<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Instead of developing excuses to go to war . . . perhaps our money, time, and effort would be better spent finding those who remain unaccounted for.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">IT'S ONLY RIGHT ! ! !</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Right, Sergeant Pengy?</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><a href="http://www.TomandRodna.com/Photos/Army/SGT_Pengy_POWMIA.jpg" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.TomandRodna.com/Photos/Army/SGT_Pengy_POWMIA.jpg</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Courtesy of today's (September 13, 2015) <i>Stars and Stripes</i> at:</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><a href="http://www.stripes.com/list-of-troops-missing-since-wwii-still-tops-83-000-1.367885" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.stripes.com/list-of-troops-missing-since-wwii-still-tops-83-000-1.367885</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">--------------------------------------</span></div><div><h1 style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; font-size: 28px; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">List of troops missing since WWII still tops 83,000</h1><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">NORFOLK, Va. (Tribune News Service) -- They still weep.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Even after all these years. For their men who vanished in war -- fathers, sons, brothers, husbands whose remains were never found. For the shadows that have haunted their families. And the vigils that won't end until there's no one left alive who remembers and still hurts.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Time is not on your side, Jack Kull reminded those who came to the Norfolk Waterside Marriott on Saturday for an update from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That's the government department responsible for determining the fate of America's missing service members once hostilities end and for recovering remains where possible.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">More than 83,000 are unaccounted for from World War II to the latest conflicts.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The update, one of a half-dozen held annually around the country -- the first in Hampton Roads since 1996 -- drew 150 or so people from within a 350-mile radius. They sat at tables in a banquet room, their seats bearing place cards with the names of their fallen.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Kull, a policy advisor with the agency and one of about 50 specialists on hand, tried to blend realism with optimism.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">While the magnitude of the task is enormous, he said, it's more than a job to those who search: "It's a mission, a commitment, a promise that we will do everything humanly possible to bring your loved ones home."</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But every passing year lowers the odds. Age steals eyewitnesses from World War II and fades documents.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Politics keep recovery teams out of North Korea. In Vietnam, acidic soil eats at remains in rugged regions that are hard to reach.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"When we find something there," Kull said, "it's often just a handful."</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Roughly 75 percent of the missing were lost somewhere in the Pacific, most in deep water. No one is getting those family members back, Kull said. Around 26,000 others are considered "pursuable -- cases where we have something we can work with. Where there's a chance."</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Kerry Beasley, a 43-year-old Navy nurse from Chesapeake, was only 5 months old when her father's F-4D Phantom crashed in a remote valley in Vietnam. Air Force Maj. Wayne G. Brown II, the backseater, ejected along with the pilot.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Afterward, Brown was heard over a radio, saying he was injured and unable to move his legs. Shots crackled across the area. Rescuers couldn't reach him. Brown was never found.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I don't know what my mom and my grandmother were like before that, but I know they didn't do so well after," Beasley said. "It was always there, always a trigger that would set them off emotionally."</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Like everyone at the conference, Beasley came to hear the latest -- how many missions are planned for next year, where diplomatic relations might be thawing, what advances in technology, DNA science or forensic dentistry might help find and identify enough remains to lay to rest.</span></p><div class="ndn_embed ndn_embedding ndn_embedContainer ndn-widget-embed-2 ndn_embedded" id="ndn-video-inside-story" data-config-distributor-id="92012" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: auto; padding: 0px; position: relative; z-index: 1;"></div><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Teams have hunted for Beasley's father and came up empty-handed. She's still holding on to her mother's ashes, uncertain where to bury them.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"My mother never remarried," Beasley said. "She wanted to be buried with my father."</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Beasley has considered taking the ashes to Vietnam to scatter them as close as possible to the place where her dad was last known to be alive. But what if his remains are found and brought back?</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"It's hard to know what to do," she said.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">More than anything, Beasley just wants the uncertainty -- the waiting -- to end with her. She doesn't want her son or daughter -- now 15 and 12 -- to have to take over her watch.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"This is something you have to keep an eye out for," she said. "As long as there's a descendant they can track, you never know when you'll get that call. I just hope it comes in my lifetime. So I can tell my kids a simpler story: 'This is what your grandfather did and what he went through, but isn't it great to live in a country that doesn't forget its service members?' "</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Beasley looked around the banquet room. Listened to the stories survivors were sharing. Heard voices still choked with emotion.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"It never goes away," she said.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There is hope. Since the agency last came to Norfolk nearly 20 years ago, the remains of 1,473 once-missing service members have been sent home.</span></p></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">-------------------------------------</span></div><div><span style="font-style: italic; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the words of Bruce Springsteen . . . Wherever this flag's flown . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"We Take Care of Our Own"</b></div><div><a href="http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/Bruce_Springsteen/We_Take_Care_of_Our_Own.mp3" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/Bruce_Springsteen/We_Take_Care_of_Our_Own.mp3</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"<span style="text-align: center;">I been knocking on the door that holds the throne</span></span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">I been looking for the map that leads me home</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">I been stumbling on good hearts turned to stone</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">The road of good intentions has gone dry as a bone</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">We take care of our own</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">We take care of our own</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Wherever this flag’s flown</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">We take care of our own</div></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: center;"></span><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: center; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">From Chicago to New Orleans</span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">From the muscle to the bone</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">From the shotgun shack to the Superdome</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">There ain’t no help, the cavalry stayed home</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">There ain’t no one hearing the bugle blowin’</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">We take care of our own</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">We take care of our own</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Wherever this flag’s flown</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">We take care of our own</div></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: center;"></span><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: center; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Where’re the eyes, the eyes with the will to see</span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Where’re the hearts that run over with mercy</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Where’s the love that has not forsaken me</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Where’s the work that’ll set my hands, my soul free</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Where’s the spirit that’ll reign over me</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Where’s the promise from sea to shining sea</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Where’s the promise from sea to shining sea</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Wherever this flag is flown</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Wherever this flag is flown</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Wherever this flag is flown</div></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: center;"></span><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: center; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We take care of our own</span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">We take care of our own</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Wherever this flag’s flown</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">We take care of our own</div></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: center;"></span><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: center; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We take care of our own</span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">We take care of our own</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">Wherever this flag’s flown</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: start;">We take care of our own"</div></span></span><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares"</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>