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A 13-member team of divers attached to the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) combed the bottom of the Han River beneath the Dangsan Railway Bridge in Seoul on Tuesday. They were looking for the remains of the pilot and flight controller of an F-7E fighter plane that crashed near Bamseom Island on Sept. 22, 1950.
The parents and most of the people who remembered the soldiers who died 58 years ago have probably also passed away by now. The Han River has experienced scores of floods over those 58 years, and the 1980s saw large-scale dredging to dig up sand from the riverbed. Even if the exact location of the crash is known, there is a high possibility that the remains of the two U.S. servicemen have been buried deep in the mud or carried out to sea. The U.S. military knows this, but is still searching for the remains by mobilizing anthropologists and even ordinance experts.
On Monday, a ceremony was held at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington D.C. to lay the coffin of Sgt. 1st Class Jack O. Tye, who died while being held in a Chinese POW camp in 1950. JPAC team members went into North Korea in 2002 and discovered Tye's remains near the Apnok (or Yalu) River and then worked to verify the identity those remains.
The motto of the JPAC is "You are not forgotten." It means that the United States will never forget the sacrifices made by soldiers who give their lives for their country. During his visit to Vietnam in 2000, former U.S. President Bill Clinton personally took part in the excavation of the remains of a U.S. Air Force pilot who crashed into a village during the Vietnam War. Joining the president were the two sons of the downed pilot, also there to take part in the excavation.
It is no easy task to send one's children to war, even if they are answering the call of their nation. A country cannot seek the sacrifice and loyalty of out sons, husbands and brothers during wartime without also sincerely remembering and honoring those who give their lives.
It was only in 2000 that our government began excavating the remains of our war dead, discovering around 2,000 bodies. But less than 100 have been identified. Even if 400 are excavated each year across the country, it will take more than 30 years to find the remains of 13,000 soldiers buried across Korea. The insignia of the JPAC bears the phrase "Until They are Home." Yet our government is doing nothing even though we know that our soldiers, taken as prisoners of war by North Korea, are still alive in the communist country. We must be willing to return our war dead and captured back into the arms of their families, no matter the effort or cost. That's how our country will become a true nation.
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