{"id":168327,"date":"2025-04-11T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=168327"},"modified":"2025-04-09T19:23:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T23:23:03","slug":"dpaa-arlington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=168327","title":{"rendered":"DPAA, Arlington"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

We’ve often referred to the Defense POW\/MIA Accounting Agency\u00a0 (DPAA) and the tremendous work they do identifying the remains of our fallen.<\/p>\n

Last Friday, April 4th, a C-20G jet landed at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, carrying the remains of 80 Marines killed in the battle for Guadalcanal.<\/p>\n

The plane was greeted by more than 100 Marines and sailors at the base as it pulled near the air terminal. They saluted as service members wearing white gloves carried boxes of the remains, each topped with a folded American flag, from the tarmac to a van that would take them to the Defense POW \/ MIA Accounting Agency at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The DPAA lab at Hickam is the world’s largest forensic skeleton lab.<\/p>\n

On the island of Guadalcanal alone, the U.S. military lists about 374 service members still unaccounted for since the end of World War II.<\/p>\n

Marine Staff Sgt. Stephon Smith, an explosives expert, was part of the team and carried one of the boxes of remains as he exited the plane. An Okinawa-based Marine, he is trained in identifying and disposing of World War II-era U.S. and Japanese explosives\u2014skills that proved critical in retrieving the remains he held from the former battlefield.<\/p>\n

The DPAA team was searching for Marines believed to have died during the Battle of Edson\u2019s Ridge, where Marines repelled an attack by Imperial Japanese forces trying to retake the strategically important Henderson Airfield from the Americans. An estimated 111 Americans and as many as 800 Japanese troops are believed to have died in the fighting\u2014sometimes also called the Battle of Bloody Ridge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As can be imagined from the intensity, there is a LOT of unexploded ordnance in the Solomons – enough so that the article says about 20 people are killed or seriously wounded by it annually.<\/p>\n

As the ceremony concluded, Lt. Gen. James Glynn, commander of Marine Corps Forces Pacific, told the service members in attendance that while many regard the Marine Corps motto \u201cSemper Fidelis \u201d\u2014Latin for \u201calways faithful \u201d\u2014as a slogan, \u201cwhat you demonstrate tonight is that it\u2019s a way of life, it\u2019s a family, that there actually, truly is faith between Marines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith worked with the DPAA team but is not officially assigned to the agency ; he had been brought on to help as a member of an investigative team that was on Guadalcanal searching for potential remains. The team began its mission in February.<\/p>\n

Smith said that helping to retrieve the remains was an honor, noting that \u201cinvestigation teams aren\u2019t typically digging.\u201d But when they found the site, they realized a nearby river was washing it away and potentially moving the remains. They decided to work fast, and Smith got to work identifying and clearing World War II-era munitions, identifying both American and Japanese explosives in the vicinity.\u00a0 Military Times<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Go read the article. You’ll be glad you did.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And, some good news. The Army is resuming horse-drawn caissons at Arlington funerals.<\/p>\n

Starting June 2, the caissons will be used for two funerals per day, up to 10 per week, the Army said.The relatively low number is due to the number of trained squads and horses they have acquired.<\/p>\n

You may remember a few years back when the horses were found to be in rough shape – inadequate food, poor browsing and ill health were all cited. Two had to be put down.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Maj. Gen. Trevor Bredenkamp, commander of the Army Military District of Washington, told a small group of reporters that the Army has been working tirelessly with equine experts to buy horses and improve their veterinary care, training and equipment. He said the Army now has 46 horses and that 33 of those are in three squads that would be used for the caissons.<\/p>\n

Bredenkamp said about $10 million a year is being spent to operate and maintain the program, adding that it costs about $900,000 to buy, train and equip a squad.\u00a0 Military.com <\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Army is seeking 6 to 14 year old dark-colored Percherons or Percheron crosses to fill their ranks.<\/p>\n

Not sure I have ever been to Arlington without seeing the caissons. Just did not seem right knowing they were not being used. The article says that 25 families deferred their loved ones’ funerals till the caissons came back.\u00a0 Sure hope they are at the head of the queue….their impact on the family cannot be overstated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve often referred to the Defense POW\/MIA Accounting Agency\u00a0 (DPAA) and the tremendous work they do … DPAA, Arlington<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180,217,649],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arlington-national-cemetary","category-we-remember","category-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=168327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=168327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=168327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=168327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}