Hostilities ceased in the Korean War more than 50 years ago, yet there are still more than 7,800 U.S. service members unaccounted for in that conflict — out of 83,165 missing since World War II (most of them from WWII, with 1,639 from the Vietnam War and six in Iraq and related conflicts.)
After five decades, it becomes ever more difficult to find family DNA samples for remains that are recovered.
Still, a flurry of Korean War identifications suggests the Pentagon — which overhauled its POW/MIA search earlier this year after coming under fire for a money-wasting and uncoordinated operation — may be trying harder to broaden its approach. A number of the identifications are now made using paternal DNA and/or autosomal DNA as well as maternal (mitochondrial) DNA.
Read it all.
Every day is Veterans Day in search for the missing from Korea: EPlain-Dealer Editorial
Hostilities ceased in the Korean War more than 50 years ago, yet there are still more than 7,800 U.S. service members unaccounted for in that conflict — out of 83,165 missing since World War II (most of them from WWII, with 1,639 from the Vietnam War and six in Iraq and related conflicts.)
After five decades, it becomes ever more difficult to find family DNA samples for remains that are recovered.
Still, a flurry of Korean War identifications suggests the Pentagon — which overhauled its POW/MIA search earlier this year after coming under fire for a money-wasting and uncoordinated operation — may be trying harder to broaden its approach. A number of the identifications are now made using paternal DNA and/or autosomal DNA as well as maternal (mitochondrial) DNA.
Read it all.