Bring Sconiers Home            

The family and friends of 1st Lt. Ewart T. Sconiers believe that the story of Sconiers' recovery quintessentially exemplifies America's promise to its service men and women, a promise kept even when families have accepted their service member's fate as "unrecoverable."  While Sconiers' family was obliviously living their lives,  "Promise Keepers" in the U.S. and abroad embraced the mission.  Having had no contact with anyone from Sconiers' family, and without any political pressure to do so, Chief Petty Office John Gray (ret.), lead researcher for the Sconiers case for DPMO, was wearing a POW bracelet engraved with Sconiers' name and was passionately committed to finding him and bringing him home to a family who had long ago given up hope.  Gray was supported by colleagues of The Defense Prisoner of War and Missing Personnel Office (DPMO).  Once DPMO investigations secured Sconiers' place on the priority list for recovery and the family submitted DNA samples, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) assumed responsibility and scheduled recovery for October 11, 2011.

Gray's work was further supported by Gen. Albert P. Clark, consultants, and selfless volunteer researchers in the U.S. and Europe,(see "With Gratitude" page).  The commitment of these "Promise Keepers" extends far beyond duty; each expresses a sense of both gratitude for the service member's ultimate sacrifice for freedom's sake and a "calling" to what they often describe as a sacred quest. 

Sconiers' family intends to serve as an advocate to help raise awareness of the resources available to families of the missing from all conflicts and to encourage Congress to sufficiently fund the imperatives legislated to DPMO and JPAC, particularly with regard to 2010 mandates for WWII missing.  

The total number missing from the Vietnam War, at war's end, was 2,696; the government has accounted for approximately 950 of this number.  For the Korean War, the unaccounted for are reported at just under 8,100, with about 830 of those interred as Unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.  Losses from these two conflicts occured in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, South Korea, and China.

WWII was global, and the number of missing remains in excess of 73,000, with approximately 35,000 deemed recoverable.  According to DPMO, "U.S. casualties remained buried around the globe, some where they had fallen, some in the depths of the oceans, and many in temporary cemeteries scattered throughout the major theaters."  In response to this situation, DPMO reports that the U.S. "launched the largest initiatve ever undertaken by any nation to repatriate its war dead.  The U.S. Army created the American Graves Registration Service and embarked upon a global initiative, 'The Return of the World War II Dead Program.' The program operated from 1945 to 1951, but there was no active program for recovering and identifying the remains of WWII casualties from 1951 to 1976, except for occasional efforts of the U.S. Army Mortuary System.  Ad hoc recovery teams have since responded to reports of discoveries, leading to 570 identifications.  With the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act in 2010, the Department's Accounting Community has assumed the mission of recovering and identifying all U.S. Service members killed in past wars and building on these historic efforts of the past, tracking down WWII sites worldwide.  The development of the WWII Missing Personnel Database began in November 2003, when DPMO Archival Research historians began developing the first complete list of World War II servicemen whose remains were not recovered or identified after that war (the Personnel Missing World War III database)."  It was as a result of work on that database that Chief Gray became involved in the Sconiers case.

However, because WWII is the oldest conflict, the number of relatives who actually knew the missing men and women is thinning quickly, and finding appropriate DNA candidates/samples remains a major challenge. Like Sconiers' family, most families with missing service members have no idea their DNA samples could be useful and should be on file.  Finding witnesses to these losses is an increasingly difficult challenge, with WWII veterans dying at the rate of about 1,000 a day.  Additionally, world population rates continue to swell and with that increase, battlefields and sites of air losses are disappearing rapidly to make room for growth. 

SPECIAL THANKS  

The family especially thanks Senator Bill Nelson and Congressman Jeff Miller for their inquiries and support, and for lending their names to the cause.  Chief Petty Officer John Gray (ret.), Szymon Serwatka, Marilyn Walton, Stephen Marks, Edouard Reniere, Maj. Gen. Bill Maxson (ret.), and the Walton County Board of Commissioners also played significant roles as advocates for Sconiers' return.

(To view larger image of letters below, click the lower right corner of letter to reveal + sign in a box; click the + sign)

                    DPMO:

DEFENSE PRISONER OF WAR--MISSING PERSONNEL OFFICE    

 http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo

According to the website above, "Keeping the Promise" refers to the efforts of the Department of Defense to recover those who became missing while serving our nation.  Hundreds of military and civilian Defense Department personnel work around the world as part of DOD's personnel recovery and personnel accounting communities.  They state their purpose as the "single mission of finding and bringing our missing personnel home" and they explain that this mission "requires expertise in archival research, intelligence, collection and analysis, field investigations, recoveries, and scientific analysis."  On its website DPMO states that "When working abroad, U.S. personnel may become separated or isolated from friendly forces.  Personnel recovery ensures that every effort will be made to bring them home safely. The broader mission of personnel recovery ensures that U.S. military and civilian personnel receive adequate training and the best possible equipment to help them survive, from simple survival and evasion situations to long term captivity.  DPMO shapes personnel recovery policies worldwide and seeks to resolve major policy issues....DPMO establishes and monitors the policies which guide the Defense Department's worldwide efforts to account for missing personnel from past conflicts.  This includes leading international negotiations for access to sites and archives, as well as collaboration with non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, family groups, veterans organizations, and individual researchers. DPMO also performs archival research, intelligence analysis, and operational support to locate, recover and identify missing personnel.  DPMO's guiding principles for the accounting community include transparency, proactive information exchange, and collaborative analysis and operations.  They also lead the accounting community's efforts to update families of the missing at monthly face-to-face meetings" strategically held across the country. A schedue of these "Family Update" meetings may be found at the DPMO website above.

JPAC:

 JOINT POW/MIA            ACCOUNTING COMMAND    

 http://www.jpac.pacom.mil

According to the website above, the mission of JPAC "is to achieve the fullest possible accounting of all Americans missing as a result of the nation's past conflicts. The highest priority of the organization is the return of any living Americans that remain prisoners of war. To date, the U.S. government has not found any evidence that there are still American POWs in captivity from past conflicts.    'Until They Are Home' is the JPAC motto. This motto demonstrates the resolve of this command that no matter how long, no matter what it takes, JPAC will continue the promise to bring home every American POW/MIA." JPAC "receives all talkings and orders from the U.S. Pacific Command (Camp Smith, Hawaii) and policy oversight from the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO). DPMO maintains the official listing of missing Americans from all conflicts."  JPAC is "staffed by about 400 military personnel from all branches of the Armed Forces, Department of the Navy civilian, and civilian contrators. JPAC maintains about 2,600 case files for the Vietnam War, about 8,100 for Korean, about 3,000 for WWII, and a handful for 'others.'" JPAC requests and "are sent World War II personnel records for individuals from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis when" they "get information on a case and begin the investigation process, so the World War II number of case files is growing daily." (Note: many files of WWII personnel were burned in the St. Louis fire.)  "JPAC has the largest forensics anthropological laboratory and the largest staff of forensic anthropologists and odontologists under one roof anywhere in the world--several of whom hold the highest board certifications in their fields."  (See tthe JPAC website for definitions of "recoverable" and "not recoverable." ) "Many factors are related to how sites are prioritized.  Weather, terrain challenges, site accessibility, and various logistical and operational concerns help determine the planning and staging of recoveries. Some sites are in danger of being lost due to urbanization, environmental, regulatory, or political issues beyond the control of JPAC. JPAC is also required to routinely carry out technical negotiations and talks with representatives of foreign governments to ensure positive and safe in-country conditions for today's JPAC service members."  JPAC "holds technical or consultative talks with many different countries in a typical year." Generally, they present their "requested schedule of investigations and operations in a given host country." JPAC may show them the "specific cases on which they are working and why it's important to visit a certain area at a certain time of the year." They "talk about logistics and how" they "plan to move teams in-country," as well as the "kind of support" needed "at national, provincial, or local levels." Before an actual excavation begins, "many months (and often years) of planning and research are required." JPAC cannot begin an excavation until staff believe the possible location of an MIA has been pinpointed.  "Once a recovery is approved, recovery teams will be scheduled to enter a country to conduct a forensic archeological recovery to find the remains.