1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,960 [silence] 2 00:00:01,960 --> 00:00:07,980 [light piano music] 3 00:00:07,980 --> 00:00:11,980 [Dr. Laurel Freas] It's really important, you know, there's a promise that, that we make as a nation to 4 00:00:11,980 --> 00:00:15,550 our service members, and that they make to one another, that no one will be left behind; 5 00:00:15,550 --> 00:00:20,710 no one will be forgotten; and this is how the nation executes that promise. 6 00:00:20,710 --> 00:00:22,740 This is how we go about fulfilling that. 7 00:00:22,820 --> 00:00:25,680 [Dr. Paul Emanovsky] One of the main differences of what 8 00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:29,100 people expect to happen when they see it on TV or in the movies 9 00:00:29,100 --> 00:00:33,420 versus the reality of working in a human identification lab or a crime lab is 10 00:00:33,430 --> 00:00:38,489 that DNA results don't come back within that 30 minute episode. It takes 11 00:00:38,489 --> 00:00:44,590 oftentimes much longer for any of the analytical tests that we do to yield 12 00:00:44,590 --> 00:00:49,300 a result that we can use in the laboratory. The USS Oklahoma project was 13 00:00:49,300 --> 00:00:54,129 one of the main first projects that we've had to do as a concerted 14 00:00:54,129 --> 00:00:59,440 effort for a project, and we just recently hit the 200th ID milestone this 15 00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:03,320 past, this past week or a couple weeks ago. 16 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:07,090 [Dr. Laurel Freas] The whole reason that we were able to do these disinterment projects 17 00:01:07,090 --> 00:01:10,690 is that now with the science and the technology that we have, we can make an 18 00:01:10,690 --> 00:01:15,939 argument that these remains that have been unidentified and unidentifiable for 19 00:01:15,939 --> 00:01:22,160 over 70 years now we have the capability to identify them. So the Oklahoma, you know, 20 00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:25,840 was sort of the pathfinder, the way forward that showed we can be 21 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:30,670 successful doing this. And so based on their success, we we made the argument to 22 00:01:30,670 --> 00:01:34,540 disinter the West Virginia and the California. So the expectations 23 00:01:34,540 --> 00:01:38,890 are identical that we will be able to identify all or nearly all of the 24 00:01:38,890 --> 00:01:42,700 individuals from those two ships that are still unidentified. 25 00:01:42,780 --> 00:01:46,320 [Dr. Paul Emanovsky] The amount of effort that goes into recovering these remains and to making 26 00:01:46,329 --> 00:01:51,549 identifications is oftentimes a lot of hard research and analysis prior to even 27 00:01:51,549 --> 00:01:54,480 getting to go on an investigation or a recovery 28 00:01:54,480 --> 00:01:58,560 or an exhumation if it was a disinterment. And then once the remains 29 00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:01,600 are accessioned into the laboratory, be it from field work or from exhumations 30 00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:08,920 from cemeteries, there's just a large amount of information that we 31 00:02:08,920 --> 00:02:13,480 have to take in and analytical tests to perform that all kind of coalesce to 32 00:02:13,480 --> 00:02:17,040 become a picture of an individual identification. 33 00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:22,240 [Dr. Laurel Freas] I'm always surprised to hear that folks aren't aware that we're doing this, 34 00:02:22,240 --> 00:02:25,020 so it's really important to me to be able to spread that word so that people 35 00:02:25,020 --> 00:02:29,260 do know this is something that's ongoing and even if it takes 75 years or longer, 36 00:02:29,260 --> 00:02:32,570 we're not going to give up we're going to keep trying. 37 00:02:32,570 --> 00:02:38,639 [Music]