JPAC: Bringing the Boys Home
In a tiny West Texas cemetery lies a grave covered in wildflowers. It is the resting place of Lt. William C. Bumgardner, Jr., my first cousin. He was a bombadier on a plane shot down in the South Pacific. The war had been over three years when his casket arrived at the train depot. Mother always said she knew there was nothing inside but some bones and a new uniform, but Junior was home and that was all that mattered.
Seventy-eight thousand of the boys who went to World War II aren’t home yet. In fact the motto of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command or JPAC is “Until They Are Home.” A recent story from The Salt Lake Tribune descibes a JPAC mission to Iowa Jima in search of Sgt. William Genaust, dead these 62 years, but still not home.
Yesterday Army Tech Sergeant Richard Ransom Sargent was laid to rest 63 years after his B-24 went down over New Guinea. His marker used to read “lost in New Guinea.” Now there’s a new line. “Honorably returned home July 7th, 2007.”
JPAC has the largest forensic anthropology laboratory in the world. They only have a staff of 425 and they rely on a lot of outside help from family, friends, and historians. They need eyewitness accounts and if possible, they need DNA from surviving relatives. If you or someone you know can contribute to the mission to bring the boys home, go to www.jpac.pacom.mil/Contact.htm. They’ve been “over there” long enough.
JPAC, POW, MIA, Iowa Jima, New Guinea, B-24, South Pacific
November 11th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
[...] fall on my cousin, the boy who went to war and came home in a casket after the fighting stopped. (I’ve written about him before.) He was a handsome young man and I wish I’d had a chance to know [...]