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The motto of The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is “Until they are home.” Their mission is achieve an accounting of all unaccounted-for Americans from past conflicts. JPAC’s day-to-day operations involves researching case files, investigating leads, excavating sites and identifying Americans who were killed in action that were never brought home. JPAC teams often find themselves having to negotiate with America’s former enemies to bring back this nation’s fallen warriors. JPAC’s Headquarters is located at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii. They have detachments in South East Asian countries. Nevertheless, their mission is global, so JPAC has 18 recovery teams...

Thousands of volunteers will gather at Arlington National Cemetery tomorrow to participate in a solemn annual rite of remembrance. The Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington, Maine, working in conjunction with Wreaths Across America, will donate approximately 20,000 Maine balsam fir holiday wreaths to be placed on graves on America's most hallowed ground. The wreath-laying activities will begin at 8:30 and continue with ceremonies throughout the morning. Approximately 5,000 people are expected to brave the cold to honor our country's veterans.This year, wreaths will be laid in sections 28, 38 and 43, three adjacent parcels near the northern edge of...

WASHINGTON, June 14, 2010 – Military personnel at Dover Air Force Base, Del., performed their duties with solemn respect over the past several weeks as U.S. servicemembers killed in Afghanistan returned to U.S. soil. Members of the International Security Assistance Force and senior officials from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, pay their respects to nine U.S. soldiers killed in Nuristan province during a ramp ceremony at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. State Department photo by Daniel Wilkinson  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Military “carry teams” marched in slow, measured steps as they carried their fallen comrades from the aircraft...

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2010 – This week, the names of six American servicemembers will join the list of other departed or missing troops featured on the intersecting black-granite walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Expert stoneworker James Lee cleans the work after engraving the name of U.S. Army Lt. Col. Taylor to Panel 7W, Line 81 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., May 4, 2010. Taylor's name is one of six added to the memorial. The new names represent veterans who survived serious injury in the war, but were determined by Defense Department officials to have died as...

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2010 – A military adage says the reason servicemembers take up arms in combat is on behalf of fellow troops to their right and their left. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, delivers the keynote address at the annual Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors Gala in Washington, D.C., April 13, 2010. TAPS has assisted more than 25,000 grieving military families with a national network of peer-based support and crisis intervention. DoD photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. But before an audience comprised of...

WASHINGTON, March 17, 2010 – Army Cpl. Adam J. Fargo, a medic, was killed by a homemade bomb while on patrol in Iraq more than three years ago. Sarah Fargo honors her brother's memory by wearing his photo and dog tags at a ceremony honoring fallen military medical personnel at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., March 16, 2010. Army Cpl. Adam J. Fargo, a medic, was killed in Iraq in July 2006. The Military Health System’s 2010 Remembrance Ceremony honored medical servicemembers who died in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom from 2001 through Dec. 31, 2009....

The combat equipment that once belonged to two fallen Iraqi Special Operations Forces Soldiers is displayed during the memorial service held in Baghdad, July 28. The fallen Soldiers were fatally wounded by an assailant when they entered a house while serving a warrant issued by the Criminal Investigative Court of Karkh. Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Jimmy Pan, Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force - Arabian Peninsula. BAGHDAD — The atmosphere was somber and emotions ran high among U.S. and Iraqi Special Operations Force Soldiers as they mourned the loss of two fallen comrades during a recent memorial service...

US special forces suffer heavy casualties April 2 2003 US special forces, whose superman image has created an aura in invulnerability around them, have unexpectedly disclosed heavy casualties - 175 killed, wounded or missing - in their worldwide hunt for Osama bin Laden and his terror associates. Addressing a congressional panel today, Deputy Assistant Defence Secretary Marshall Billingslea said the figure had amassed since the beginning of a concerted post-September 11 counter-terrorism drive aimed at bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. "To date, there have been 137 SOF wounded, 91 of whom sustained injuries during combat," Billingslea told the House Subcommittee on...

<p>U.S. Army Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Mark Jackson was killed by an Abu Sayyaf terrorist bomb.</p> <p>On honoring those before us and continuing to fight the good fight.</p> <p>I was honored to be asked to write a few words in remembrance of the fallen who sacrificed everything in defense of God, country and our precious freedoms.</p> <p>When I sat down to write, I remembered my friend Marshall.</p> <p>Marshall was tall and skinny, with a bit of acne.</p>