by Joan Killough-Miller

Jan. 24, 1973: The New York Times carries the headline "VIETNAM ACCORD IS REACHED; CEASE-FIRE BEGINS SATURDAY; P.O.W.'S TO BE FREE IN 60 DAYS." In a televised address, President Richard Nixon calls for "the fullest possible accounting for all of those who are missing in action."

March 30, 1973: The headline in the Times reads, "U.S. FORCES OUT OF VIETNAM; HANOI FREES THE LAST P.O.W." Within months, 591 U.S. prisoners of war will return under "Operation Homecoming." Nixon will tell the nation, "the day we have worked and prayed for has come."

But the story doesn't end there.

Jacobs wrings out his socks after a hike into the jungle. On that trip, Jacob's team confirmed the site of a downed U.S. military aircraft and recommended the site for excavation.

"Somewhere in America, the parents, spouses, siblings and children of 2,000 individuals wonder why their child, their helpmate, their brother or sister, or their parent never came home from the conflict in Vietnam," says Air Force Lt. Col. David Jacobs '81. Jacobs recently returned from Hanoi, where he spent a year as deputy commander of Detachment 2, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA). His charge was to help plan and execute operations to make the fullest possible accounting of the fates of 2,600 Americans who were missing in Southeast Asia at end of the war. He also assisted JTF-FA's other detachments in Bangkok, Thailand, and Vientiane, Laos, which investigate unresolved cases in Cambodia and Laos.

Jacobs, who is well read on the controversy that has surrounded POW/MIA issues for decades, is straightforward when he speaks of the work under way in Hanoi. "We investigate reports of live sightings of conflict-era American citizens. We investigate priority cases of individuals who were last known alive in Vietnam immediately before the incident of loss. We recover the remains of individuals when we can locate their gravesites."

An investigation has two possible outcomes: "We either return a live American citizen, or we return identifiable remains." Government policy is to investigate all reports of live Americans being held in captivity, but according to the JTF-FA Fact Sheet, no "definitive evidence" has been found, other than reports that correlate with personnel whose fate was already known. Jacobs says, "Not since Operation Homecoming has an American returned alive who was held against his will.* So most of our efforts are on recovering identifiable remains."

The work of excavating crash and burial sites, often in remote and dangerous areas, is led by visiting teams of field specialists deployed from the Army's Central Identification Laboratory (CILHI) and JTF-FA Headquarters, both in Hawaii. During the monthlong missions, it was Jacobs' job to coordinate the messing and billeting of more than 700 individuals, including American military and civilian personnel, Vietnamese officials and local laborers. He arranged for their medical care, supplies, equipment and transportation, and he negotiated the access and compensation agreements with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) that make the work possible.

"Our life revolves around the investigation and recovery teams," Jacobs wrote last year from his post in Hanoi. "We prepare for them. We do them. We recover from them. When the teams are in Vietnam, the commander and I work 16-, 18-, sometimes 20-hour days. We catch naps when we can. Either the commander or I visit the recovery sites at least weekly. When the teams leave town, we spend a week sleeping and doing the minimum tasks we absolutely must do. Then it's time to prepare for the next set of teams."

Case resolution is a lengthy process, which can include archival research and interviews with local people who may have reported a sighting or witnessed the original incident of loss. Once remains are found, anthropologists screen out animal bones and human remains that obviously belong to indigenous people. "We return two to nine sets of probable human remains believed to be those of U.S. citizens following each investigation and recovery period," says Jacobs, "and every one is important." The remains are sent to Honolulu for identification at the CILHI. Since 1973, more than 500 sets of remains have been identified and returned to next-of-kin.

Trading in human remains is illegal in Vietnam, but that doesn't stop dishonest citizens from raiding local graveyards and trying to collect an "honorarium" for turning in bones that they insist come from missing Americans. Jacobs met many of these criminals face to face while investigating their claims. One case that sticks in his mind involved a man who wanted to ensure he would be "reimbursed for his expenses" before he would turn over his findings. "This citizen's story was flaky, so we put the case on a back burner while we pursued higher probability cases," Jacobs recalls. "Eventually I took a team composed of an interpreter, a forensic anthropologist, and a representative from the central government to visit this citizen. We met the province officials. We met the district officials. We met the village officials. Finally, we met the citizen.

"This citizen talked for a long time about the difficulties he encountered recovering these remains and the many sacrifices he made protecting them while he was waiting for us to inspect his find. Finally, he presented a single bone wrapped in toilet paper. The anthropologist took one look at the bone and pronounced it to be from a large animal, but not a human. When the village officials ordered the citizen to produce all the remains in his possession, the anthropologist took a few minutes and pronounced the remains all to be from a large animal, probably a pig.

"I've never seen anybody look that devastated. This citizen was built up for a big payoff, and his world came crashing down on him in a few minutes. It turns out pig bones are similar to human bones, and it takes an expert to discriminate between the two. There are many pigs in Southeast Asia, and we frequently were presented with pig bones."

Despite the sometimes harsh conditions, Jacobs found much to appreciate about the country that many Americans know only through the war. "Vietnam is strikingly beautiful," he says. " Much of the inland sections are triple-canopy rain forest. There is an unbelievable diversity of wildlife. Many of the beaches here are still pristine and undeveloped. Hanoi has two large beautiful lakes. Da Nang and Hue have more recreational activities, but the food is better in Ho Chi Minh City."

Jacobs, center, and the investigation and recovery team that located the aircraft wreckage, along with an old booby trap.

Apart from spending a year on a separate continent from his wife, Jacobs says the hardest thing was living in a communist country where a totalitarian police state exists. "Imagine George Orwell's 1984 mixed with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and you'll get a pretty good idea of life in Vietnam," he says. "The government here still believes it can control the economy. The government's control of the press is frightening." In the face of this repression, Jacobs admires the Vietnamese people for their resilience, generosity and honesty. "There are people who will share their meals with a stranger who looks lost, even if that stranger is an American," he says.

In December, Jacobs graduated from the Advanced Program Management Course at the Defense Systems Management College, located at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. He's since reported for duty as chief of the Transition Planning Cadre at the Air Armament Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M. "The cadre reconnoiters federal laboratories for directed energy technologies with weapon systems applications," he says, "helps to mature those technologies to the point where they can be transferred to acquisition programs at system program offices, and assists with the planning for the transition (ensuring personnel and funding are available to support the transition)."

Back in Hanoi, the work of recovery and repatriation goes on. In late August 1999, the Pentagon's Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced the identification of the remains of three soldiers, one of whom had been missing since 1966.

More than three decades after the Vietnam War, unresolved questions still trouble many Americans. Jacobs says a number of political and historical factors have complicated the situation. "The relationship between the governments of Vietnam and the United States has evolved from one of animosity in the 1970s, to suspicion and mistrust in the 1980s, to cooperation in the 1990s, to partnership today. Historically, the Johnson administration's foreign policy was kaleidoscopic, and the Nixon administration's fascination with secret plans exacerbated the problems.

"Another source of conflict is the different attitudes within the military services toward recovering human remains. For example, the sea services consider burial at sea to be a desirable and honorable burial, but the Army and Air Force have a tradition of never leaving comrades on the battlefield. And part of the problem is there are unscrupulous individuals in America who prey on the hopes and fears of the surviving family members."

Where will it all end? "Every president since Nixon said that obtaining the fullest possible accounting of the missing is a cornerstone of his foreign policy in Southeast Asia," says Jacobs. "At some point, the then-current administration and Congress will decide that the fullest possible accounting has been achieved. The President's ambassador to the government of Vietnam, Douglas 'Pete' Peterson, once said that a hundred years from now, there will be someone in the American Embassy in Hanoi who will continue to work to resolve these cases. Personally I think that decision is about five to 10 years down the road."

* Several servicemen have returned alive from Southeast Asia since 1973. The government has judged them, and some others on the missing lists, to be military deserters or defectors who stayed behind by choice. Perhaps the most publicized case was that of former Marine Pfc. Robert R. Garwood, who was court-martialed in 1981 for collaborating with the enemy. POW/MIA activists contend that Garwood was falsely accused to discredit his claim that he and others were being held captive after Operation Homecoming concluded.