SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, EAST RANGE — There wasn't much science to excavating the mocked-up crash of an F-4 Phantom fighter jet that slammed into the ground during the Vietnam War.

Aside from working within a precise 12-foot by 12-foot grid, it was pretty much a shovel and bucket operation. Fill the bucket, dump it into a screen, and sift for small items.

The simulated burial nearby was where the delicacy came in. Three members of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command kneeled over the skeletal remains — plastic in this case — of a fallen U.S. service member, working carefully with gloved hands and small trowels to remove the red dirt that entombed the bones.

Anthropologist Kelley Esh said a sandy deposit in Vietnam might help preserve bones that have been moldering for more than 35 years, "but there's also a lot of acidic soil, and bones can literally crumble in your hands."

The recent "JPAC Recovery Academy" amid eucalyptus and ironwoods at East Range was the first of its kind. The eight-day exercise was intended to pass along field knowledge from those who have been on overseas missions, to those who will be going.

JPAC, with headquarters at Hickam Air Force Base, investigates, recovers and identifies Americans missing from past wars. For fiscal 2009, 61 missions are planned around the world.

There are 346 personnel in JPAC. The unit has a daunting task, with more than 84,000 U.S. military personnel missing — most of them from World War II.

The unit, with detachments in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, is able to make about 70 identifications a year, and has more than 1,000 active case files under investigation at any given time.

Last week, 14 JPAC team members left for India with hopes of recovering the eight-man crew of the B-24J Liberator bomber "Hot as Hell," which went down in 1944 flying the "Hump" across the Himalayas.

Part of the recovery academy education has to do with digging, sifting and identifying human remains, which can be as small as a bone fragment or a tooth. But there are also cultural sensitivities.

CHARGE FOR EVERYTHING

Air Force Staff Sgt. Tuan D. Pham, 31, who is Vietnamese, said officials in the country "charge for everything."

That includes land use, tree removal, landing zones for helicopters, the use of the trails to access a site, and latrines.

"Basically, everything we touch and walk on, we've got to pay for," said Air Force Tech Sgt. Hiev Nguyen, 34, also Vietnamese, who was role-playing along with Pham for the benefit of other JPAC members during the exercise.

Officials said the Vietnamese are a negotiating culture, and costs can change on the spot, while Americans see things in more black and white terms and prefer set agreements.

Nguyen said he tells JPAC negotiators, "Don't get angry in front of them," because the Americans lose respect, and to not force their hosts to lose face.

JPAC teaches such things in a classroom setting, and pairs new unit members with veterans on worldwide missions — something they call a "right seat ride."

The recovery academy — which officials plan to hold once or twice a year — provides some hands-on experience.

"The consequences of making a mistake out here are absolutely none," said Army Maj. Mike Condon, a recovery team leader. "We just reset it."

About 46 JPAC members practiced the finer points of recovery in East Range. One site replicated an F-4 Phantom crash, and another a burial site. There also was a negotiating site and team set-up areas.

LOCAL SALVAGE YARD

Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Bunnell, 43, who has been on 11 missions, came up with the idea for the academy, and hit up a local salvage yard for small parts that could be buried and would replicate airplane parts.

"I told the guy what we were doing, and he was really nice. He went out and gathered up auto parts and scrap metal — filled up a whole bin, probably $100 worth — and gave it to me," Bunnell said.

One team worked the crash site, turning up the salvage parts, along with a set of planted dog tags and blank .223 cartridges from Army training.

Army Sgt. Stephen Zaffuto, 30, was digging for airplane parts at the crash site. In the Army for three years — with a tour to Afghanistan in 2006 — he volunteered for JPAC and has been with the unit for about four months.

"It seemed like a great mission," the Rochester, N.Y., man said. "Very honorable. Get to travel all over the world and see things that I wouldn't normally in the Army. Hopefully bring home a fallen brother."

He'll be going on a mission to Laos in the spring.

"This is my first experience with (field work), and so far, I've learned a lot," said Zaffuto, who was wearing a blue "Airborne" T-shirt. JPAC is drawn from all the military services, and also has civilians, and all wear civilian clothing in the field.

NOT CHASING B-24S

Zaffuto said he learned it is important to know where certain parts are turning up on a dig site.

"So if you find the tail end of a plane, you know the people are not in the tail end," he said.

"Provided you are not chasing B-24s," added Owen O'Leary, a JPAC anthropologist. The World War II bomber had a tail gunner.

O'Leary has been on six missions, including one to the site of an F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber that crashed into a hillside in Vietnam and was driven 20 feet deep.

It was the third JPAC mission to the site, and no remains were recovered.

"There can be a whole variety of possible reasons," O'Leary said. "Acidic soil, high-speed impact crash, 40 years old. Organic stuff deteriorates over 40 years."

Many of the recoveries in Vietnam are made at sites where aircraft crashed at high speeds, fragmenting and dispersing remains. By contrast, World War II bombers that went down in places such as Papua New Guinea often crashed with less violence, and full crews often are recovered.

At the burial site at East Range, Esh, the anthropologist, showed service members how to dig in a grid and look for soil color differences or a change in texture that might indicate a burial.

Rear Adm. Donna Crisp, who commands JPAC, congratulated Bunnell, the JPAC veteran, for coming up with the recovery academy idea.

"This gives all the officers and enlisted members a better opportunity to practice their negotiation skills, understand forensic anthropology better, and understand when you are doing dry screening, what everyone's looking for," Crisp said at the site.

Bunnell wants the next academy to take place on a hillside, adding another layer of challenge.