Bones Turned Over To Police To Be Tested As Possible POW Remains

The police detective works often in Boston's Vietnamese community, so he didn't raise an eyebrow when a tipster approached him furtively.

But the detective, a Vietnam War veteran, was riveted by the man's tale -- that he had bones and he believed they might belong to American prisoners of war from Vietnam.

On June 7, police said yesterday, the informant dropped off two containers of bones bundled in several layers of wrapping. He wanted nothing in exchange.

Police say they contacted the state medical examiner and the district attorney's office and were told to process the evidence as they would in any death investigation. The department's forensic scientists tested the wrappings, but didn't touch the bones.

A week later, authorities called the Department of Defense, which confirmed yesterday that it has asked that the bones be shipped from Boston to its central identification lab in Honolulu, which tries to match bones with missing service members from all wars. The lab, the world's largest for tracing skeletal remains, identifies about 75 servicemen each year.

"We suspect that this may be multiple cases," said Troy Kitch , spokesman for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. "It's impossible to know until a scientist does their thing."

Kitch said it's unusual that the lab gets bones this way, "but it certainly does happen." He said remains have been sent by FBI offices in cities with large Vietnamese populations such as Los Angeles. More often, bones are recovered at excavation sites around the world after extended research by teams of anthropologists and historians.

"Our interest is to ensure that if they are American remains that we properly identify them and return them to their loved ones if we can," he said.

I can only offer up a heartfelt prayer that this will lead to at least one family being able to put closure on what would have to have been a terrible time in their lives.

Having a loved one who has been listed as MIA for three or more decades has got to be one of the most trying things a family can endure.

As am EMT in the early 70’s I had occasion to be on the scene of a lot of fatal accidents, traffic and otherwise. I still remember each one of those when I drive by the place and say a silent prayer for all those who lost a loved one and then spend a moment wondering how that loss changed their lives. Maybe I’m just a sentimental old fool, but I can’t help but wonder how often someone in the family drives by there and thinks of the one who was lost.

I was transporting an old man from a nursing home, there were no “ALF’s” in those days, to the hospital one day and we drove by a local natural springs that has been a very popular swimming spot since the late 1800’s. The old man looked out the window and asked, “Is that the Sulfur Springs pool?” I responded yes, and after a moment of silence he told me that his son had drowned in that pool, back in the 1940’s. He thanked me for going that way, said he hadn’t been by there in 30 years and often wondered if it was still there.

Let’s pray that those bones are, indeed, the remains of fighting men who will at last be laid to rest under the watchful eye of loved ones!

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