD at
DPMO be placed in unqualified command of the entire U.S.
Government commitment to this highest of humanitarian missions:
the fullest possible accounting of all POWs from all wars,
past, present and future. DPMO is fully capable of overseeing
all aspects of this mission, since it is its only mission.
If these changes are implemented, the Korean War families
will finally have what they have long been lacking:
An identification team working full time on the 853
unknowns buried at the Punch Bowl Cemetery in Hawaii, where
with recent advances in scientific identification, it has been
determined that as many as 400 of these unknowns could be
identified.
A forensic team working full time on the 540 sets of
remains from the Korean War that have been warehoused at JPAC
mostly since 1993.
A full time investigative and recovery team working in
South Korea instead of the limited number of operations we have
now due to the serious lack of qualified personnel at JPAC.
This team should also be there to work with the South Korean
version of JPAC, known as Republic of Korea's Ministry of
National Defense Agency for KIA Recovery and Identification
(MAKRI), to ensure that no U.S. remains recovered are
accidentally disposed of as they have been in the past.
A fully staffed JPAC will allow recovery operations to be
conducted in North Korea and also in South Korea, not as in the
past an either/or situation. Currently, JPAC defines this as an
either/or situation as they continue to cover up its serious
lack of personnel with a meaningless study of their own.
I have also----
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Metersky [continuing]. Been asked to make a statement--
--
Mrs. Davis. One last statement.
Mr. Metersky [continuing]. By Irene Mandra, president of
the Korea-Cold War Families of the Missing, regarding a meeting
with Admiral Crisp on April 4, 2008, in her offices in Hawaii,
accompanied by four members of our organization, with Johnnie
Webb, the senior civilian of JPAC was in attendance.
The most important issue to discuss was the moving of the
JPAC lab to the mainland that the admiral was aware of. When
this issue was raised, she immediately said she was doing this
study, while in actuality four months later it was found that
she was not doing the study.
To date, the admiral----
Mrs. Davis. Thank you. Mr. Metersky, I am going to----
Mr. Metersky [continuing]. Admiral has never explained or
apologized for this. And is this any way to run a business?
[The prepared statement of Mr. Metersky can be found in the
Appendix on page 121.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much. I appreciate that, and of
course your whole statement is in the record.
Ms. Piacine.
STATEMENT OF ROBIN PIACINE, PRESIDENT, COALITION OF FAMILIES OF
KOREAN AND COLD WAR POW/MIAS
Ms. Piacine. Chairwoman Davis and distinguished members of
the House Armed Services Subcommittee for Military Personnel,
thank you so much for having this hearing today and affording
me the opportunity to be the voice of many family members my
organization represents.
We, who are family members and friends and comrades, all
share one thing in common, that is we wait for the day that we
can bring our missing loved ones home. We want to understand
what has truly happened to them. These unanswered questions
haunt us. Birthdays, anniversaries, special days all are lived
with emptiness and questions of what truly happed to the ones
we love and miss.
With me today, I bring a picture of my uncle, William
Charles Bradley. He served with the Army during Korean War, and
he was a medic. He was first listed as killed in action (KIA)
on December 1st in the area of Kunu-ri, in Unsan County in
North Korea. Through years of research by the analysts at DPMO
and with the help of my dear friend and colleague John
Zimmerlee, my family learned that he was actually a POW and
died on a march route towards a holding camp.
Now, we can ask when negotiations resume in North Korea
that this specific area be researched. It is so important to
truly know what happens to our missing so that we can move
forward. His remains are still in North Korea waiting to be
returned home. Like many, he is homesick in Korea.
Having served as president of the Coalition of Families for
over five years, I have received a lot of suggestions of what
can be accomplished to make the process work a little better.
We strongly support and endorse plans to construct a new
facility for the accounting process in Hawaii by JPAC. We
believe that this will facilitate a reduction in the time of
identification and thus speed the return of remains and much
awaited information to the families.
On a related point, we do not support relocation of this
activity to continental United States (CONUS). The current
location is ideal, being in the proximity where the majority of
recoveries actually take place. A move would also hamper that
very important international partnership with the South Korean
Forensic Team which benefits our recovery process.
Additionally, the cost of such a move in these times of
financial strife makes no sense at all from the view of the
concerned taxpayer.
There is a critical need also to have access to files that
still are held as classified for over 50 years in the National
Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at College Park. A
press release dated March 11, 2009, notes that President Obama
has approved a $459 million budget for the National Archives.
One million of those dollars has been allocated solely for
the development of a new Office of Government Information
Services created by a 2007 amendment to the Freedom of
Information Act. It will monitor compliance of federal
agencies, and ensure that the records of government remain open
and accessible to the public.
We ask that you also support House Resolution 111, as we
believe that it will aid in the much needed assistance in the
accounting process.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Piacine can be found in the
Appendix on page 126.]
Mrs. Davis. Ms. Piacine, your time is up. I think that we
will have an opportunity to get back to some of your other
issues. Thank you very much.
And Mr. Broward, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF RON BROWARD, POW/MIA ADVOCATE
Mr. Broward. Well, Madam Chairwoman and members of the
committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.
Turf wars, bureaucratic sabotage and unethical behavior on
part of a few continue to exist in the POW/MIA mission. To have
a complete account of what the mission needs would require
department managers of JPAC to testify under oath before your
committee. They know the problems that exist and have excellent
ideas to correct those problems.
For several years we have advocated for a strong central
authority to manage the agencies involved in the U.S.
Government POW/MIA program. Ambassador Ray has worked very hard
to make the mission more effective. The merging of joint task
force for all accounting and the central identification lab in
2003 was a good move. But it has led to some unanticipated
consequences that need remediation.
Please refer to a DPMO draft report in response to the
Senate Armed Services Committee Report 109-254. This DPMO draft
report was completely ignored by JPAC and PACOM when the final
report was drafted and sent by DOD to the Senate Armed Services
Committee. Both of these reports are attached to my statement.
These two documents tell the problems that exist within the
current structure. In fairness to Admiral Crisp, she was not
the JPAC commander in 2007 when the final report was sent to
the Senate Armed Services Committee. The draft DPMO report in
just four pages addresses the problems that exist and ways DPMO
was considering to correct those problems.
Since 2004, there have been 364 identifications or 73 per
year. This means it takes seven staff members working full time
for one year to make one identification. During this time, 65
percent of recoveries and identifications were from World War
II and Korea. Yet 75-80 percent of resources were devoted to
Southeast Asia.
In the Central Identification Lab (CIL), there are 1,433
unknown remains. For several years, we advocated for a more
effective outreach program for obtaining family reference
samples--that is mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The
Defense Science Board Report of 1995 recommended an aggressive
outreach program which could be used today. But this report has
not been accepted.
Finally, in June 2008 I went to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
for help. The Joint Chiefs of Staff directed that a plan be
developed. But as of this date, nine months later, no plan has
been developed either by the Service Casualty Offices or DPMO.
In 2003, we presented a plan to JPAC for the possibility of
associating MIAs to unknowns interred in Punchbowl. In 2004,
Dr. Holland, the CIL director, saw merit in the plan and hired
a forensic anthropologist in early 2005 to work on the plan. A
historian was to be hired, but there were no funds to do so.
Since that time, there have been seven exhumations, six have
been identified, and one is pending DNA processing.
Mrs. Davis. Could you wind up your statement? That would be
helpful. Thank you.
Mr. Broward. Yes.
Twenty-five additional possible associations of MIAs to
unknowns in the Punchbowl have passed the preliminary dental
screening. This is research that I do. Yet, there has only been
two exhumations in the last two years. And it is not the part
of the laboratory. It is critical shortage of forensic
anthropologists and professional historians.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Broward can be found in the
Appendix on page 140.]
Mrs. Davis. Okay.
Thank you very much. I certainly appreciate all of your
testimony here and your statements. I know it represents
tremendous background on your parts, and it is very difficult
to condense that in a few minutes. But as you can tell by the
size of the panel, I think we are going to have an opportunity
to get to some of the issues that are important to you.
But more than that, we really want to try and think about
where we go from here. And that is going to be the focus, I
think, of a lot of our questions.
I want to just ask that we all welcome and ask unanimous
consent that Ms. Kilroy be allowed to participate in the
hearing today.
I am hearing no opposition.
And also unanimous consent that the statements of Mr. Hall,
Mr. Phillips, Mr. Tenney and Mr. Jones also be submitted to the
record.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
beginning on page 197.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Many of you have touched on the organizational structure of
the POW community and the problems that you see with that. Some
of you have stated the problems. Others have additional
concerns about the ability to move through and work as
efficiently as possible under that structure.
If you could, if you could talk to us a little bit about
what you see as bringing the POW/MIA community under one formal
structure instead of the current structure that we have, with
several entities that play a role in this but don't necessarily
have the ability to do the work that you see that is required.
What are some of those issues? What do you see as some of
the downsides as well to that kind of restructuring?
Ms. Griffiths. Well, I think it would be the worst possible
time to consolidate this all in Washington, DC, under the
Defense POW/MIA Office. First of all, it is a too low level.
But secondly, the--I have never, in all my 30 years as
executive director, and umpteen trips to the field with the
operators who are conducting the missions there--I have never
yet seen as high an operational professionalism supported by
tremendous assets and resources. Not enough. And that is
exactly the wrong thing to do is to have a political based
organization that is supposed to be policy guidance and
oversight handling operations that Admiral Keating, the current
PACOM commander, has been very supportive of in all his
testimony to the House and to the Senate.
And, yes, there are budget problems with that. And that is
the reason that I was suggesting at least the one-third-plus up
in JPAC's budget, but to ensure that increasing anything in
Southeast Asia in no way jeopardizes anything on World War II,
Korea War, Cold War. We need to increase, not have one set of
circumstances in competition with another, but under no
circumstances bringing operations into Washington, DC, to cost
more and charge more in terms of bureaucracy.
Mrs. Davis. Let me see if anybody else wants to respond to
that. I think there are differences.
Mr. Metersky.
Mr. Metersky. Yes, and serious differences.
Obviously, I wouldn't have any problems if 75-80 percent of
the assets were being directed in my, you know, in what I
advocate. Then I wouldn't--you know, it would be great.
But the problem is, no matter how much money you throw at
JPAC, how many buildings you put up, they do not have the table
of organization that they are supposed to have. And to that
end, they have never provided anyone, and when it was
requested, that table of organization, show you what their
level of personnel is.
They cannot--when I mentioned in my statement, they can't
do the job because they don't have the personnel. I don't care
how much money you want and who you put in command, if you
don't have the personnel, it is meaningless.
And structured in Hawaii, it will never do justice to World
War II, Korea, Cold War. Yes, there is a narrow political and
personal agenda, which is directed in one area. And that is
what has just been testified to.
But if you don't make those structural changes, and in
command--Admiral Keating didn't even know who Johnnie Webb was,
who is supposed to be the senior civilian commander at JPAC.
And if someone in this panel can testify to that.
Mrs. Davis. I can tell we are not going to have a--no, I
understand that there are real differences coming out of your
experiences.
Would anybody else like to weigh in? And any thoughts--I
mean, how do you see really resolving----
Ms. Griffiths. Well, I think it is important to understand
it all started with the Vietnam War. If it wasn't for the
Vietnam War, we wouldn't have the organization, the personnel
and the assets and resources devoted that are today.
They have not been plussed up in personnel and funding to
the extent that they are expected and should pursue answers on
the other wars. Frank is absolutely right: There are inadequate
numbers of personnel and funding for the expanded mission.
If Congress and the American people are going to expect
more from Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and its lab, the
first thing they need to do is plus up personnel and plus up
funding. And right in my little abbreviated statement we talked
about forensics anthropologists. We can't do any of it--field
or lab--without increasing that element.
Mrs. Davis. Yes, I wanted to----
Mr. Metersky. There is one----
Mrs. Davis. Mr. Met----
Mr. Metersky. There is one serious deficiency in that
argument. You are not going to get the people working in
Hawaii. They have been leaving Hawaii on a consistent basis.
So why would you want to fund up something in a location
that will never be fully staffed with professional personnel--
--
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr.----
Mr. Metersky [continuing]. To properly do the job?
Mrs. Davis. I want to make sure I turn to anybody else who
would like to comment on this issue.
Yes, Ms. Piacine.
Ms. Piacine. I think what is important here is the focus on
how, again, we can make this a better situation and really do
what is necessary for the accounting effort.
I think that we really need to also look at the most
current progress that JPAC has made. My understanding is not
that they are losing anthropologists right and left. I think
currently they set up a college there and are actually
retaining people.
So I think, whenever the JPAC folks come in, I think that
those questions need to be asked.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Yes, Mr. Broward.
Mr. Broward. On the same----
Mrs. Davis. And I know my time is up. But if everybody
doesn't mind if we could try and hear from everybody, that
would be great.
Mr. Broward.
Mr. Broward. Yes, thanks.
When we first went to JPAC about 8 years ago, they had 36
anthropologists. Today they are down to 19.
We have been going there about 100 days a year doing
research. To keep forensic anthropologists there, I don't think
is possible because attrition of them coming back to the
mainland to be with their colleagues and for better jobs is
just going to happen.
The first thing that you asked was how can you make these
agencies work with three different commanders? That is
virtually impossible. You need somebody in charge. You have a
four-star, a two-star and then Ambassador Ray. Ambassador Ray
makes policy, but to get JPAC to carry that policy out when
there is a four-star in charge, that is virtually impossible,
as we observed over the years.
That is what I had to say.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Let us go on to Mr. Wilson now.
I am sorry, was there anybody who really wanted to weigh
in?
Mr. Riley. I just wanted to weigh in that I think the
military can figure things out when they actually do look at
what is the mission and what requirements need to be put to it?
But there are problems of turf. And so what I would ask for
is that you look at how you do that and have a good study done
of it which really will match the resources to the identified
requirements and structure it that way. It hasn't been done in
ages.
Thank you.
Mr. Wysong.
Mr. Wysong. We can--the VFW doesn't subscribe to the theory
or the position of moving everything to the mainland when over
90 percent of the investigative and recovery operations for all
wars are in the Pacific region. That is just one addition to.
And I agree with Ann Mills Griffiths on her statements,
also.
Mrs. Davis. Great. Thank you very much.
I am going to move on to Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
And thank each of you for your dedication. It is very
impressive to me on behalf of our veterans and our persons who
haven't returned how dedicated you are.
A question for each of you: You have made several
recommendations on how the personnel accounting process should
be improved. Going back to my opening statement, I believe we
must make changes in the personnel accounting system that will
dramatically increase the number of annual identifications by a
factor of three to five.
Achieving this goal would mean an annual identification--
these annual identifications would go from 76 per year to 230-
380 per year. If that significant increase in identifications
became one of the goals of the personnel accounting process,
what are the two or three most important changes beyond the
obvious need for more people and resources to the status quo
that you believe would have to be made?
Ms. Griffiths. I think some of the steps that Admiral Crisp
has been taking--and someone just alluded to the new JPAC
academy that Dr. Bob Mann is leading; it is in Hawaii. And
Admiral Crisp has developed several programs for recruiting
recent graduates in forensics anthropology for compensation for
education. You will have to ask her all the details.
What I know is that in my many trips to talk with the
anthropologists, including the younger generation, new
recruited anthropologists, the people out in the field--there
were five that we talked to just on this one trip when we went
out to the field in Laos--four or five. But they love their
jobs, love deploying to the field.
Now, yes, they shouldn't have to deploy as much as they do.
And yes, we need more anthropologists and other odontologists,
different kinds of scientists to participate in these things.
They don't all have to be Ph.D.s.
With this new JPAC academy they are forming including
exchanges with a Thai university in Konkan. They are going to
be getting constructive credit. They are developing all kinds
of imaginative solutions for getting more anthropologists into
the program and for advancement within that program to expand
their numbers.
So that is all, to me, very positive. And I think that
absolutely is crucial to the identification process. In fact,
the league supports additional laboratories that would be
devoted solely to--and some of those could be in the
continental U.S.--adjunct labs to focus strictly on
identification of remains, not deployable labs that do all the
fieldwork but strictly focus. And that could be in an addendum
to the existing laboratory structure. But so long as they are
under the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command so that they don't
become politicized or controlled by policy ups and downs in the
community but in fact continue to focus on the work at hand.
Mr. Broward. The number one thing I believe that can be
done is you have to professionalize the staff, be it more
professional historians, maybe more forensic anthropologists.
The reason that these fellows aren't being worked on, there are
items to be done and exhumed, it is because there is not the
staff the staff there to do it, either professional historians
or anthropologists.
It is a shame. Some of these go back over two years. They
have been approved by an odontologist. Let us get them out of
the ground. They still sit. And I think that is--that really
disservice to the officers missing.
Regard to funding, I don't think you need to increase the
funding. You just need to professionalize the staff. There is
so many people that work there. They have, I think, 66
analysts. And I really don't know what the analysts do. They
are good people. I like them.
But who gets the job done is either a professional
historian or forensic anthropologist. That is who the
identifications come from. The historians tell you where to go
to find remains. Thank you.
Mr. Riley. I would say one other thing to look at is the
diplomatic piece: Who can really influence the countries that
we need to influence and make the arrangements and the
coordinations? I think we have to look at that piece and look
at it hard.
Mr. Wilson. And aside from the obvious problem of dealing
with Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which other
countries do you think we need to work with more closely?
Mr. Riley. I will defer to Ann on that.
Ms. Griffiths. Well, clearly we need to focus at a higher
level as we did in earlier years. I don't know that we even
have. I have been gone for two weeks to Asia.
But assistant secretary, that level of intervention on this
issue in all the countries, including Russia--North Korea
obviously is a problem--but Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. But it
needs to be engagement on a humanitarian basis regardless of
all the political and other issues to push for the kind of
priority by those governments to give what they can in
response.
Because we just learned that the certification decision on
Vietnam is being dropped in Congress so that there is no longer
a reason that the Administration will have to certify that
Vietnam is doing what it can and cooperating as they should to
unilaterally provide records. It was in there from 2001 until
now. And we understand now it is being dropped.
Mr. Metersky. Excuse me, a comment about North Korea.
As of yesterday, ``North Korea's ready to reengage on the
POW/MIA issue. And we didn't shut it down.'' And North--from
the North Korea Ambassador Kim Jong Il, ``You shut it down in
2005, your country.''
So as far as getting back into North Korea, it is a U.S.
decision. And that is, you know, that is a fact. You will never
increase recovery of remains and identifications if you do not
have the personnel. I don't care how many buildings you put up.
And if you want to find out for yourself that I have been
telling this committee for a long time now, go to Hawaii and
talk to the personnel on the ground. You will find out that a
lot of what you are hearing supposedly being done, quote-
unquote, by Admiral Crisp is just a smokescreen.
Nothing positive has ever come out of any of her
recommendations. And I will testify under oath to this. And if
you go out to Hawaii, you will get the answers you need to make
an intelligent decision.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
I move to Dr. Snyder.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you.
Mr. Wysong, during the vote I took your written testimony
over with me to the floor. And I was intrigued by the comment
on something I am not familiar with, the U.S.-Russia
Commission. And lo and behold there was the speaker. And she
was talking to someone, but her staff person was standing
there, and I said, I am going to give you--and I took along
your written statement, too, Mr. Riley. You mentioned it also.
And I opened the page and said, these folks just testified that
there is an unfilled position here.
And the staff member I talked to has been around here for
awhile. He said, you know, ``we have a list.'' He received a
list of all the statutorily authorized appointments. And he
says, this is not on that list. And he is going to look into
it. It could be an oversight. But when you think about it,
elected officials love to appoint people. I mean, there is no
reason for her not to do that. This would be a--I mean, these
kinds of things mean something to her.
So anyway, one of her staff members has your written
statements, the two of you, in his hand. And so when we get
back from the spring recess, we can follow up on that. But he
said, and he seemed to be very familiar with it when he said,
these are not--he said, I have seen the list. I have the list
of appointments, and this is not on that list. So we will
follow up on that.
Mr. Wysong. Thank you for that quick action, sir.
Dr. Snyder. Oh, yeah, well, every once in awhile.
I just want to give a, just an open-ended question. But
maybe we will start with you, Mr. Broward.
I would like for you, each of you, to tell us how you got
involved in these issues, and what do you tell people about why
this is still important? I mean, we think it is important. But
I suspect you run into people in your, you know, your friends
back home who say, ``Well, that is a long time ago. Why is this
so important?''
I would like to start with you, Mr. Broward, about how you
got involved in this and why this should be important to all
Americans.
Mr. Broward. I got involved when I learned that there was
such an organization called Cell-I. After the Korean War, we
were told not to talk about MIAs. It might cause problems with
Russia.
I was with Marines in both North and South Korea that are
missing. Some of them I was raised with. And it has been on my
mind for many years. So that is how I got involved, to try to
do research and bring some of these--we were all very young at
that time--to bring them home. So that is how I got involved.
Ms. Piacine. Thank you for this opportunity. I got involved
in this issue when I, I guess it was around 1999, and my mother
and my aunt both donated the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)
reference sample, because my uncle obviously had not returned
from the Korean War. And so I got involved in also the
commemoration of the Korean War and went out.
I think that it is very important for all Americans to care
and be concerned about all those that are still unaccounted
for. For one thing, every day when they get up and they have
all these freedoms, they need to remember that those people
have given the ultimate sacrifice. They are not back home with
their loved ones.
And I would just like to see, not just my uncle, but
everybody be able to give all of their loved ones the type of a
funeral that they are so deserving of.
And also, we have to also remember that all those people
that are out there serving right now and intend to serve in the
future that, you know, how can we send them out if we are not
doing what we always have promised, not to leave anybody
behind?
It is our obligation. It is our duty to account for every
single person.
Mr. Metersky. Myself, 25 years ago, I was sitting in
California, and I opened the paper, and there was a Vietnam
demonstration to their credit advocating the POW/MIA issue. And
I read the number 2,200-and-something, and I said, ``My God,
there is over 8,000 from the Korean War. What is wrong with the
Korean War MIAs? Where is anybody advocating?''
The following Monday when I returned to New York, I picked
up the phone. And the rest was history. And that is how I got
involved. I am a Korean War veteran. I have memories of
carrying dead out of Korea that I have lived with for over 50
years. And I have been advocating for the Korean War MIAs.
And if we don't do the right thing, it sends a message to
our men in uniform, ``Hey, once you are gone, you are
forgotten.'' And that is not what this country is supposed to
be about. This issue actually was started in 1954 by government
commitment to the men who died for this country. We owe them
for their commitment, and silence, and the ultimate sacrifice
to do whatever we can to get the fullest possible accounting
from all wars.
Dr. Snyder. Ms. O'Shea.
Ms. O'Shea. I got involved like many other people in the
late 1960s and early 1970s by buying a POW/MIA bracelet. And I
drew the name--it was luck of the draw--of a young Army
sergeant who had disappeared.
And back then, in my naivete, I believed that he was, you
know, just one person; it was an isolated incident. And as I
came to learn, he went missing with two other men, and I
thought to myself, ``How is it possible that the Army could
lose track of three men at once?'' That is how naive I was.
And I would come to learn that, you know, whole teams and
whole aircrafts would simply disappear with no evidence of what
happened to these men. And I decided I was going to find out
what happened to this particular individual. And I started
researching.
Eventually, I joined the National Alliance of Families when
they formed. And I continued my research with them. We did
learn--and my guy and his three teammates were recovered. They
are resting at Arlington now.
And, in fact, it was 11 years ago this month that we came
and buried them at Arlington. And that is something every
family should have. It is a commitment we owe to every fighting
man that we will bring them home.
And I am sad, and I am embarrassed to say it is a
commitment our government has not lived up to. We see today
that, looking back, it would have been so easy after World War
II to recover the men missing, especially in the South Pacific,
because we are finding aircraft relatively easily and pretty
often in the South Pacific.
If we had taken a harder stance at Panmunjom and demanded
our POWs, if we had taken a harder stance on the intelligence
of POWs crossing into the former Soviet Union and China,
perhaps we all wouldn't be sitting here today. A lot of the
families would have the answers. They deserve the answers.
And we are going to keep pushing at Congress. Sorry. But we
are going to keep pushing. And we are going to be seeking the
answers. We are seeking declassification, because in spite of
what you have heard, all the information is not declassified
and available to the families.
Thank you.
Dr. Snyder. Ms. Phillips.
Ms. Phillips. I became involved in this doing research on
my uncle.
What I found out was my uncle was shot down, had burns on
90 percent of his body, taken POW, received beatings on top of
that, and died in the prison camp weighing 80 pounds. After the
war, his remains were placed on a C-47 with other POW bodies,
and that C-47 went missing with the POW bodies.
However, what I found was a bigger picture that there were
78,000 men who their own stories to tell. When I started going
to the family update meetings, I was told--you know, and I
questioned why is nothing being done for World War II?--I was
told I would have to form a family group if I wanted anything
done. And that is what I did with other family members.
A big problem World War II families have are our records
are still classified. The X-files are not opened. Although I
found out we are now opening the X-files. And World War II
families have to do their own research, provide documentation
to take to JPAC before anything can be done. We have to do our
own research and provide the documentation--photos and all of
that--before they will even look at a case.
And that shouldn't be the case. The family members should
not be paying out of their pocket to fly over to another
country to find their relative in order for Congress to do
something to bring our men home.
Thank you.
Dr. Snyder. Ms. Griffiths.
Ms. Griffiths. My brother has been missing in North Vietnam
since September 21st, 1966. To be a member of our organization,
that has to happen. I took over from my father, who was a
former executive director. And after a couple of years, I have
been executive director now since 1978--so over 30 years--and
have been to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia countless times, and
was a member of the interagency group, which I believe Mike or
Phil, one referred to, with a top secret clearance that was
discontinued in 1993.
So even though we probably won't ever get anything on my
brother, I believe in this obligation. And I think the league's
legacy is important to ensure that those who serve now and in
the future have the absolute confidence that our government
won't walk away from trying. So, not everyone will ever be
accounted for, and we all know that.
Mr. Riley. Well, we work for an organization that since
1919 has been concerned about taking care of our brethren.
From a personal standpoint, I can tell you I can't imagine
not having assurance in my mind that in fact my country is
going to follow and take care of me whether I am dead or alive,
having been in combat and thought about that. You are scared to
death of becoming a POW, but you are also--I mean, you just--
your frame of mind if you didn't think your country was going
to get you back to your family one way or another was just
unimaginable to me.
And I think it would absolutely cut at the core of our
ethic. And we are lucky that we have people that go out and do
what they do. But this is a big part of it.
Mr. Wysong. As a Vietnam veteran, this issue has always
been important to me.
But it really came to light back in the late 1970s when Ann
sent me a bumper sticker that said ``Hanoi: Release Our POWs/
MIAs.'' And I really got involved in it.
And since coming to Washington to work for the VFW, this
has been an issue under my directorate. But the VFW has been
concerned about our missing for many, many years.
We have traveled--our national officers and Washington
staff have traveled to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia every year
since 1991 to press the governments of the host nations for
better cooperation and to allow us more access to their
military archives to find the answers.
Over the last five years, we have traveled to the PRC--the
People's Republic of China--spoke with their ministers of
defense, ministers to foreign affairs, to press upon their
government for better cooperation. To Russia the last five
years to meet with their high-level government officials to
press upon them the importance of this issue and how important
it is to the American people.
And I believe the common thread here--why is this
important?--the common thread between all of us is the answers
for the families, to bring closure to the families, and to send
the message, as I said in my oral, to the men and women serving
today that you will not be left behind.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you all for your time.
Thank you, Madam Chair, for your indulgence.
Also, Mr. Wysong, it is reassuring as elected officials to
know the power of a bumper sticker. [Laughter.]
So thank you all for your eloquence. I appreciate you.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And I would like to--first of all, I will apologize for not
being here on time. But there were several other things that
prevented me from doing so. But I will tell you--and I don't
fully understand what you or family members or those that you
represent, the kind of trauma, it is only natural for you
people to have, when they can't properly funeralize their loved
ones for whatever reason.
And I am gaining a better understanding, as many people
here in Congress will continue to do, particularly as we hold
these oversight hearings. And I would like to point out to you,
if it has not already been pointed out, that this is the only
the second hearing in the last 11 or 12 years. And the other
hearing took place in the 110th Congress, and we are now in the
111th.
I would say that there is some definite momentum here for
there to be--it has already been a new look. And I appreciate
the chairwoman for bringing this up today. And I know that it
will continue to be an issue. And someone said, once you are
gone, you are forgotten. I don't think that that is going to
hold true in the future.
And I don't know how many of Congress people have the
missing in action flag up as you enter their office along with
the American flag, but there is quite a few, I believe. And my
office is one.
But I would like to think, you know, that represents people
on both sides of the aisle who are attuned to this issue. And
so, you know, I am sure that it will get more coverage.
I appreciate you all for keeping the issue alive, because
it is something that I am sure the people who are directly
affected, you know, need advocacy so that we can bring them--
and I hate to use this word because it is so overused--closure.
So that is--I have no question, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you for your comments, Mr. Johnson.
Ms. Kilroy.
Ms. Kilroy. Thank you, Chairwoman Davis.
And thank you, members of the panel. I particularly want to
thank those of you who have served in our military and served
in our conflicts. I want you to know that we honor and respect
your service. And I believe that we owe a debt as a Nation to
those served and to their families. And we need to recognize
that, I think, the families also sacrifice a great deal when
loved ones are called up. And when loved ones don't come home,
that loss is excruciating.
I am the daughter of a World War II veteran who served in
the Pacific theater, who served in New Guinea. He came home,
but his brother Leo did not come home. My grandmother didn't
have any hope of having remains returned. He was lost at sea.
But I am sure that would have meant a great deal to her if that
would have been possible.
And another uncle was a Korean era veteran. And, of course,
I grew up in the time of the Vietnam War conflict and, you
know, my good buddy from a couple doors down was lost in action
in Vietnam. And that had a very big impact on me as a teenager
high school student.
So this is an important hearing today. And I thank the
chairwoman for allowing me to participate even though I am not
a member of this committee. This is an issue that is important
to us and to our country.
And I listened very carefully to your testimony and to your
answers to the question about how you got involved. And it
seems to me that you are very concerned that each soldier got
what we promised him as a Nation, that those families got that
respect that they were due to have their loved one's remains
come home, and that it also meant something to soldiers
currently serving that we weren't going to leave them behind in
a foreign conflict.
So what it says to me is that regardless of conflict that
you believe that each of you would be committed to trying to
find and bring home the remains of our soldiers. And that would
be a good reason not to have any particular divisions between
which conflict somebody served in or was lost in.
And so I was wondering if you had thoughts about the
allocation of resources. You know, Ms. O'Shea referenced the
planes that have been identified in the Pacific theater from
World War II.
And that is recently something that has been brought to my
attention because the remains of a resident and service member
from my 15th congressional district--Second Lieutenant John
Funk, who was a navigator aboard a C-87 aircraft in 1943 that
disappeared in that dangerous area known as the Burma Hump, the
region between India and China. His plane was returning from
airlifting supplies, equipment and personnel to the Chinese
government and allied forces after the mainland route through
Burma was seized by the Japanese. These missions were certainly
key to getting supplies to the coast and to helping our Pacific
theater operations.
It was called the ``forgotten theater'' of World War II.
And I just want to make sure that these men are not forgotten
now. So I was wondering, particularly since you made the
comment about the planes that have been identified, you know,
what we can do to expedite the investigations of those planes
that were gone down and to bring home the remains of people
like Second Lieutenant John Funk?
Ms. O'Shea. More funding and more staff. We need to have
additional teams that are able to go out, not at the expense of
another conflict but rather to elevate all conflicts, all wars,
to the same level, the same priority, the same professionalism.
And fund it so that you can have teams going out and recovering
the World War II, the Korea losses. While North Korea, there is
a problem; we all acknowledge that. There are many American
servicemen resting in the grounds of South Korea. They need to
be brought home. They need to be identified. We need a project
of such massive proportions that will allow this mission to be
accomplished.
And I would also like to just add that while we are
focusing on recovering and identification of remains, I would
like to go back to my testimony and remind this committee that
there are cases where the individuals survived their loss.
There is intelligence that they were being moved or at other
locations. And searching for those individuals at loss
locations, quite frankly, will be a waste of time. We have to
determine who those men are. We know who some of them are. But
we have to reinvestigate those cases and pursue new avenues
with the governments that are accountable for these men.
Mrs. Davis. Ms. Kilroy, I am going to go ahead and let the
rest of you respond to that question.
I wanted to ask that as well, about the flexibility and
changing the strategy that we have before us today. And so if a
few of you want to comment on that, and then we are going to
break for a vote. And we are going to take the next panel after
that.
So I just wanted to let you know if you wanted to weigh in
on this question in terms of the strategy ``most recent
first,'' which is, you know, up in terms of a discussion,
really, of how we look at this strategy differently.
Ms. Phillips. I think a couple of things that would help is
new technology, like the ground penetrating, you know, radar
side scan sonar, and research.
World War II, we have to do our own research. All the
records are here in DC. I don't know if you want to hire an
independent group to help JPAC with that. You know? I mean, you
are going to have to fly someone from JPAC up here to look at
records. It is kind of crazy. And even if DPMO looks at the
research, you are not always sharing information.
And we do need new technology like the ground penetrating
radar for the aircrafts that you are talking about being down,
or side scan sonars of aircraft underwater.
So I wanted to add that, and----
Mrs. Davis. Okay.
Ms. Phillips [continuing]. More research needs to be done.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
I wonder if anybody wants to respond to a change in
strategy quickly, because we are going to have to stop.
Go ahead, Mr. Broward, I think you had your----
Mr. Broward. I don't know whether you would call this a
change of strategy, but there is new technology called
radiograph matching that is terribly important----
Mrs. Davis. Right.
Mr. Broward [continuing]. Developed in January. And it is
going to need funds for research and development.
Currently, the JPAC budget does not have any funds for
research and development. And I think that with such a
possibility of identifying so many unknowns with this new
radiograph matching technology that it is really going to need
some attention both for hiring forensic anthropologists and
historians with this technology. But they are going to need
funding to develop the software.
Ms. Griffiths. What I wanted to say is, quickly, and
agreeing with the technology, there have significant advances.
What Ms. O'Shea said about people last known alive, those
require investigations, and many of them were alive and on the
ground. We have been talking in terms totally of remains today,
which always distresses me. But it is one of the reasons that
the Defense Intelligence Agency specialists that are
investigators are so important to the Vietnam War effort.
But I would point out, too, in terms of strategy and
timing, it isn't just looking at remains, recoveries from 50
and 60 years ago. In the Korean War, there were people last
known alive that haven't come back. And in the Vietnam war.
That is not true, obviously, on World War II. And yes, there
are about 30,000 that went in sea--maybe it is more; I don't
know the exact numbers--that are considered buried at sea.
But there is a wide variety here. And each war needs to be
addressed in its own circumstances, including investigations on
people who were last known alive. And that is not to say they
are all running around alive somewhere today. I am saying those
have been the highest priority of our government.
Some of us differ with how serious it has been. But
nevertheless, it has been a separate priority, and that is the
focus on most recent wars because of last known alive cases
being the priority. As they should be, I believe, in the Korean
War as well.
Ms. O'Shea. If I may, I would just like to add to that that
our organization does believe that there were last known alives
from World War II. There is evidence in the gulag study that
was done by the Joint Commission Support Directorate that is
the investigative arm of the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission that
talks about that. As Ann said, we don't know that they are
alive today. But certainly there is evidence that needs to be
looked at because if we are looking for those men at the loss
locations, we are not going to find them.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Ms. Piacine.
Ms. Piacine. Yes. I would like to say that what I think is
really important in the accounting process and to move forward,
we definitely need your support desperately on having our files
declassified, even though they have been--there is a
presidential order out to do so--this has not been done.
And most recently, a research team from the Coalition of
Families went to the National Archives and went through boxes
where they had multiple slips that just the files had been
taken out, and they were debriefing files. And no one has even
looked at these files for over 15 years. We really need your
help.
Thank you.
Mrs. Davis. I want to thank you all so much for your
participation today. It has been very important for all of us
to hear from you. And, as I said, we do have your full
testimony, but we certainly welcome any other written statement
that you choose to give us and to stay in touch and engaged as
you certainly have been. And we hope to be very responsive to
that.
When we come back, we will have the second panel. And you
are certainly all, of course, welcome to stay.
Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Ambassador Ray and Admiral Crisp.
We want to welcome you to the hearing today. And we know
that you have probably been listening in on the testimony
earlier. We certainly appreciate the fact that we had everybody
attending. And now we look forward to hearing from you. Please
proceed.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES A. RAY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE FOR POW/MISSING PERSONNEL AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE
Ambassador Ray. Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Congressman Wilson. I very
much appreciate you giving us the opportunity to lay out our
views toward improving the critical mission of accounting for
missing Americans from all our past conflicts.
I know your time is limited, so I would ask that the
extended version of my remarks be entered for the record.
Your invitation is most welcome at this time. One of the
primary reasons our agency was formed in 1993 was to ensure the
families of all our MIAs and the public in general received
all--I repeat, all--the information that the government had
assembled on their cases.
In my agency alone, we devote approximately one-third of
our resources to keeping the families, the public and the
Congress fully informed. Also, as you may know, families are
entitled to receive information previously classified, which
has had the sources and methods removed.
We take this commitment very seriously, and we work hard to
prove it every day. We continue to strive to provide equitable
treatment to all groups representing all conflicts. Our
strategy has been revised to reflect sound management and
business practices and to honor the sacrifices of all of our
personnel regardless of the conflict.
Now, when I meet with a group of family members, as I do
virtually month, I don't see conflicts. I see Americans who
have sacrificed so much for this country and who are entitled
to have that sacrifice honored and respected.
There are more than 80,000 Americans missing from past
conflicts. Each month, when we hold our family updates in
cities and towns across the country, we see the grief and the
pain that so many of our families still suffer.
So long as this Nation remains committed to finding its
missing sons and daughters, we will continue to carry out this
mission.
We are looking at ways to improve how we carry out our
mission, keeping the promise that this government has made to
account for our missing. But in the first instance, our goal is
to bring our people back alive.
To be sure, our primary obligation is to bring everyone
home alive from foreign battlefields. I am sure you have seen
the heroic stories of those rescued from today's conflicts. But
a little known fact is that there is only one soldier missing
from Iraq and none from Afghanistan, when you compare that to
the 80,0000 who are still missing from Vietnam, the Cold War,
the Korean War and World War II.
We see this dramatic shift in response to at least two
areas. The first, of course, is technology, which enables us to
keep track of our own people on the battlefield, and to bring
them out of harm's way if need be. The second is the fact that
there are lessons learned from previous conflicts applied to
the combat soldiers of today.
For the future, I believe we need to leverage technology
more effectively to include using information technology to
communicate better with our constituents and to gather the
information that is essential in resolving cases. We must avoid
getting locked into fixed strategies or ways of doing business.
Today's mission of accounting for the missing arose from
the government's efforts during and following the Vietnam War.
But although warfare has changed, and technology has changed,
the pain of a missing loved one has not. I see that every day
as I interact with our families. The effort to account for the
missing from all conflicts is one promise that I will never
abandon.
In order to effectively serve our constituents, we must
constantly evaluate and assess our methods of operations,
resource bases and command relationships to ensure they are
doing what must be done if we are to continue to be successful.
While we must continue to honor the sacrifices of our
heroes of past conflicts, we must also keep our eyes on both
the present and the future. We owe a debt to those currently
serving and to those who will serve in the future to do all we
can to assure them that we will keep the promise.
We need to encourage out-of-the-box thinking on this issue.
And while we shouldn't reject tradition just for the sake of
doing things differently, neither should we allow tradition to
become a straightjacket to innovation.
I have touched, I know, on several issues directed at our
future efforts and our future commitments, and I will be more
than happy to take your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Ray can be found in
the Appendix on page 172.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you. Thank you.
Admiral Crisp.
STATEMENT OF REAR ADM. DONNA L. CRISP, USN, COMMANDER, JOINT
POW/MIA ACCOUNTING COMMAND
Admiral Crisp. Madam Chair and members of the committee,
thank you for this opportunity to appear before you. And I am
pleased to update you on the Joint Prisoner of War Missing in
Action Accounting Command after my first year as commander, and
following the last appearance nine months ago.
First, on behalf of the men and women of JPAC, I want to
express my sincere appreciation for your continued support for
personnel accounting efforts. You heard from family members,
veterans and concerned citizens at the first panel, each from
very diverse backgrounds and perspectives. All are important to
us, and we listen to their recommendations, and we appreciate
their support to our humanitarian mission.
Delegation visits like Ms. Ann Mills Griffiths and those of
veteran service organizations serve to reinforce the United
States Government's commitment to the POW/MIA mission and
demonstrate the importance of our issue to the families of
those who remain unaccounted for as well as the veterans who
served with these men.
In addition to our field operations, much of my focus in
JPAC has been to structure it to effectively accomplish our
mission and to provide a quality of work environment for the
men and women of JPAC, and to establish processes that will
sustain and improve the organization and mission in the future.
In 2008, we worked in 15 countries and completed 72
missions. We identified 80 Americans who lost their lives in
the service to our Nation. This is a 14 percent increase over
the 2004-2007 identification average.
This year, we are working in 12 countries, conducting 62
missions to account for missing for World War II, the Korean
War, Vietnam, and have already identified 29 individuals.
In addition to continuing our operational focus, we have
also concentrated on process improvements, both in our
partnerships with foreign countries as well as internal to
JPAC. We conducted a 20-year assessment with the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam.
We have also realized very positive progress with the Laos
People Democratic Republic and how we conduct our joint field
activities, enabling us to save money and maximize the team's
time on site. The Kingdom of Cambodia continues to be extremely
supportive of our humanitarian mission, and we also received
support from the Republic of Korea, Papua New Guinea, the
Republic of India, the People's Republic of China, and many
other countries throughout the world.
In the area of JPAC improvements, recruiting and retention
of our scientific staff has been my focus for the past year. We
have implemented several programs, such as student loan
repayment, creation of developmental positions to leading to
senior positions, the establishing of a forensic science
academy to name a few.
We are already realizing results from these initiatives.
Federal employment in the laboratory is 78 percent, with 15
full-time fellows, that brings the laboratory numbers 110
percent of our workload requirement. Our scientists continue to
excel in research and development of innovative forensic
identification tools and techniques.
Over the past two years, our focus has been on video
superimposition and radiographic clavicle bone matching. Once
validated and accepted in the forensic science community, our
identification rates should increase. This new identification
technique is going to make a significant capability applicable
to the Korean War unknowns.
Since my last opportunity to speak with you, we have more
than doubled our total laboratory analytical space. When I
departed Hawaii last week, the remains of more 80 American
service members were under analysis. This is almost twice the
number that were under analysis at this time last year.
By this summer, I expect 50-60 more remains unilaterally
turned over by the North Koreans in the early 1990s and often
referred to as K-208 to be completely moved to the facility at
Pearl Harbor. This will more than triple the analytical table
space. And for the first time in 19 years, the scientists will
be able to analyze these remains in detail without interruption
of other cases.
We are quite pleased with the additional space, and we look
forward to the completion of our military construction project,
when our entire organization will be in the same location. And
that will increase capabilities and effectiveness at JPAC.
This is a brief update on JPAC, and we believe we are
poised for the future, we are in the right location, we have
the full support of the United States Pacific Command and the
Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office.
Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for
this opportunity, and I await your questions.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Crisp can be found in
the Appendix on page 183.]
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
And, of course, we are here today to try and see how we
move forward, recognizing the gains that have been made and
some of the difficulties in trying to bring together so many
interests when it comes to the issue that we are dealing with,
which we know is just so terribly important, I think, to our
country.
I am wondering, Ambassador Ray, going back to the structure
question that we talked about in the earlier panel, will the
study by Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) assess the POW/
MIA community organizational structure to see if changes, in
fact, do need to be made?
Ambassador Ray. Madam Chairman, the IDA study is focused on
how to improve the rate of identifications.
Referring to comments made by Congressman Wilson in his
remarks, we have recognized that we do need to look at
increasing the rate. Given the circumstances of the conflicts,
the Vietnam War sites are deteriorating at a remarkably
accelerating rate. World War II, those family members that we
are aware of are getting no younger day by day. And so we owe
it to them as well as to honoring those who have sacrificed for
the country to do all that we can to increase the pace.
What we don't have a very firm handle on at the moment is
to what level can we increase this. We are currently doing some
70 per year. The study initially focused on a number of 180 per
year. That is subject to modification as we look at what is
feasible.
And it is looking at the entire identification process. It
is too easy--or I should it is rather the view that if we make
a change in the lab that we will materially affect the
identification process ignores the fact that there are other
elements that play into it.
If you increase the numbers, for example, of bone cuttings
in the lab of remains for identification (IDs), you also have
to consider the impact on the workload of the Armed Forces DNA
Identification Lab. You also have to consider how much research
support, how much analytical support has to go into working
with that anthropologist to make that ID.
So what the firm that is doing the study has been directed
to do is to look at the entire process, look at what is
feasible----
Mrs. Davis. Are they also focusing on the structure?
Ambassador Ray. They are focusing on the structure, the
funding, and the manning of the lab and other aspects of the
identification procedure to see how we can achieve increases.
Mrs. Davis. Okay.
Do you have some thoughts as well, though, when creating
more of a defense field agency?
Ambassador Ray. Well, I constantly look at how we are
organized. And, of course, one of the ideas that I have given
to people to look at would be, is it more effective to have a
defense agency concept as opposed to having a geographic
commander responsible?
There are no--I am not wedded to one way or another. What I
have asked people to do is to look at the various
configurations that are possible and try and decide what is the
most effective way not only to do the mission that we currently
have, which is to account for the missing from the wars of the
past, but to configure ourselves to position ourselves so that
we can effectively serve the Nation for current and future
wars.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
And just turning to Admiral Crisp before my time is up: Do
you think a more direct funding stream would help JPAC receive
the required resources that it needs?
Admiral Crisp. Right now the funding stream is called out
in the budget. So for that I think we have the visibility.
I believe that the U.S. Pacific Command supports the
funding for JPAC. The only reason we had a reduction this year
was a congressionally mandated mark.
And so I am comfortable that we have this ability of what
we are doing at JPAC for our funds.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. Thank you.
My time is up, and I will move to Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And thank both of you for your obviously dedicated service.
It has been inspiring to me to hear both of you speak.
Additionally, Ambassador Ray, I want to reiterate my
appreciation for your military service, your extraordinary
diplomatic service and wish you well on your return to the
State Department.
And this is really a question for each of you. In the
different Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs) that we heard
from, their commitment was also inspiring, and that is what
creates this question. We have heard some testimony that
contracting for professional historians, archivists,
genealogists, and researchers could assist both DPMO and JPAC
in carrying out current missions.
Given that JPAC is only 84 percent manned at this date, to
what extent has the use of contractors been evaluated to
increase JPAC's ability to meet mission requirements and help
reduce the backlog of remains that must be identified?
Admiral Crisp. The contracts that we use, I have contracted
forensic anthropologists. I have coming onboard this summer a
contracted odontologists.
For the area of historian, I am taking the command from
four historians to eight this year. And so I am using the
military-to-civilian (mil-civ) conversion when we are talking
about the numbers in that to shape the numbers of historians
that we need to get the job done.
Ambassador Ray. In regards to DPMO, part of the decision on
how we allocate analysts and researchers will depend on the
final decisions on the conflict strategy, which is, as you
heard in the earlier testimony, has been put in draft and is
available for review.
We have made some changes, in fact, in the allocation of
researchers to various conflicts to ensure a little more
equitable coverage. I wouldn't go so far as to say that we have
achieved all the goals that we set for ourselves.
We were fortunate last year in working within the defense
system to get some authorized increases in personnel. Of
course, my first priority because I do also have to manage the
flow of information to families was to increase the staffing
available to man that function. And that is the
declassification process to ensure that we comply with the
intent of the regulation, that those documents relating to POW/
MIA cases that are classified are declassified and placed in a
place that they are accessible not only to the families but to
the public. We are working now to increase our staff in that
area as well.
Mr. Wilson. And both you have identified advances in
technology--the clavicle identification.
I am somewhat surprised not to hear about DNA capabilities
of technological----
Admiral Crisp. Well, I could tell you about what Armed
Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) is doing. It was
their demineralization process.
So it was when the Korean War men came back and were buried
in the Punchbowl and exhumed, they found that they had--the
mortuary in Japan--had soaked the remains in formaldehyde and
put a formaldehyde past over it. So that challenge of not
having DNA has put AFDIL on the cutting edge of trying to find
ways of finding DNA in different ways.
That said, the demineralization process which they did just
several years ago impacted the entire forensic capability of
the United States, the difference being instead of having to
have a piece of bone half the size of the palm of your hand,
now you only have to have a piece the size of your fingernail.
And that made a tremendous difference for the remains from
Vietnam, because the soil deteriorates them so much. In many
cases, at that point in time, the pieces of bone we couldn't
get DNA out of, now we can. So you will see that making a
difference there.
I know that AFDIL is working on not only advances for their
mitochondrial DNA but also their paternal DNA and, again,
advancing their demineralization process.
If you would like me to talk about the advancements in JPAC
on the clavicle bones, I would be happy to talk about that. It
is pretty fantastic.
Mr. Wilson. I think I would be interested.
Admiral Crisp. Basically, if you look at how forensic
anthropologists have in the past looked at it, they take a
clavicle bone and they try to match a few places, trying to
guess who that person could be.
I brought a young scientist, a Ph.D. in forensic
anthropology, who had the idea of doing clavicle bones with the
lower neck and doing eight different bones with 30 different
points of identification. And he has worked industriously on
this for a year. And we are up to the point where he has
identified 9 of 10 correctly. So he is excited. I am excited.
And so we started out on this journey. The first thing you
had to have were the x-rays of the men who died and now are
unknowns. So we have been working to get the x-rays. We got
them from the Army and the Air Force. We just recently found
the Navy and Marine Corps.
And basically you have to go through entire spools of every
x-ray that was done at a hospital to find that one person you
want. So this is--we are working on it. But we are getting all
the x-rays in.
I had one photographer working on it. I now have a team of
four photographers capturing these x-rays digitally. After that
is done--and they are doing that on two shifts right now. After
that is done, instead of having a Ph.D. outline the bones on
the x-ray, I am going to look to see if maybe a draftsman or a
Master's level person to work on that so we can accelerate
that.
So it started out with a process that would take four
years. We have now shrunk it to two years. And I am trying very
hard to try to compress it to one year by watching how they do
their work, keep adding extra things they think that will make
them go faster.
Because I think when we are done we will have--assuming
that it is accepted by the forensic science community--we will
have a fabulous identification process. The entire--you know,
there are scientists all over the world that are aware of what
we are doing, because they come and drop by. They want to just
sit and watch what we are doing because it is so cutting edge.
So I am very excited about it.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Dr. Snyder.
Dr. Snyder. There was a reference just made to your school.
Will you talk about that, please?
Admiral Crisp. Forensic Science Academy started out as I
began to look, and our whole team began to look, at recruiting
and retention for JPAC. There was a variety of reasons, and I
can discuss them later, why the manning was going down.
But one of the things that I noticed is that we had talent
in the command, but they needed to go to that extra level in
order to be a Ph.D. level candidate. They needed extra
training.
In addition to that, many of the Ph.D.s that work for us
would love to be associate professors at universities. By
putting together an academy that not only self-trained the
people you needed to pull them up by their bootstraps, you were
also giving your own Ph.D.s the opportunity to earn associate
professor credit.
We have taken that further by working with the University
of Hawaii, who has a Ph.D. program in anthropology. And we
continue to link with other medical universities worldwide to
build this into a fantastic training and recruiting and
retention tool.
Dr. Snyder. Why don't you talk about the manning and if
they are related.
Admiral Crisp. The manning, when I first started looking at
it, was only at forensic anthropologists that were deployable.
So much of the information that you asked from me was just
focused on those deployable anthropologists.
But as we got involved going back and forth between your
committee and myself, we got into the whole lab. So let me just
go through the entire laboratory.
The laboratory is authorized 46 people. And they have 36
assigned. Those are federal employees. There are 15 fellows. A
fellow can either be a Ph.D. or a Master's level person.
So when you get done, you had 51 work years against 46
authorization. That is 110 percent manning.
Keep in mind from my perspective to have a robust command
of any function, you should have federal employees. You should
never rely on mission critical execution in augmented manpower.
Okay. So the whole focus that I am doing this year and into the
following year is to bring aboard federal employees.
That said, if you looked at just the anthropologists, we
have 26 anthropologists that are authorized. We have 18 that
are assigned. Ten of those fellows are anthropologists. So that
means I have 28 anthropologists for an authorization of 26.
Okay?
If you go into just deployable, which is what so many
people look at, I have 22 deployable anthropologists, 14
assigned, 4 fellows, for 18. That is the critical area I am
looking at because it is 64 percent for federal and 81 percent
with the fellows.
That said, if you compare that to Army manpower study that
was done that required 27 anthropologists, our 26 is very
close. In addition to that, we mitigate that by archaeologists,
because many times when you go out on burials what you are
really looking for is a change in the soil composition. And so
the archaeologists take up that load.
So if you look at the entire manpower study that was done
by the Army, with the requirement of 37 and JPAC having 46, I
think we are in good stead. But not satisfied with that, I
asked the Pacific Command to hire someone. And they are
bringing in an Air Force team of manpower and industrial
engineers, and they start this month. And they will go all the
way to September.
And we are going to do a complete requirements documents
for the command. And that will include--you know, first it
gives you the quality and quantity that you need to do the job
you are currently assigned to do. And it will also allow us to
say: If we were to increase identifications, or if we were to
increase recoveries, what would that manpower skill set be?
And so that is what will be ready and available come the
end of this year.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Ms. Shea-Porter.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Thank you.
Thank you both for being here and for the work that you--
very difficult, sensitive work. And many people are depending
on you, so thank you.
Mr. Ray, I had a question about what kind of relationship
your organization has with the family members, listening to
those who lost loved ones in Vietnam versus those who lost
loved ones in World War II or Korea or other wars. And could
you talk a little bit about some of the problems that you are
encountering and some of the solutions you think might be
there?
Ambassador Ray. Well, I would say that our relations with
the family members as an organization, and we meet with them
eight times a year in cities around the country at family
updates and twice a year in Washington--one for the Vietnam War
and one for the Korea/Cold War. Although this year because of
economics, we will be doing our Washington meeting in St.
Louis.
But what I see, and I go to almost all of these or as many
as I can, and I try to talk with every family member that
attends. I don't really see an appreciable difference in how we
interact with a family based on the conflict.
Each case is an individual case. Each family is handled
individually. And what I have observed is that the interaction
is based more on the circumstances of the individual lost than
on the conflict that it occurred in.
We have in the time since we have been organized in our
family updates reached out to over 14,000 people. We just
recently, last weekend in fact, did one here in Bethesda,
Maryland. We had 122 family members attending. Over 70 of
those, by the way, were first-time attendees. And over, I want
to say, 60 percent of the attendees were Korea/Cold War.
But as you walked around the room and talked to people,
unless they told you what war their relative was missing in,
you couldn't tell.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Shared sacrifice.
And you said that you are going to provide transparency in
community efforts as part of your strategy.
Ambassador Ray. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Shea-Porter. And what will be different?
Ambassador Ray. Well, when I took this job in September
2006, the strategy was most current conflict.
And on the surface that sounds like it maybe makes sense.
But then when you start to think about it, there are
similarities in conflicts. When you talk, for example, about
the danger in loss of sites and the danger that you are losing
witnesses. Losing witnesses is far more a critical problem in
World War II than it would be in a more current conflict.
I also asked myself, what do we do when the current
conflict becomes the most recent historic conflict when this
war is over? How do we reapportion resources if we are going to
talk about most recent conflict?
And even though we only have a very small number of cases
that might still be unaccounted for at the end of this
conflict, the circumstances will make it very labor intensive.
We will be dealing with hostile populations. We will be dealing
with a much more complex issue than we do in many of the other
theaters that we have to work in. I doubt very seriously if--we
have very good relations with former foes for some of the other
conflicts. I don't see that being the case in a conflict in the
Middle East.
So that caused me to start questioning whether most current
conflict was actually a viable strategy or perhaps we should be
looking at it more in terms of look at all the conflicts and
then look at those cases that are in most danger of us losing
if we don't do something, and then evaluate them across all
conflicts.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Keeping resources available.
And if I have one more second, Admiral Crisp, I know that
the personnel who work with you have extreme challenges in the
actual physical setting where they go. I remember hearing about
this last year.
How is the morale, and how are things going in terms of the
physical risk that they undertake in order to go to these sites
to recover our beloved servicemen and women who have died?
Admiral Crisp. Well, I think the morale is great.
I just had a report from the Indian officials that came
back from the mission in Arunachal Pradesh, and they talked
about our men basically climbing on their hands and knees as
they went over very steep areas to make it to the jungle. So
the sites in India are extreme elevations.
So they are working hard. They are in arduous situations. I
do prepare them. For instance, if they are going into high
altitude, mountaineering kinds of recoveries, I make sure that
they maintain a higher level of physical fitness in order to
accomplish those missions and not be harmed.
Ms. Shea-Porter. I thank them. I thank both of you and the
families of service people.
Ambassador Ray. Ma'am, if I might add one thing, please.
And I think Admiral Crisp is being overly modest when she
describes what her people do.
Like her, I go out and visit these people in the field when
they are on excavation sites and actually have been doing it
even before this job when I was consul general in Ho Chi Minh
City and ambassador in Cambodia. And I am impressed with the
morale and dedication of the people in the field.
But I would go so far as to say that in her modesty she did
not mention that even in Hawaii they face risks. She was
talking about the x-ray project, for example. These are old x-
rays that emit toxic fumes when used, and she has people who
are risking their health in order to settle these cases.
And I think that is a fact that should be noted. And they
are to be applauded for the risks they take to pursue this
mission.
Ms. Shea-Porter. And we certainly thank them.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
And I certainly hope we are doing everything we can to
mitigate those health risks as well. And please let us know if
there is something else that we should be doing.
Ms. Kilroy.
Ms. Kilroy. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And thank you
for allowing me to participate.
I have learned a great deal from both of the panels that
have presented here this afternoon.
And thank you, ambassador and admiral, for participating.
Admiral, you referred to the rigors of the recoveries in
Arunachal Province, and I appreciate you bringing that up. As
you know, I had sent you a letter regarding the recovery of the
remains of Second Lieutenant John Funk, a resident of Madison
County, who as a navigator aboard a C-87 aircraft disappeared.
And they have been located by a Mr. Clayton Kuhles, a private
citizen, outside a village in that province.
And as we know, you know, time is a very valuable and
limited commodity for each and every one of us. But for the
families of these men, the days are getting shorter.
Lieutenant Funk's radio operator was also one of the five
whose remains were uncovered. His wife is still alive. She is
93 years old. And I think it is imperative that we make the
recovery of the remains of our World War II fallen aviators and
others a priority.
Admiral Crisp. I agree with you. I mean, I have a widow
that is in a mission just on the hill right from where I was at
in her nineties that emails me very concerned to have her
husband back with her before she goes on.
So we are working very hard. In the case of people that go
and find sites, and in the case of Mr. Kuhles, we have asked
for the information and documentation. So very, very important
to us when people go out--and there are many groups that go out
and find things--that they return to us very detailed reports
of what they have seen.
Normally, we would prefer to wait till we had the
documented information before we would ever go to a family
member to say we were looking at going to somewhere for their
loved one. So in the case of Mr. Kuhles, we have asked for all
the documentation. And we hope to get it all.
Ms. Kilroy. Thank you.
Admiral Crisp. And the government of India is very forward
leaning in helping us.
Ms. Kilroy. That is good to hear.
Admiral Crisp. And so I look forward to a long partnership.
Ms. Kilroy. In terms of the overall issue and reassessment
of how resources should be deployed, in 2006 the Department of
Defense stated that, quote, ``Our long-term strategy for
addressing World War II accounting is very much a work in
progress'' and noted that Congress mandated that the Department
make a reasonable effort to recover remains of U.S. servicemen
lost in Pacific theater air operations, particularly in New
Guinea, that it contemplated a limited effort.
Besides some of the physical challenges like you described
with the altitude and other issues, what is holding back, or
what can we do to help you to complete this particular mission?
And I don't mean----
Admiral Crisp. We are talking to----
Ms. Kilroy [continuing]. Necessarily Lieutenant Funk, I
mean the mission of recovery of the World War II missing.
Admiral Crisp. I believe we are focused on getting out to
these sites and making positive relationships with all the
countries. And that is the most important thing.
If you desire to increase the number of missions, then that
would be something that I would work into the calculus of what
manpower would be required to do that.
But right now if I were to look at level of effort in World
War II, I spend 21 percent of my recovery and investigation
missions in World War II, 12.8 percent in Korea, and 65.8 in
the Vietnam War. So that is how I have parceled out doing the
recovery and investigation teams.
Ms. Kilroy. Would outsourcing--I think variations of this
question have been asked earlier, and I heard you talk about
how important the mission-critical items were. But certainly
there are some private labs and others that could be used to
augment some of the Department's efforts?
Admiral Crisp. If I were to speak on behalf of my
scientists, they would tell you that when you go out and have
someone else disturb a site, many times you can destroy that
very important piece of information that would have made the
difference in being able to identify that hero or not.
So on their behalf, they would say that they need to have
very structured, stringent rules and regulations, and the
identifications need to be done in a scientific laboratory. And
they would most likely say contracting out would lead to error
rates that our families would find unacceptable. If that is
what you are asking.
Ms. Kilroy. Thank you.
My time is expired. Thank you very much for your answers.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
And I just want to let you know, Ms. Kilroy, we really
appreciate your being here today and sharing your interest in
this issue. Thank you.
Before I ask a question, I am going to go to Mr. Wilson.
And then we will come back. And then we are going to stop the
hearing in just a few minutes.
Mr. Wilson. And Admiral, I am particularly happy to hear of
the cooperation with the government of India, which is now a
very strong strategic ally of the United States. And in
particular, my father flew the ``Hump,'' and so he served with
the 14th Air Force Flying Tigers in India and China. So as you
were reviewing that, it had special interest for me.
My final question for each of you: Would a congressional
mandate, a new law, that DOD must ensure the fullest possible
accounting of the missing and prisoners of war from Korea and
World War II be helpful in addressing some of your concerns?
Ambassador Ray. Congressman Wilson, Madam Chairwoman, any
congressional authorization that we get--a congressional
mandate is most helpful to us, particularly as we try to gather
the resources needed to do any extra missions.
So if there is a clear congressional mandate, it is always
helpful.
Admiral Crisp. And I will yield to Ambassador Ray on that.
It is clearly a policy area.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
I would note that in the 2004 Defense Authorization Act,
really, they reiterated the sense of Congress that the U.S.
should continue to be relentless in those POW/MIA efforts.
And I am wondering, Ambassador Ray, when it comes to trying
to delineate perhaps a new direction or strategy that you spoke
to earlier, do you see that in need of legislative action at
all?
Ambassador Ray. At this point, ma'am, I am trying to get as
much input as I can from those in the community. And the
community, I might point out, is--although we are the two large
gorillas in the zoo, it is a fairly large menagerie of people
who have an equity in it, who have a role to play in it, and
whose input I would like to assess before we try and shape the
strategy.
At this point, I don't that the remedies needed are
legislative and not administrative changes in how we do this.
Mrs. Davis. Do you have the flexibility that you need----
Ambassador Ray. So far----
Mrs. Davis [continuing]. To adjust that as you see fit?
Ambassador Ray [continuing]. I have been given fairly free
rein to try and herd the bureaucracy in the direction it needs
to go.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. Thank you. I certainly acknowledge and
recognize that, you know, many people who care so deeply in
this issue are coming at it from different perspectives. And it
is very difficult sometimes to blend all of those together in a
way that works for everybody.
Looking at the need to find family reference samples and
how difficult that is, I wonder if you could just turn to the
issue of where at this time, as I understand it, we allow the
service casualty offices to assist in seeking those family
reference samples for identification.
Do you see that JPAC could play a larger role in this? I
guess this is really to you, admiral.
Admiral Crisp. Well, what we are doing----
Mrs. Davis. What do you see as some of the issues
surrounding that question?
Admiral Crisp. The family reference sample issue was
primarily an ability to surge in genealogical research. So I
know that the joint staff and others--we have basically a
process improvement working group, which would be joint staff,
OSD, AFDIL, JPAC.
There is a need for a surge in genealogical work. So if you
were to look at right now 64 percent of the--we have on hand 64
percent of the family reference samples, and we need the rest.
It is around 3,000. And most of them are in the Korean War
area.
And so we do need that to be surged. In addition to that,
we are looking at scrubbing the data. Each group has a
different language that they use to account for their numbers.
So very important in any common operating picture is to
standardize the language. That needs to be done this year.
Ambassador Ray and I are proposing putting together a
working group of just the people who do the numbers. We will
sit them down in one room and scrub that information.
And then after we get that common operating picture in
paper, then our recommendation would be to automate that with
some kind of middle ware that goes into the legacy software so
that everyone can see what the other person is seeing with
family reference samples.
Mrs. Davis. Is there an area in which JPAC should have a
larger role in this?
Admiral Crisp. We work on it in a process improvement
group. So I don't see it as a larger role.
I think the stumbling block was infusing the services with
more money for their genealogical work.
Ambassador Ray. And I might add, Madam Chairwoman, the
joint staff recently conducted a study regarding this issue and
is looking for ways that they can be helpful.
It is really less of a matter of asking can this or that
organization do more, but how can we all do the job so that the
whole job gets done better?
And as Admiral Crisp alluded to, one of the biggest
problems with this issue and with many other defense issues is
every service has its own language. Every organization we deal
with has its own language. I spent the first year on the job
having people interpret for me at staff meetings because I
didn't understand most of what was being said coming from
State.
So we have spent a lot of time just trying to make sure
that in fact the problem is a problem and not a matter of we
are simply saying the same thing in different ways and leading
us to the conclusion that there is.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you. I certainly appreciate that.
It was mentioned that we were here about nine months ago.
And I am pleased that I had a chance to visit with you,
Admiral, as well in Hawaii at JPAC. And what I am wondering is,
you know, where should we be next year? What would you like to
see have changed in the interim? And what questions would you
hope we might ask next year?
Admiral Crisp. Well, definitely I would like to have my
addition finished this summer so I could have already tripled
the amount of table space and seeing what positive results come
from being able to lay out for the first time those unknowns
from the Korean War that came in in the 1990s.
So that has been a long time coming to have that
opportunity. And I would look forward to some kind of results
from that effort.
Ambassador Ray. I think the ideal situation, in my view,
would be that we determine an increased pace of output, be that
identifications or recoveries, find ways to achieve it, and
discover next year that we need to do more.
Mrs. Davis. Right.
Thank you very much. We certainly appreciate your being
here.
Again, thank you to our first panel as well. We know that
you have traveled to be here.
And I think that everybody who sits on this panel has a
very clear sense of your commitment. And it is quite inspiring.
Thank you very much.
Ambassador Ray. Thank you, ma'am.
Admiral Crisp. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 4:56 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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?
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
April 2, 2009
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?
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
April 2, 2009
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. DAVIS
Mrs. Davis. Do you think creating a Defense Field Agency to
consolidate all POW/MIA affairs will help create a more efficient unity
of effort especially with respect to funding and providing resources?
Ambassador Ray. While unity of effort is highly desired, and we
have been working hard to obtain it in the accounting mission, creating
a Defense Field Agency that consolidates all the organizations involved
in POW/MIA affairs is problematic. Organizations such as the service
casualty and mortuary affairs offices, the Armed Forces DNA
Identification Laboratory, and the Air Force's Life Sciences Equipment
Laboratory play an important role in the personnel accounting
community, but they also have other missions as well. They would not be
as effective if incorporated into a new Defense Field Agency, and it
would not be efficient to duplicate the parts that support the
personnel accounting community. Some efficiencies might be achieved by
combining DPMO and JPAC into a single agency or under a single
headquarters, but this needs careful study.
Mrs. Davis. Collecting Family Reference Samples for comparison to
remains is a slow process. Currently the service casualty offices are
responsible to interface with the families and collect the samples for
CIL. CIL will often send request for samples for remains they are
examining and often wait over a year to receive the sample. Although
the services state it is a priority, there are other challenges they
face with the current conflict and managing the families of recent
casualties. Should JPAC have a larger role in the collection of Family
Reference Samples?
Admiral Crisp. JPAC has taken a larger role in overall management
of the Family Reference Sample (FRS) issue by hosting the first ``FRS
Summit'' (8-10 June 2009). All organizations involved with this
critical portion of the accounting effort were present. DPMO is also
leading an FRS working group and Lean Six Sigma project and PACOM and
the Joint Staff are committed to supporting a genealogical surge effort
to begin in 2010. JPAC has a significant role in providing requirements
for the collection but the actual family contact and collection remains
with the SCO's. Although the Services are the primary interface with
families, they are understandably focused on current death and support
to current war families. Therefore, JPAC is recommending a temporary 3
year, 17 to 21 person ``Task Force'' to meet a requirement to obtain
90% of currently requested samples within 3 years. OSD is coordinating
with Joint Staff to ascertain the best approach to managing this
project. If determined appropriate, with additional resources, funding
and personnel, JPAC is poised to manage this 3 year project.
Mrs. Davis. JPAC is attempting to hire l6 anthropologists. The job
announcement closed on 29 March 2009. How many applicants did you
receive from this job announcement?
Admiral Crisp. JPAC is not attempting to hire 16 Anthropologists.
JPAC added 5 physical anthropologist positions to the laboratory
effective 1 March 2009 which brought our total vacant physical
anthropologists billets to 8. JPAC is attempting to hire forensic
Anthropologists at 4 different levels, entry through Senior, Board
certified. We maintain open job announcements for qualified candidates
at all of these levels. Since March, 4 qualified applicants have been
offered positions, 3 have accepted.
Mrs. Davis. There is concern that you are misleading your personnel
strength, especially with Anthropologist, by including interns in your
strength numbers. You stated this brings your manning from
approximately 86% to 115%. If the interns are not qualified
anthropologist, how can you realistically include them as part of your
operational strength?
Admiral Crisp. The reference to 86% manning in my written and oral
statement referred to the percentage of JPAC's military and civilian
authorized strength and did not include interns or Oak Ridge Institute
of Science and Education (ORISE) Fellows; the statement was not
specific to the Laboratory. Interns were not included in our strength
numbers. I reported two categories of manning for the laboratory,
federal civil service and ORISE Fellows. When reviewing the total work
effort, ORISE Fellows, the majority of who have master's and doctorate
degrees in anthropology with significant case work experience, work
full time within JPAC performing similar jobs as our federal civil
service employees. Federal employment, military and civil service
civilian personnel, in the laboratory was at 78% in April. To ensure
clarity, JPAC will no longer report ORISE Fellows when discussing
personnel manning.
Mrs. Davis. What is the cost of this new Radiograph matching
technology that is being developed and tested. How promising is this
technology and how soon can it be in place to help the identification
effort?
Admiral Crisp. The total cost (to date) for the project is $450K.
We anticipate an additional $230K will be required in FY2010/2011 to
complete the project. These costs do not include the federal civilian
service labor costs associated with the scientists working the project.
The method promises to provide a means of matching remains to
antemortem records that has greater probative value than mitochondrial
DNA and comparable value to dental radiographic matching or nuclear DNA
profile matching. It has the potential to play a key role in as many as
200 identifications from the Korean War Punchbowl Unknowns and numerous
other Korean War cases. While JPAC is accelerating the project,
estimated completing date is 1.5 to 2.2 years.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON
Mr. Wilson. Please explain what you believe the study you have
contracted for will provide in terms of the organizational structure of
the personnel accounting community, the manning and the resources
required to double the identifications?
Ambassador Ray. DPMO tasked the Institute for Defense Analyses
(IDA) to identify viable alternatives for enhancing the efficiency and
effectiveness of the JPAC Central Identification Laboratory's current
operations. This should include how various structural, resource and
manning changes in the laboratory, as well as the personnel accounting
community, can impact the rate of identifications.
Mr. Wilson. Would the study provide a basis for decisions related
to increasing identifications three-, four-, or five-fold?
Ambassador Ray. The study was aimed at increasing the number of
identifications to 180 per year by 2014--a 100% increase over the five-
year average for years 2003-2007. Once we receive and evaluate the
study results, we will determine whether it provides a basis for an
increase beyond that level.
Mr. Wilson. You will be gone from your position well before any
implementation of the study's recommendations. To what extent have
officials in the DOD staff and the Joint Staff committed to carrying
out the recommendations of the study?
Ambassador Ray. Once we have received and evaluated the study's
conclusions, we will brief the senior OSD policy leadership and
appropriate members of the Joint Staff on the findings and
recommendations. At this point, it is not possible to say what the
reaction to the study will be.
Mr. Wilson. What factors contribute to the low manning percentage
at JPAC?
Admiral Crisp. Our current manning is 86% with 97% military and 70%
civilian; we are authorized 407 billets, 246 military and 161 civilian.
We currently have 239 military and 112 civilians onboard. The low
percentage is due to two primary factors; 74 military to civilian
conversions and the closing of the Navy Human Resource Service Center
(HRSC)-Pacific, our servicing personnel center. The HRSC-Pacific was
part of a base realignment and closure which directly impacted JPAC's
ability to hire personnel. As of January 2009, HRSC-Northwest has
managed JPAC's personnel actions and made our requirements a top
priority.
Mr. Wilson. When do you believe that JPAC will be fully manned at
100 percent of your current authorizations? Does current manning
guidance from PACOM or the Navy set a prescribed manning level for JPAC
that is below 100 percent? If so, what is the directed manning level?
Admiral Crisp. Our current manning is 86% with 97% military and 70%
civilian; we are authorized 407 billets, 246 military and 161 civilian.
We currently have 239 military and 112 civilians onboard. It is
unlikely JPAC will achieve and sustain 100% manning due to the dynamics
of military and civilian personnel systems. There is no prescribed
manning guidance from US Pacific Command or Department of the Navy that
drives our military or civilian manning below 100%.
Mr. Wilson. To what degree is the Hawaii location of the Central
Identification Lab contributing to your difficulties in recruiting and
retaining qualified specialists like anthropologists?
Admiral Crisp. Forensic scientists with the requisite skills are a
high-demand, low density demographic. The demand for forensic
scientists has grown in recent years throughout the world which has
impacted the available candidate pool. This situation is not unique to
JPAC or Hawaii, but is a common challenge facing any organization
largely dependent on personnel drawn from highly specialized fields.
The high cost of living associated with Hawaii and geographic
separation from professional colleagues presents additional challenges.
JPAC is attempting to overcome some of these challenges by aggressive
recruiting efforts and offering special incentives such as assistance
in student loan repayment, relocation/recruitment bonus, paying for
relocation to Hawaii for new employees, and creating additional
promotional opportunities to retain and recruit Anthropologists. JPAC
is currently requesting the use of Target Local Market Supplement.
Mr. Wilson. To what extent should your budget be protected from
budget cuts in the year of execution?
Admiral Crisp. Budget cuts in the year of execution result in the
cancellation or reduction in scope of JPAC recovery missions and
identifications. The unique mission of JPAC requires significant
planning and coordination with host nations, with negotiations often
occurring more than one year in advance. Last minute changes to
negotiated arrangements, due to budget cuts in the execution year not
only impact the mission but affect forging partnerships.
Mr. Wilson. Could you elaborate on what ``checks and balances''
would be lost through a more centralized authority over the personnel
accounting process?
Ms. Griffiths. Since the end of the Vietnam War, I have witnessed
several moves to centralize and decentralize over nine administrations
under six presidents. With centralized control, political agendas,
self-interest, self-promotion and self-preservation can become the
paramount objectives, as can expansion of the core power base, leading
to self-reinforcement, instead of clear focus on an organization's
mission. With one central authority over both developing and
establishing policy and planning and controlling implementation of
operations, priorities become misplaced and criteria to judge success
becomes self-fulfilling. With total control, there is little
competition for excellence and even less tolerance for outside inputs
and opinions. Those in total control hold all the keys, have all the
answers, control the funding and can readily manipulate the personnel,
yet still go unchallenged.
A sense of entitlement seems to come with centralized control. This
can generate excessive focus on justifying the organization, rather
than utilizing the system to address issues of importance to the
mission of achieving defined objectives though, with total control,
even the objectives are self-determined. Protection of centralized
control induces fear of recrimination, and fear of recrimination
dampens open dialogue, introduction of concepts and honest critiques of
established processes.
Before long, the mission is left with one set of self-important,
but comparatively uninformed officials talking with each other, and
another set of self-preservationists simply going along to get along
and retain employment. The combination contributes only to what is
expected and desired, rather than the best judgments, based on
experience, of people who are led by the example of inspired leaders.
The central authority finds greater comfort in hearing from those
who are like-minded, or feign such, than in dealing with those whose
opinions raise questions or require solutions. Such are the apparent
reasons behind the current push for DPMO to be the central control of
all matters pertaining to the POW/MIA accounting effort and the basis
for insulating policy decision-making by cautioning US officials
involved in the process to refrain from ``pre-decisional consultation''
outside their own organization or certainly outside official channels.
Frustrations stem from the penchant of some to keep secrets, even
withholding vital information from others on the misplaced theory that
knowledge is power, rather than recognizing the utility of sharing
relevant data with those who have a legitimate need to know and are
working to solve problems and find solutions. Self-confident, inquiring
officials from all the organizations with different funding streams, if
unafraid to raise questions and offer comments, have the best set of
circumstances for creating smart policy and providing guidance for
successful implementation. This openness, however, is feared most by
those afraid to expose to the outside world their own ineptness or lack
of serious interest. At its best, an open-minded interagency approach
is useful in drawing out recommendations and concepts for improvements
that can then be balanced against the policy objectives and vested
interests espoused throughout an interagency community. The advantages
of interagency coordination and cooperation far outweigh the negatives,
especially with highly qualified people of integrity in each diverse
organization.
Ironically, in no other official priority is such insulation either
sought or allowed; in fact, it is quite the contrary, especially as
thus far undertaken by the current administration. We look to this
Subcommittee for closer oversight and preservation of an open decision-
making process, with input from all agencies involved as stakeholders
under policy guidance from OSD and implementation at the lowest
possible level by personnel closest to the problems and challenges on
the ground.
Mr. Wilson. If JPAC were resourced and funded to expand the number
of detachments it could field, would you still object to deploying JPAC
detachments to improve the personnel recovery process of the 80,000
World War II POW/MIAs?
Ms. Griffiths. For purposes of understanding the question, I will
assume the word ``detachments'' equates to ``teams'' . . . . believing
that may be what the question is truly asking. Several other points in
the question, however, require clarification, including the differences
in outcomes of the various wars that impact JPAC's expanded accounting
mission, including the fact that there are not ``80,000 World War II
POW/MIAs.''
Without going into numerical detail, the term ``POW/MIA'' does not
realistically depict the status of unaccounted for Americans from WWII.
Roughly half of the 78,000 still unaccounted for from WWII are and will
remain KIA/BNR; thousands of these personnel are officially considered
buried at sea due to the sinking of many US Navy vessels during that
worldwide tragedy. This estimate is based on DPMO's publicly available
statistics and on-the-record statements by Ambassador Ray.
As to differences in each war's outcome, WWII was won by the United
States and her allies so, to a large extent, there was access to the
battlefield, unlike the end-result of the Korean War and the Vietnam
War. The Cold War is in its own realm, equating more to spy episodes
than to combat, though no less heroic and, in many instances, much more
critical to our nation.
Approximately 90% of sites estimated as potentially recoverable and
possibly over land masses are in the U.S. Pacific Command's area of
operations. It is entirely feasible that with increased funding and
personnel, JPAC could field more investigation and recovery teams,
thereby addressing more cases across all conflicts each year. As I
testified on April 2nd, with those increased teams would also come a
requirement for support personnel in JPAC headquarters, as well as
increased personnel requirements in the Service Casualty Offices to
support family outreach and notifications.
Specific to the question of adding JPAC Detachments, placing one in
Papua New Guinea (PNG) could serve a regionally useful role to
facilitate WWII-related investigations and recoveries in Palau,
Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and other such locations. However, in
countries such as South Korea where US Armed Forces are stationed,
these personnel can be tapped for support within existing structure and
manpower, as is done routinely by JPAC today.
Likewise, in Europe, there is no compelling need for a JPAC
Detachment. There are plenty of US Armed Forces stationed in Germany,
Belgium, England, Spain and other countries with mortuary and other
skills for simple exhumations. The U.S. Army Mortuary-Europe supports
JPAC operations and, with increased training, personnel and funding, to
include adding a JPAC liaison and research historian, this existing
mortuary could potentially assist in more European missions.
Burial locations of U.S. and Allied forces in Europe, former states
that comprised the Soviet Union and Russia will continue to be
discovered for decades, as populations shift and grow, as fields once
farmed become locations for shopping centers or other development. In
Russia and former Eastern European countries, JPAC's work is augmented
by the U.S. personnel of the Joint Commission Support Directorate
(JCSD), manned by specialists who conduct interviews, investigations
and surveys. When discoveries are made, there should obviously be an
attempt to recover and identify the remains of any American veteran,
though uncertainty is unlikely for their immediate families at this
point in history. The families of unreturned WWII veterans long ago
accepted the reality that their loved ones are deceased. In fact, many
``unknowns'' are buried as ``Unknowns'' in American Cemeteries
throughout Europe.
The truce that halted combat in the Korean War left the U.S.
without access to vast areas north of the 38th parallel, but with a
large number of forces stationed in what became South Korea. This was
particularly tragic in relation to known POW camps, controlled by the
Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army. At least 389 Americans
known to have entered these camps alive were not returned in the ``Big
Switch'' and ``Little Switch'' operations called for at Panmunjom. Many
U.S. and Allied POWs died in these camps and were buried in cemeteries
located adjacent to the camps, as evidenced by photographs taken in the
early 1980s, and U.S. archival records.
Pursuing answers on Korean War losses was halted by the U.S. for
reasons having nothing to do with the POW/MIA issue and linked to
national security, nuclear proliferation and political considerations.
Unless there is high level administration willingness to seek
cooperation from the PRC for access to sources and archival documents
related to the POW camps, and to talk bilaterally with DPRK officials
on a separate, humanitarian basis to reach agreement on access and
compensation terms, there will be no accounting in the near term for
those missing and KIA/BNR in North Korea, even those initially listed
as POWs. The U.S. can and does pursue surveys and remains recoveries of
those killed and buried in unknown locations in South Korea. For that
to occur, no JPAC Detachment is needed, due to the presence of U.S.
Armed Forces, the longstanding role of the United Nations Command, and
the priority that the South Korean Government has placed on accounting
for their own people by forming MAKRI, their version of JPAC and its
Central Identification Laboratory.
There has recently been a ``strawman'' raised in the context of
establishing JPAC field operation priorities that no POW/MIA Is more
important than another in terms of scheduling, that all are equal. On
its face, this statement appears valid, but it also ignores the
differing outcomes from various wars and the different approaches
required for achieving the fullest possible accounting from all wars.
Gaining cooperation from, and access to, countries where U.S. losses
occurred during the Vietnam War was a product of intense, high-level
negotiations, once internal U.S. priority was established. The same
will be true for North Korea. Recovering KIA/BNR personnel from WWII
sites does not require such efforts since many of the governments
involved are former allies and/or non-hostile.
The answer lies in expanding resources and personnel to meet
increased requirements, not shifting them from operations in Vietnam,
Laos and Cambodia. In conformity with all being equal in priority, it
should not be a zero-sum-game, and families with loved ones missing
from one war should not be pitted against one another. The League
supports increased resources and personnel, smartly deployed, to
account as fully as possible for those missing from all of America's
wars and conflicts.
As for the priority placed on the Vietnam War veterans still
missing and unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, the country of Vietnam
was and remains the controlling factor in 90% of all loss locations.
Due to comparatively advanced wartime communication capabilities, much
is known about the degree to which the Vietnamese government can, on
its own, account for missing U.S. personnel. This is especially true on
discrepancy cases of U.S. personnel last known alive in captivity or
alive on the ground and in immediate proximity to capture. Unilateral
provision of archival records would also facilitate joint field
operations by identifying potential witnesses who could be located and
interviewed for relevant case-specific data. In that interview process,
the Defense Intelligence Agency's POW/MIA investigation specialists,
known as the Stony Beach Team, augments JPAC's capability by applying
their skills and experience to obtaining relevant information.
At the time of my testimony, I had just returned from a trip to
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia where meetings were held with each country's
senior officials. We were accompanied in all meetings by the U.S.
Ambassador to each country, the JPAC Detachment Commanders and by
Defense Attaches in Vietnam and Cambodia. While I reported previously
on the very positive outcomes in Laos and Cambodia, the focus continues
to be on Vietnam due to its unique ability to contribute to the
accounting, if motivated. That is why their consensus proposal to
expand the pace and scope of joint field operations is particularly
important. Their rationale for proposing the expansion were expressions
of earlier U.S. concerns, i.e. potential destruction of incident sites
due to development, and death or failing recollections of witnesses.
This timely expansion should be accomplished by increasing U.S.
capability, not by reducing remains recoveries related to earlier wars
and conflicts. Meeting Vietnam's proposal to expand accounting efforts
will require a commitment by the Obama Administration to increase the
budget and number of people involved despite the necessary continuing
focus on counter-terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The
increases for JPAC, from their headquarters and laboratory complement
to field operators, would also require plus-ups in support
organizations, casualty offices, LSEL and AFDIL, but there should be
little to no impact on DPMO as the DoD office responsible for providing
policy guidance and oversight, not conducting operations, except for
JCSD-Moscow, the only forward-deployed operational element of DPMO.
Again, we must rely on the Committee to advocate and closely
monitor the Administration's effort to honor commitments to America's
POW/MIAs and their families. Our Armed Forces serving today depend on
all of us to ensure that we are there for them, that we have their
backs, should they be captured or become missing. Because of America's
commitment to our POW/MIAs, nations around the world are now doing much
the same, and that leadership is important to our country's core
values.
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