WEBVTT 00:00.060 --> 00:06.180 (Judi Boyer Bouchard) Alan was three years older than I was. Quintessential Big Brother. I tried to do 00:06.180 --> 00:13.730 everything he did. He, uh, he was the one who taught me how to ride a bike, drive a car. 00:14.570 --> 00:20.730 He called my parents and said, I'm gonna join the army. I wanna be the best, and 00:20.730 --> 00:30.990 he was. And he was selected to be Special Forces. We got a call that, well, 00:30.990 --> 00:35.190 they came to our house and told my parents, actually very little, other than 00:35.190 --> 00:43.879 he was missing. And, so, for the first couple of years we were just on our own. 00:47.629 --> 00:55.230 (President Ronald Reagan) The anguish you've suffered, the families of brave men of listed prisoners of war or 00:55.230 --> 01:00.379 missing in action, the misery is an anguish is unspeakable. 01:00.379 --> 01:06.000 Something the rest of us can really never know even in a partial measure. If 01:06.000 --> 01:10.860 they could be here today, millions of Americans from every corner of this land 01:10.860 --> 01:16.470 who have only a glimmer of your pain, would say to you, we want with all our 01:16.470 --> 01:24.960 hearts to share your burden, to realize our common quest; the return of all POWs. 01:24.960 --> 01:30.390 The fullest possible accounting for the still missing, and the repatriation of 01:30.390 --> 01:36.780 the remains of those who died. (Narrator)Until they all come home, a creed of the American 01:36.780 --> 01:41.790 military; to never leave a man behind. For the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, 01:41.790 --> 01:48.000 it's their singular objective. (Kelly McKeague) I think it speaks volumes to the character and the 01:48.000 --> 01:52.770 values of the United States that here we are decades after the conflicts ended, 01:52.770 --> 01:58.649 that we are still inherently fulfilling our role and our promise made. That when 01:58.649 --> 02:04.050 we send a service member off to war, that should they become missing, that it's our 02:04.050 --> 02:10.080 responsibility as a nation to bring them back home. (Narrator) To meet their goal, they travel 02:10.080 --> 02:13.890 anywhere U.S. troops have served, conducting historical investigations and 02:13.890 --> 02:19.200 archaeological digs. (Kelly McKeague)Time is our biggest enemy so we're talking decades that 02:19.200 --> 02:23.640 remains I've been in the ground. We have high-speed crashes where the impact 02:23.640 --> 02:30.420 created a massive field investigation site. Witnesses are dying. In many cases you 02:30.420 --> 02:36.959 have a remote, rural, dense jungle-infested territory. It's difficult for 02:36.959 --> 02:40.830 our teams to excavate the site and be expeditious 02:40.859 --> 02:46.759 and, more importantly, diligent manner. (Narrator) And even when remains are recovered, 02:46.759 --> 02:52.319 identifying them in the lab presents challenges of their own. (Dr. John Byrd) In this 02:52.320 --> 02:57.120 laboratory, we're working with what, in the forensic realm, people might call 02:57.120 --> 03:03.510 residual remains. These are mostly the hard tissues that are still here with us 03:03.510 --> 03:08.610 after so many years of being missing. And this would be bones and teeth, for 03:08.610 --> 03:12.810 example. And, so, we, we have a heavy reliance on anthropology. 03:12.810 --> 03:17.430 That's the profession that actually studies how you can say things about a 03:17.430 --> 03:22.440 person from their bones. We also have dental records from most of our missing 03:22.440 --> 03:28.170 service members, thankfully, and so our forensic dentist here in the lab, we're 03:28.170 --> 03:33.150 able to compare what we see in the teeth to dental records that we have retained 03:33.150 --> 03:35.740 in the Department of Defense for all of these years. 03:35.740 --> 03:41.590 But we also use DNA extensively. The majority of our cases involves some type 03:41.590 --> 03:49.450 of DNA testing. But to make good use of DNA results, you have to have something 03:49.450 --> 03:55.300 to compare it to. (Narrator) Though it's now common practice to retain DNA samples from 03:55.300 --> 04:00.670 service members, before the early 1990s DNA testing essentially didn't exist as 04:00.670 --> 04:04.720 a forensic tool. This means that to be able to use DNA as a method of 04:04.720 --> 04:08.320 identification, they need samples from close family members to use as a 04:08.320 --> 04:14.440 reference. (Dr. John Byrd) But it's not easy. Some of them we run into dead ends with, and we can't 04:14.440 --> 04:19.120 find anybody. As you can imagine, when you're dealing with literally tens of 04:19.120 --> 04:23.260 thousands of missing service members, particularly from World War II, the 04:23.260 --> 04:28.900 services have an enormous burden to try finding all of these family members, each 04:28.900 --> 04:34.390 and every one of them with their individual unique stories. What happened 04:34.390 --> 04:39.880 to the family? Where the family moved. But we always like to take opportunities to 04:39.880 --> 04:44.950 say, if there's anyone out there who has a family member who's missing, to reach 04:44.950 --> 04:51.780 out to that service casualty office, and help us get the DNA samples that we need. 04:53.520 --> 04:57.330 (Narrator) On the front end, conducting archaeological digs in dense jungle, 04:57.330 --> 05:02.849 harsh terrain and occasionally underwater, require support from outside 05:02.849 --> 05:08.099 of DPAA. Dozens of service members from every branch of the military are asked 05:08.099 --> 05:14.580 to augment recovery teams. (Army Maj. Gen. Susan Davidson) We cannot only support the recoveries, we actually 05:14.580 --> 05:18.090 can see it accomplished. And it's one of the few times in our service that we can, 05:18.090 --> 05:21.930 start-to-finish, really feel good about what we've done. What's amazing to me is 05:21.930 --> 05:26.250 when we have soldiers go, that volunteered to go, for whatever reason, 05:26.250 --> 05:29.520 may not have been a reason other than they wanted to stop the monotony of the 05:29.520 --> 05:33.539 day here or take a mission, they come back a different person. And they have a 05:33.539 --> 05:36.899 different respect for our Army, and for what we do. 05:36.900 --> 05:43.440 [Generator sound] [Soft music] 05:43.460 --> 05:45.940 [Piano music] 05:45.940 --> 05:50.490 (Narrator) Bringing our missing home can be a decades-long journey, that takes a small 05:50.500 --> 05:52.600 city worth of people to accomplish. 05:52.600 --> 05:55.380 [Piano music] 05:55.380 --> 06:00.410 (Judi Boyer Bouchard) March 7th of 2016, I picked up the phone. 06:00.410 --> 06:06.030 It was, it was the night before of what would've been Alan's 70th birthday. Picked up 06:06.030 --> 06:12.840 the phone, and this a deep voice asked for Judi and I said, "this is she." He said, 06:12.840 --> 06:18.840 "This, I'm calling from the Army." My legs literally went out from under me. 06:18.840 --> 06:25.490 And I said, "you found Alan." And he said, "We did." 06:25.590 --> 06:27.670 I mean, I, I could barely breathe. 06:27.670 --> 06:32.520 [Building music] 06:32.520 --> 06:41.720 (Judi Boyer Bouchard) The funeral itself was just, um, just such a joyful homecoming. And again, I'm one of the 06:41.729 --> 06:50.370 very fortunate ones. I hope that the other family members will finally 06:50.370 --> 06:55.680 receive their accounting. Because it's such a sacred commitment that the United 06:55.680 --> 06:57.253 States has to do. 06:57.253 --> 06:59.693 [Uplifting music] 06:59.700 --> 07:05.800 Americans need to be made aware that POWs, MIAs are still missing from all wars. 07:05.800 --> 07:10.690 And that DPAA is making a difference in fulfilling 07:10.690 --> 07:15.540 that mission, for the fullest possible accounting, and bringing all of them home. 07:15.540 --> 07:19.840 [Fading uplifting music]