When completed, the nearly 400 staffers who work for Joint Task Force-Full Accounting and the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory will continue to do the same work they have always done, commanders say.

The change is purely organizational, said Army Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, a spokesman for the task force, responsible for recovering remains of U.S. servicemen killed in the Vietnam War.

"Both organizations are 100 percent behind it," O'Hara said. "It just makes good military common sense."

The Army lab ­ the country's premier forensic facility ­ works with the task force, identifying remains when they are brought to the lab at Hickam Air Force Base. But the lab has a broader mission as well: to identify the remains of U.S. personnel killed in all wars.

The merge, approved recently by Adm. Thomas Fargo, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, is supposed to be complete by October 2003, O'Hara said.

When merged, the new organization will report to the head of U.S. Pacific Command, something O'Hara said would help with lines of communication.

"When we need help, who can we talk to? A four-star admiral who talks directly to the secretary of defense," O'Hara said. "That's the cat's meow. When generals talk to admirals, things happen."

Budgeting, possible staff cuts and what the new organization will be called all need to be determined, O'Hara said.

Each organization operates on about $20 million a year.

Because the search for missing personnel remains a sensitive topic for families across the country, commanders at each organization have begun informing veterans groups that the merger will not change the current mission.