Welcome To DPMO

"Keeping the Promise", "Fulfill their Trust" and "No one left behind" are several of many mottos that refer to the efforts of the Department of Defense to recover those who became missing while serving our nation.

More than 83,000 Americans are missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War. Hundreds of Defense Department men and women -- both military and civilian -- work in organizations around the world as part of DoD's personnel recovery and personnel accounting communities. They are all dedicated to the single mission of finding and bringing our missing personnel home. The mission requires expertise in archival research, intelligence collection and analysis, field investigations and recoveries, and scientific analysis.

Recently Accounted-For

Starting in 2012, recently accounted for service members will be listed in the chronological order that they are accounted for, which means that the families have been notified. In previous years, they were listed by the date of identification. The highlighted names are linked to a more detailed news release on that serviceman's identification.

Pfc. Armando Alvarez, U.S. Army, Company A, 1^st Battalion, 32^nd Infantry Regiment, 7^th Infantry Division, was lost on Dec. 2, 1950, near the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea. He was accounted for on June 6, 2013. He will be buried with full military honors in the summer of 2013.
Pfc. Manlet F. Winkley, U.S. Marine Corps, Company B, 2^nd Medical Battalion, 2^nd Marine Division, was lost on Nov. 23, 1923, in Tarawa. He was accounted for June 1, 2013. He will be buried with full military honors on Aug. 24 in Marion, Ind.
Sgt. 1^st Class Joseph D. Steinberg, U.S. Army, Battery C, 15^th Field Artillery Battalion, was lost on Feb. 13, 1951, near Hoengsong, South Korea. He was accounted for on May 30, 2013. He will be buried with full military honors in the summer of 2013, in San Bruno, Calif.

A complete listing of recently account-for servicemembers can be found on the Recently Accounted-For page.

News Releases

June 14, 2013 - U.S. Soldier lost during WWII Identified (McKain)
June 5, 2013 - U.S. Soldier Missing in Action from Korean War Identified (Williams) (Photo)
June 3, 2013 - U.S. Soldier lost from WWII Identified (Marshall)
May 28, 2013 - U.S. Soldier Missing in Action from Koean War Identified (Haag)

A complete listing of News Releases can be found on the News Releases page.

Briefly... 2013

Spokane Family Member Update

On May 18, the principal director of DPMO, Ms. Alisa Stack, led the Family Member Update (FMU) in Spokane, Wash. There were 87 family members signed up, and 53 of the 87 were first time attendees. The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) staff collected 18 DNA reference samples, which are used in the database to help identify recovered remains. It is always great to meet with the families and provide them with information on the government's efforts to bring home their loved ones.

Chinese delegation visits DPMO

Last Friday, a six-person delegation from China People's Liberation Army (PLA) Archive/Ministry of National Defense (MND) traveled to Washington, D.C., for annual talks with DPMO on personnel accounting activities in China. Prior to arriving in Washington, the Chinese delegation spent two days in Hawaii, participated in briefings, talks, a tour of JPAC's facilities and visited Pearl Harbor. This annual meeting is required by the technical arrangement that was signed on May 17, 2012 between DoD and the PLA. The purpose of the annual talks is for the Chinese to provide an update on progress made in preparing this year's annual report, to discuss the personnel accounting activities planned in China during 2013, and to provide the Chinese with research guidance for future work. The Chinese department staff is currently participating in a JPAC JFA investigating WWII and a Vietnamese loss incident. We await the results of China's annual report at the end of September 2013.

A complete listing of the 2013 brieflies can be found on the Archived Brieflys Pages

POW/MIA Bracelet Inquiries

Members of the public often contact DPMO requesting information on servicemen for whom they wore a Vietnam War POW/MIA bracelet. They usually wish to contact the person or his family so they can send them the bracelet that they wore. Since we cannot provide the public with private addresses we have on file, we recommend forwarding a postage-affixed letter to the respective serviceman's casualty office with a cover letter explaining the request.

If the service casualty office has a current address, they will forward the letter to the serviceman or his family. At that point, the serviceman or family member may choose to contact the concerned citizen and provide them with an address to send the bracelet. There is no guarantee that this process will work. Many of the former POWs are no longer in contact with their service casualty office and this also applies to the families.