Queuing at the gate took a full ten minutes. When I finally reached the front of the line, an exceedingly spit- and-polished young man saluted me into an office manned by orange-vested security personnel.
Danny had left credentials. Once the car registration and safety-check paperwork were scanned, I was quickly cleared.
After skirting the military airport, I looped the traffic circle and drove past the air wing headquarters. The building’s bullet holes, still visible from the December 7, 1941, attack that pushed the U.S. into World War II, are pointed out to every first-time visitor to the base.
Eventually I made a right, wound past aircraft hangars, turned left, and pulled into a small parking lot. Building 45. The military coins such poetic names.
I dialed Danny on my mobile. He answered and said he’d be right out.
While waiting, I thought about the charge of those working inside the nondescript brown building. About the raison d’etre of JPAC.
From 1959 until 1975, North Vietnam, supported by its Communist allies in the south, battled the government and armed forces of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other members of SEATO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. At its peak, the war kicked the crap out of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Here’s how the conflict played out.
While the lightly armed Vietcong fought a hit-and-run guerrilla war, the NVA employed more conventional tactics, often committing large-sized units to battle. The U.S. relied on its usual trifecta of ground forces, heavy artillery, and gonzo airpower.
The human toll was enormous: 3 to 4 million Vietnamese from both sides; 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians; 58,159 Americans.
Eighteen hundred of those Americans never came home and were not accounted for.
Thus the CIL, later JPAC.
Here come the acronyms.
The Central Identification Laboratory Thailand, CIL-THAI for short, was founded in 1973 to locate American military personnel missing in Southeast Asia. Three years later the lab was moved to Honolulu, its mission expanded. The Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii, CILHI, would henceforth search for, recover, and identify Americans missing from all previous conflicts. Today, in addition to Vietnam, that total includes 120 soldiers from the Cold War, 8,100 from the Korean War, and 78,000 from World War II.
Fast-forward almost two decades from the founding of CILHI.
In 1992, the Joint Task Force–Full Accounting, JTF-FA, was established to ensure the fullest possible resolution of questions surrounding Americans missing in Southeast Asia. Another decade and the Department of Defense, DOD, decided that accounting efforts would best be served by a single entity. Thus, in 2003, the two organizations were merged to form the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, JPAC.
As with its predecessor, JPAC’s mission is to find American war dead and bring them home. Core operations involve the pursuit of leads, the recovery of remains and artifacts, and the identification of individual soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.
Every investigation begins with paper. JPAC historians and analysts gather correspondence, maps, photographs, unit histories, and medical and personnel records. JPAC’s research and intelligence section backgrounds history.
Most investigations also utilize sources outside JPAC, including the national archives and record depositories maintained by the U.S. and foreign governments. Veterans, civilian historians, private citizens, families of missing Americans, and amateur researchers also routinely provide information.
Ultimately, JPAC experts combine everything into a “loss incident case file.” At any given time, approximately 700 active files are under investigation at the CIL.
Danny emerged wearing a pink aloha shirt and baggy brown pants. Behind the thick lenses, his eyes blinked in the sunlight.
We entered building 45 through a back door and followed a corridor past the general’s staff offices into the main lobby. On the walls, wood-mounted brass plaques named the fallen ID’ed through JPAC efforts.
Danny swiped his badge at a pair of glass doors and we entered the CIL public area. To the left, a long glass wall provided a view of the main lab. Before it, a folding table held skulls, bones, and military equipment used for demonstration purposes.
Straight ahead a hallway led to offices, a copy center, a small kitchen, a conference room, and an autopsy area used for artifact cleaning and analysis. Ahead and to the right, a counter was manned by a young man in army fatigues. Above his shaved head, analogue clocks indicated the hour in five time zones.
The offices of senior JPAC personnel ringed the perimeter. Only two doors stood open.
Roger Merkel is tall, slightly stooped, and balding. Well north of fifty, his face is tanned and scoured with lines from years in the sun.
Merkel was at his desk. Seeing us, he rose and hugged me so tightly my eyes teared, momentarily blurring my view of his office.
Stepping back, I marveled, as usual, at Merkel’s orderliness. Files and papers sat in neatly squared stacks. Books, photos, and mementos hung and stood in perfect formation.
After a few words with Merkel, Danny and I went in search of coffee. Gus Dimitriadus, a CIL anthropologist, was leaving the kitchen as we entered.
Though similar in age to Danny and me, Dimitriadus is someone with whom I’ve never felt a connection. He’s attractive enough, good hair, good eyes, but the guy acts like he lives on embalming fluid.
Gus Dimitriadus never laughs. Ever. Frankly, I’ve never liked him much.
Apparently others share my view. For as long as I’ve known him, Dimitriadus has lived alone in a small
