DNA CHANGED THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT MIAS

Sarah E. Wagner’s excellent book, What Remains, is an exhaustively researched account of America’s quest to account for, recover and identify service members lost in combat so families can be reunited with the remains of their loved ones. Wagner, an associate professor of anthropology at George Washington University, reveals her heartfelt and moving interactions with families of the Vietnam War’s missing in action, bringing to life their—sometimes ongoing—struggles to deal with tragedy and loss.

Yet, for this Vietnam War vet, one important part of Wagner’s book reopens a decades-old wound that continues to fester. Wagner rightly identifies scientific forensics as a landmark achievement that has co-opted the entire MIA issue.

In 1998, three years after “normalizing” relations with the still-repressive government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, President Bill Clinton announced that the hallowed remains of an unknown service member buried in a Vietnam War crypt at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery would be removed from that sacred ground and subjected to DNA testing to positively establish the fallen warrior’s identity. Clinton’s