Fri, Oct 27, 2006
Another Hero Returns
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO)
announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in
action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to
his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Maj. Charles L. Bifolchi, U.S. Air Force, of Quincy, Mass.
He will be buried today, Oct. 27, at Arlington National Cemetery
near Washington, D.C.
On Jan. 8, 1968, Bifolchi and a fellow crewmember were flying an
armed reconnaissance mission against enemy targets in Kon Tum
Province, South Vietnam, when their RF-4C aircraft disappeared. A
U.S. Army helicopter crew found their aircraft wreckage soon after
first light the next day. Search efforts continued for four days;
however, enemy activity in the area, combined with the steep
terrain and high winds at the crash site, precluded the recovery of
the crewmen.
Between 1993 and 2000, U.S. and Socialist Republic of Vietnam
(S.R.V.) teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC),
conducted two surveys of an area that was believed to be Bifolchi's
crash site. One team interviewed two Vietnamese citizens who turned
over human remains they claimed to have recovered at the site.
Another team found wreckage consistent with Bifolchi's
aircraft.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial
evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA
Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA from a known
maternal relative in the identification of the remains.
Welcome home Major, a grateful nation bids you peace and
appreciates your sacrifice.
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