Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist (30 page)

Extraordinary legends have flourished over the years. There is said to be a warehouse somewhere in Hanoi, filled to the ceiling with the bones of U.S. servicemen, which are doled out one by one by the Vietnamese authorities in return for “concessions” on the part of the United States. There is a widespread and fantastic belief that the United States Government itself, to cover up its incompetence in failing to win the release of all American prisoners of war in 1973, has made an unholy alliance with Vietnam to hide the “truth” from the American public, i.e., that there are still Americans alive in prison camps in Southeast Asia, held hostage to Oriental malice.

MI As have been honored on U.S. postage stamps; during the Reagan and Bush administrations, the black and white MIA flag flew once a year over the White House. It still flies today, on thousands of flagpoles across the country. There have even been video arcade games in which, for a succession of quarters, you could rescue these trapped Americans and be a hero. Confidence tricksters have preyed on survivors and their families, eliciting thousands of dollars in contributions, to pay for “reconnaissance and rescue missions,” which somehow always fail by a hair’s breadth to save any lost Americans.

When a delusion is as widely held and as firmly believed as the MIA scenario, it is perhaps futile to argue against it. I know nothing about this issue that is not already broad public knowledge. But I think if more Americans were aware of the immense concern and deep respect that is accorded to every single fragment of bone, no matter how tiny, that has been recovered in the search for these unaccounted-for men and women, then perhaps some of these widespread doubts and anxieties might be allayed.

I have firsthand knowledge of these efforts. Twice a year I visit the laboratory in Hawaii where recommendations for identifications are made and cases are resolved. I have seen and scrutinized the remains of our servicemen as they are brought home from Vietnam, in some cases after more than a quarter of a century. I have painstakingly double-checked many identifications myself, rejecting those I thought needed additional work. I continue to make recommendations to the Department of the Army for the improvement and enhancement of the identification process, and I can truthfully say that the military accepts most of my suggestions with a ready will and in a friendly spirit of cooperation.

The ceremony for receiving these honored dead in Hawaii is impressive. After a joint forensic review in Hanoi, Vietnamese officials return the remains in wooden boxes in Hanoi to their American counterparts. The wooden boxes are then placed in large aluminum cases that measure about six and a half feet long. The sides and tops of these cases are made from one piece of aluminum, which can be raised and lifted off the base. The cases are sealed, put aboard a transport plane in Hanoi, draped with American flags, and flown to Hickam Air Force Base, where they are met with full military honors.

In Hanoi it is usually U.S. army personnel, who carry the cases. In Hawaii they are carried off the planes by American servicemen in dress uniform from all of the branches of the service. In Hawaii the members of the honor guard march up the rear ramp of the C-141 Starlifter aircraft and carry off their dead comrades, one at a time. For ceremonial purposes, one aluminum case is treated as one body, even though within it there may be the commingled remains of several people. Hickam Field shares runway space with Honolulu International Airport and sometimes passengers on commercial flights get a glimpse of these solemn proceedings: the flags, the aluminum cases, the brass and braid of the honor guards twinkling against the green headlands of Hawaii and the wide, blue Pacific. They may not realize it, but they are witnessing one of the final chapters in our country’s longest war.

I wish that those who suspect a vast conspiracy and cover-up could spend a few days inside the U. S. Army Central Identification Laboratory (Hawaii), known by its acronym as CILHI. They would see one of the most modern, best-equipped forensic identification laboratories in the world. Within its walls some of the most searching and painstaking forensic identification work imaginable is carried out with every tool available to modern science.

The lab is a low structure that is not distinctive at all from the outside. It is a large affair, with more than 5,000 square feet of floor space. Inside a large, windowless, well-lit room are about twenty tables, each thirty inches wide by sixty inches long, arranged in rows. The remains on these tables are covered with sheets, and some are so pitifully small that they cause scarcely a ruffle in the clean white shroud. Every night as work ceases in the laboratory, the sheets are folded and arranged with military precision to cover the remains again. Signs at the door advise visitors that permission is required to enter, that no photographs are allowed and all headgear must be removed. This last injunction is strictly observed and is intended to show respect to the fallen.

At the end of the laboratory, in an L-shaped alcove, there are shelves built to hold the boxes of remains that have not been identified. There are
not
hundreds of such boxes, as some may imagine. At any given time the “unsolved” boxes number slightly over one hundred.

Microscopes are on worktables at one end of the room, and logbooks to enter receipts of the remains are near the front door. CILHI itself occupies only roughly half of this building. It is separated from the other half by a solid wall pierced by a single door that is always locked on both sides. The other half of the building is occupied by the military mortuary, which is intended to handle fresh remains. If there were some great disaster, such as a plane crash, both facilities would pitch in with their combined resources to process and identify the remains.

When the aluminum boxes are unsealed and the wooden boxes within are opened, the sight that greets the investigator is often anticlimactic. A miserably tiny scatter of small bones, so few you could hide them in your fist, may be all that is left of a supposed unaccounted-for serviceman. I say “supposed” advisedly. Though we believe the Vietnamese authorities are acting in good faith, it sometimes happens that the remains of one person may be scattered throughout several boxes. At the same time, portions of two crew mates may be commingled in one box. Often animal bones, or bones belonging to dead Vietnamese, may be present. The animal bones are carefully separated out. They are not thrown away but are usually kept in comparative collections, which are helpful in demonstrating what sort of animals may be found in the area where human remains turn up, and what to watch out for in future.

The Asiatic bones, which are classified as “Southeast Asian Mongoloid” in official terminology, are also winnowed out. These remains are sent back to Vietnam, although the authorities there are often unwilling to take them back. Soldiers who fought for the Republic of Vietnam—the south—during that long war are contemptuously known as
link nguy
or “puppet soldiers” by the victorious North Vietnamese, and their graves are dishonored and overgrown by weeds. By contrast the North Vietnamese soldiers who died are called
bo dot phuc vieti
, or “war veterans of the revolution,” and their cemeteries are beautifully landscaped and festooned with flags every July 27 on Invalids and Fallen Heroes Day. Agreements formalized recently now permit American anthropologists to inspect the remains before accepting them for repatriation. This has greatly reduced the number of cases of mistaken racial identity.

This is how these remains are handled: Each new case is assigned to an anthropologist and, if there are any dental remains, to a forensic dentist as well. Obviously if the remains consist only of dental remains—one or several teeth—then there is nothing for an anthropologist to work on, and only a dentist would be called in. But in most instances you need both experts. Usually the anthropologist was present at the actual dig site, when the remains were unearthed.

The anthropologist and the dentist work independently of one another, so their conclusions can be cross-checked against each other. In most cases the dentist has a great advantage. He is usually privy to information, in the form of dental records, that the anthropologist does not have.

The dentist prepares a chart based on the dental evidence before him, and he is careful to show restorations, if the jaw has naturally missing teeth which fell out or were taken out while the subject was alive, and so on. After completing that descriptive phase, the dentist codes the information for entry into a computer. The computer, using software called Computer Assisted Post Mortem Identification (CAPMI), compares the entered information with the dental records stored in its data banks. More than 2500 dental records are in CAPMI. Now, that doesn’t mean that the dental records of all 2200 unaccounted-for men are logged in CAPMI. Unfortunately, a few dozen lost soldiers have no dental records in the existing files today, and some men may have several files. The list of all unaccounted-for servicemen with dental records in CAPMI that are compatible with the unknown remains appears on the screen and can be printed out.

To give an example: if all that is present is an upper right first molar, which is tooth No. 3 in the universal system, and this tooth has an amalgam restoration in the occlusal or biting surface, this is entered into CAPMI in abbreviated code: “Tooth No. 3 has an O-AM,” or an occlusal amalgam restoration. Every individual record in CAPMI with an O-AM would immediately pop up on the computer screen. But the program doesn’t quit there. It lists every individual who had
no
restorations in No. 3, according to their latest dental records. Why? Because there is always a possibility that a filling was added later and was not recorded.

However, a person with a No. 3 with a restoration in the occlusal surface
and another restoration in the lingual surface
of the tooth would be
excluded
by the program and not listed. As we say: “Teeth don’t heal.” In short, people with a tooth with
too few
restorations could still be considered; but a tooth with
too many
would be ruled out by CAPMI.

Obviously in this example the list of possibilities would be very long indeed. But if more teeth are present, with more variables, the list shortens considerably. In any case the dentist must go to the actual dental x-rays and compare them to the postmortem dental x-rays. This may be very time-consuming work requiring great patience. If a radiographic match cannot be made, other information is factored in. Where were the remains recovered? Where were the individuals lost? If the plane crash is known from our records, if our team excavated the site in cooperation with a team from the former belligerent country, then we concentrate the initial search on those crew members involved in that incident whose names appear in CAPMI.

Let us leave the dentist for the moment. While he is working with names and records, the anthropologist, who has only the bones before him, is wholly in the dark as to the possible identification. This is done deliberately, to prevent any preconceptions or foregone conclusions. He or she must reach conclusions based on the number of individuals represented, which bones go with which individual, the age, sex, race, height and so forth of each individual lying before him. It would be so rare as to be almost miraculous that an anthropologist would develop information that itself would lead to the identification of a particular serviceman. But the anthropologist’s independence from the dentist later becomes vitally important when a dental identification is made. The anthropologist’s findings are extremely important when the process of cross-checking begins, in order to establish that the skeletal remains are consistent with the dental identification.

Obviously all this painstaking work is not accomplished over a few days’ time. Indeed, the anthropologist may be interrupted and have to set the case aside, to return to Southeast Asia for another recovery effort. But little by little each set of remains is thoroughly examined. In the end, the laboratory director receives a full report. There is the dental summary from the dentist. There is the anthropological summary from the anthropologist. There is the incident information, including maps of locations and other material brought forth from the records room. There is the search and recovery report from the search and recovery team. Finally, there is the death certificate, signed by an army pathologist at Tripler Army Medical Center after reviewing the findings of the case.

The laboratory director forwards the combined file, with his recommendation for identification, to the laboratory commander, an army colonel, who then forwards it to Washington. The office in Washington sends complete duplicates of these case files, including photographs and x-rays, to me. Nor am I the sole recipient. There is a pool of forensic anthropologists and forensic dentists currently under contract to the Army to double-check these lab findings. All of us are board-certified by our respective disciplines, and we are considered to have reached a certain degree of prominence in our fields, so that our opinions carry the weight of reputation. I’ve been under contract to the Army since 1986 and have flown to CILHI in Hawaii many times since then; and I have examined findings in my laboratory here in Gainesville oftener still. In fact I was involved in the discussions that led to the setting up of this process. Over the years nine people have had contracts at one time or another to provide this consulting service.

After I (or another of my colleagues under contract) have meticulously reviewed the file, we have the option of either flagging it or approving it. If we flag it, the case will be put on hold until we have an opportunity to examine the remains ourselves. We may also recommend that more work be done or additional documents be prepared. But the standards at CILHI are very high now, and in most cases the reviewer finds that the identification is scientifically valid. He then returns the dossier, together with his written review, to Washington. This is what happens in most cases.