Identification lab, task force to merge

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Pentagon plans to merge the two Hawai'i-based organizations that it uses to recover and identify the nation's lost war dead.

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. soldiers 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. The lab also identifies remains of U.S. personnel killed in all wars.

The merger, approved recently by Adm. Thomas Fargo, head of U.S. Pacific Command, should be complete by October 2003, O'Hara said.

The new organization will report to the head of U.S. Pacific Command, which 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 group operates on about $20 million a year.

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

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.