The Department of Defense has created a new agency to better coordinate efforts to identify missing service members.
According to the Military Times, the yet-to-be-named organization will combine a number of existing agencies which had been identified as contributing to a fragmented process.
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy welcomed the news saying the new division should be able to help the families of some of the sailors who perished aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
More than two dozen of them were identified but their partial remains were buried in graves marked as unknown in Hawaii. Tom Gray of Guilford, Connecticut is among the 22 families who wants their loved ones remains sent home.
Gray said the reorganization within the DOD is good news, but he has some concerns, too. "For instance, if you had a person missing in action in Vietnam," he said, "and they want to go over there and recover them, to that person, the person not buried on U.S. soil is more critical than, let's say, someone like my cousin, who is. So you have this conflict of opinions or interests, and it's going to be the Department of Defense's responsibility to sift through all of this."
Gray said he hopes the new agency will reach out to the families of the Oklahoma to find a resolution.
Murphy said he's confident this new organization will help the DOD identify the missing sailors of the U.S.S. Oklahoma. "These heroes, who made the ultimate sacrifice," he said, "died protecting our great nation, and deserve a final resting place of their families’ choosing."
