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    Partner Unit Feature: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

    Partner Unit Feature: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

    Photo By Charles Haymond | Dr. Traci Van Deest, a forensic anthropologist, analyzes material evidence inside the...... read more read more

    OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, NE, UNITED STATES

    01.24.2020

    Story by Charles Haymond 

    55th Wing Public Affairs

    One of Team Offutt’s newest partner units, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, was established here in 2013.

    Originally known as the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command CONUS Annex, the $5 million laboratory occupies more than 23,000 square feet of space inside Building D.

    With its headquarters in Washington, D.C., the laboratory was created in part to help meet a congressional mandate to achieve identification on 200 remains per year starting in 2015.

    After a thorough search across the continental United States, Offutt was selected to house the new laboratory as it met all three Department of Defense requirements.

    “First was access to a military aircraft flightline so we can receive evidence recovered from sites around the globe in fulfillment of our mission to account for over 81,000 missing service members from our nation’s past conflicts, said Franklin Damann, DPAA Nebraska Laboratory director. “Second was to be in a community that welcomed and supported the DPAA mission, and third was proximity to Academic institutions where DPAA scientific staff could engage in professional development and build partnerships with researchers to support our mission through technology and innovation.

    “Nebraska, and the 55th Wing specifically, hit all three,” he added.

    DPAA’s mission is to recover missing personnel who are listed as Prisoners of War, or Missing In Action, from all past wars and conflicts and from countries around the world. Most of the evidence retrieved in the European-Mediterranean operations department makes it way to Offutt, while the Indo-Pacific evidence is handled of by the lab in Hawaii.

    DPAA’s regional directorates include the historical research and operational components. A combination of active duty, federal civilian and contract personnel, who fulfill the roles of planners, researchers, analysts and historians, staff these departments.

    The lab here has nearly 40 staff members, with most of them owning advance degrees in forensic anthropology and dentistry.

    “DPAA anthropologists do more than analyze human remains at the lab to help with identification,” said Brittany Walter, DPAA forensic anthropologist. “We also conduct innovative research in forensic anthropology and deploy to different parts of the world to actually recover human remains in the field.”

    Working with human remains can be a rewarding byproduct that these scientist can bring to the love ones of those families who are desiring closure.

    “Last year, I was able to meet the sister of a fallen service member from World War II and she had lost hope that her brother would be identified because he was adopted, meaning DNA would not be useful in his case,” Walter said. “Because of the innovative scientific techniques we have developed at DPAA, we were able to identify her brother using chest radiographs and skeletal analysis.”

    DPAA uses the term “fullest possible accounting” to say that their unwavering desire and mission is to provide accounting for missing personnel to their families and the nation.

    “Early in my graduate career I learned about the DPAA and its mission, and knew right then I was going to serve my nation as a civilian working on the POW/MIA mission,” Damann said. “Doing so gives me an opportunity to apply my skills directly to one of our nation’s most noble missions.”

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 01.24.2020
    Date Posted: 01.31.2020 14:53
    Story ID: 361269
    Location: OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, NE, US

    Web Views: 79
    Downloads: 0

    PUBLIC DOMAIN