Although losing my father to Korea has been a life long trauma, my journey to actually find
out what happened to him began eleven years ago. Since that time, I have learned many things about
this country’s effort to account for its missing servicemen. Just recently, an aspect of the
process that had not seemed as clouded and complicated as some of the others, took on new twists
and turns, and now seems fertile ground for a new round of examination and inquiry.
Between 1990 and 1994, North Korea unilaterally returned 208 sets of remains they said were
those of Americans lost during the Korean War. Eight have since been identified and the other two
hundred lie at CILHI as unknowns. Although I knew about the unilateral returns, I had never inquired
about them, having heard how the North Koreans’ excavation techniques were rather crude and that the
remains simply could not be identified.
What I never knew (not because I was denied the information, but because I never asked) was that
twenty dog tags of Americans were returned with the 208 remains, as well as a listing of where the
remains had been found.
I recently read DPMO’s 2000 Annual Report and came upon a single paragraph that caught my eye
in the midst of the 54 page document. It said, in sum, that last August DPMO’s research and analysis
directorate had provided CILHI with the results of their analysis of potential populations represented
by the 200 unidentified remains.
This sounded to me like DPMO now has a list of men who the 200 unknowns could be. Once the universe
of possibilities is narrowed to a reasonable number, it’s more feasible to do DNA testing and
identifications become more likely. I called and asked both Ashton Ormes and Angelo Collura, who head
DPMO’s research and analysis units, about this issue.
Mr. Ormes deferred to Dr. Collura, so my information comes from him. Dr. Collura informed me that
the remains were returned with some dog tags, but that only a few of the dog tags matched remains. I
asked him if any of the other dog tags were those of men who are still missing. He did not know. That
would be a good question to have answered.
If the dog tags bore the names of missing men, and they did not belong to the men whose remains had
been returned, where did the North Koreans get the dog tags? Right away comes to mind the concern that
they had the men and were trying to pass the remains off as those men. Or, less evil but still
troubling, is the thought that they seemingly had the missing men under their control at some point and
so would know something about them that had not been revealed.
Even if the dog tags were phony, it certainly would raise a flag of suspicion if the North Koreans
had made up dog tags of men who just happened to still be missing and tried to pass them off as the men
whose remains were being returned. It could be that none of the dog tags were those of missing men.
We are, at this writing, waiting to find out.
I asked Dr. Collura whether, assuming all or some of the dog tags belonged to missing men, the
families of those men would have been told. Dr. Collura did not know, but he doubted they would have
been. In general, the practice has been not to inform families of even possible associations, let alone
associations that turn out to be incorrect. Right away came my personal reaction; one that I assume
most other families would share. I would want to know if the North Koreans had returned a dog tag with
my father’s name on it, under any circumstances.
Then there’s the matter of the location where the 208 remains were found, and DPMO’s recent analysis
of who the remains might be, based on who was lost in a given area. It’s been some 8 months since the
analysis has been done. I asked if the families of men whose loved ones are on the list of losses in the
areas where the remains were found had been told of the analysis. Dr. Collura did not know, but again he
doubted that they had. He did say that those cases have been given a priority status by the services in
their efforts to obtain DNA samples.
Dr. Collura has promised to look into the questions and issues I have raised and get some answers for
me. This issue of the newsletter must go to the editor before Dr. Collura can get back to me, so the
follow-up will have to wait until the summer issue. I will continue the inquiry, though, until we learn
the full situation.
The open questions about the 200 unidentified unilaterally repatriated remains remind me of a few
maxims that have shown themselves to be true time and again:
The accounting effort is a process; one that takes ingenuity and initiative. DPMO has certainly
shown both in its many projects over the years, but sometimes the inquiry does not go far enough.
The remains recovery effort does not stand separate and apart from the question of whether there
were live prisoners who were not returned. Information learned in one context can easily shed
light on seemingly unrelated questions.
The effort has a learning curve, one that develops over time. One idea or discovery often leads
to another, and then another.
The process benefits from the input of many individuals, for what occurs to one person might not
occur to another.
The final point applies, first and foremost, to the families. We are too often left out of the
loop of information, almost as bystanders. The definition of a bystander is ‘one who is present
at an event, but who does not participate in it’. Our greatest challenge has been to establish
that we do not see ourselves on the side lines. We do not want to be the last to know, and then
only when the information is concrete and undeniable. We suffered the losses and we expect to be
a part of the accounting process, as it unfolds.
We will keep you posted on the 200 Unilateral Returns.