Fulfilling a Nation’s Promise: The Search, Recovery, and Accounting Efforts of DPAA and Its Partners

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Fulfilling a Nation’s Promise: The Search, Recovery, and Accounting Efforts of DPAA and Its Partners" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s (DPAA) mission is to provide the fullest possible accounting for missing personnel from past conflicts to their families and the nation. The search for these 80,000+ servicemen and servicewomen is an enormous task that requires innovation, adaptation, and teamwork. Since 2016, a growing number of universities, CRM companies, and other nongovernmental organizations around the world have joined the DPAA team in the ongoing search, recovery, and accounting effort. This poster symposium highlights the range of technological innovations, archaeological approaches, and expert collaborations DPAA and its partner organizations around the globe leverage during archaeological field work as they search for, attempt to recover, and account for missing US service members from World War II, the Vietnam War, and other conflicts. Applying these innovations, adaptations, and collaborations, DPAA is able to increase its capacity, sharpen its methods, and strengthen its relationships, all of which contribute to the ongoing success of the mission.