It seems there is some rather high-level contention going on within DoD these days.\u00a0 (Yeah, I know \u2013 you\u2019re thinking, \u201cTell us something we didn\u2019t know.\u201d\u00a0 Keep reading.)<\/p>\n
Arguments between the Services and\/or between a Service and a Joint Agency or Command are nothing new.\u00a0 But this one is a bit unique.<\/p>\n
It seems as if the Joint POW\/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) wants to exhume a rather large number of those buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (AKA the \u201cPunchbowl\u201d) as \u201cUnknowns\u201d \u2013 330+ total – from the USS Oklahoma<\/em>.\u00a0 They believe they may now be able to identify a fair number of these individuals.\u00a0 Further, some of the graves are thought or known to contain commingled remains \u2013 so exhuming only selected graves isn\u2019t really feasible.<\/p>\n JPAC would also like to do the same for those buried as \u201cUnknowns\u201d from the USS California<\/em> and the USS West Virginia<\/em> at a future date.<\/p>\n Part of the reason JPAC wants to do this is because Congress has set mandates for annual numbers of identifications by JPAC, and this is likely the only way they can reach those mandates.\u00a0 Yet another part of the reason is, well, their mission.\u00a0 JPAC exists to recover and identify previously unaccounted for US casualties \u2013 and those buried as \u201cUnknowns\u201d are by definition still unaccounted for.<\/p>\n To me, this seems like the proverbial \u201cno brainer\u201d.\u00a0 New data and forensic techniques are available that may identify some of these lost.\u00a0 IMO, we should use them to do so.<\/p>\n