Team at UW-Madison Works to Identify Missing Wisconsin Service Members Around the World

Saturday, November 11th, 2023 -- 10:00 AM

(By Elizabeth Dohms-Harter, Wisconsin Public Radio) Every county in Wisconsin has at least one service member missing in action since Pearl Harbor.

According to Elizabeth Dohms-Harter with Wisconsin Public Radio, a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is working to identify them and others at sites around the world.

Graduate and undergraduate students, professors and others at the university make up the team working on the Missing in Action Recovering and Identification Project, or UW MIA RIP.

They all volunteer their time to travel to sites around the globe to find and repatriate the remains of soldiers lost in war. The U.S. service members lost since Pearl Harbor number 82,000. Some are still with the planes that were shot down decades ago hidden by a changed landscape.

Others' remains are unintentionally dug up during building projects. Still, others are somewhere at sea. Of those missing service members nationwide, 1,500 hailed from Wisconsin, including 1,300 who served in WWII, 160 in the Korean War and 26 in the Vietnam War.

"It is hard to find a part of the world that does not have missing Wisconsinites," said Dr. Ryan Wubben, the team's physician. "And so it is truly a worldwide endeavor involving Wisconsinites from all over the state."

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