WASHINGTON –
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that personnel from their agency, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, and Service Casualty Offices will be in Las Vegas Jan. 25, 2020, to meet with families whose loved ones are unaccounted for from our modern conflicts ranging from the Vietnam War and the Cold War to World War II.
Family members interested in attending can register at www.dpaa.mil/Families/Family-Events or call (703) 699-1420/1193.
“Keeping in touch with family members and letting them know what we are doing to find their loved ones is a critical element of our mission at DPAA,” said Todd Livick, DPAA Outreach and Communications director. “Family member updates are one of the most effective ways to communicate with large numbers of families at one time. It also gives us all that personal one-on-one time to connect that you just can’t get on the phone or internet.”
Family members will be briefed on what DPAA and their partners are doing to bring their loved ones home. Families will have the chance to honor their missing loved one in a Remembrance Ceremony. There will also be the chance for families to have two-way conversations with casualty officers from the military services and other government specialists so they can ask specific questions about their loved ones’ loss.
The Department of Defense is committed to keeping families of the missing and the public informed about the efforts being made to account for our U.S. personnel. Throughout the year, DPAA specialists meet with hundreds of family members in Washington, D.C.; Hawaii; Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska; and major metropolitan areas across the country. These updates are designed to address the individual needs of the family members.
“The fact that the U.S. vigorously pursues this noble mission defines us as a nation. It is appropriately a sacred obligation and moral imperative to research, search for, recover and identify those missing in an unknown piece of earth and return them home to American soil,” said Kelly McKeague, DPAA director. “In Fiscal Year 2019, DPAA accounted for 217 Americans, a milestone for the agency. That means 217 families now have answers after decades of uncertainty.”
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, find us on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa or call (703) 699-1420/1193.