“This new organization provides an efficient management structure for pursuing our goal of obtaining the fullest possible accounting for all missing Americans. Resolving POW/MIA issues is of the highest national priority and we will continue to work vigorously toward this end.”

Those remarks easily could have come from Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel last month when he announced But they were actually made two decades ago, by then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin when the Pentagon first tried restructuring the bureaucracy as a way to solve troubling issues with the effort. Another consolidation, accompanied by similar rhetoric, happened in 2003.

The Pentagon spends about $100 million annually to recover and identify missing service members from the Vietnam War, Korean War and World War II, but identified just 60 last year 鈥� far short of the 200 per year mandated by Congress starting next year. A ProPublica and investigation found that the mission was hampered by .

On March 31, Hagel said that the two major agencies in charge 鈥� the Joint Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command, or J-PAC, and the Defense Prisoners of War and Missing Personnel Office, or DPMO 鈥� would be consolidated into one to streamline the inefficient, duplicative process.

This latest restructuring is the broadest one yet, , but it’s unclear whether it will be a reorganization just on paper like it was in the past. Indeed, the two long-troubled, soon-to-be combined agencies, J-PAC and DPMO, are themselves the product of the earlier consolidations.

Critics on Capitol Hill, in family advocacy groups and among former employees of the agencies all said that in order to have meaningful, lasting impact the changes must go beyond bureaucratic reshuffling to instead include new leadership.

“Any time you have a change that is truly philosophical it’s very difficult to accomplish that if the people being tasked with it still believe in the old ways of doing things,” Cmdr. Renee Richardson, a former DPMO staffer, said.

Given the “stories we’re being told, there definitely should be some people who are fired,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, who was one of the vocal critics on the Hill, said in an interview earlier this year.

Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michael Lumpkin, who is spearheading the changes, said at the time of the announcement that the new agency will be fundamentally new and different, ridding the effort of “outdated, institutionalized thinking.”

But asked if anyone was being held accountable for the problems that led to the need for changes, Lumpkin referred to a “structurally flawed” system rather than leadership.

The agencies’ current leaders might stay a part of the new as-yet-unnamed agency. Although the positions of DPMO director and J-PAC commander will disappear along with the organizations when the new agency is formed in the next 18 months, Lumpkin said, the people who held those positions “may be reclaimed” in the new organization.

The only personnel changes that have been announced are a director for the new agency who will report to the under secretary of defense for policy and an Armed Forces Medical Examiner who will be in charge of making identifications and overseeing the scientific operations of the lab. The latter strips Tom Holland, J-PAC’s longtime scientific director, of his primary authority, but Lumpkin wouldn’t comment on whether Holland would be a part of the new agency.

ProPublica and NPR reported that under Holland’s leadership, the laboratory has not used DNA as the first step in identifying remains, even though DNA has been the centerpiece of similar efforts worldwide for more than a decade.

Lumpkin did say that Hagel was putting the director of the new agency under the Office of the Secretary of Defense because he wanted someone he could hold accountable for the mission’s responsibilities 鈥� what Lumpkin called “a single belly button.”

The civilian leadership of DPMO and J-PAC has been entrenched for decades. Holland has been there since 1992. Johnie Webb, the deputy commander for external relations, has been with J-PAC since 1983. The current director of DPMO, retired Brig. Gen. W. Montague “Que” Winfield, was the first commander of J-PAC.

Complicating matters, for years J-PAC and DPMO have battled each other for territory, authority and responsibility.

Ann Mills-Griffith, founder of the lobbying group National League of POW/MIA Families, described the infighting as “destructive bickering.”

“It’s such a noble mission…every person wants the same thing,” said current J-PAC commander Gen. Kelly McKeague. “Where it breaks down 鈥� and this is where I shake my head 鈥� is the ‘how.'”

There was also feuding within J-PAC. There have been dozens of complaints about management and a hostile work environment 鈥� and employees who left with cash settlements.

With the struggle to make more identifications, Mark Leney, a former J-PAC anthropologist, said it’s hard to discern what “are technical difficulties of a unique mission to execute and what are ordinary issues of poor management.”

The Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating problems with the MIA effort, an inquiry that, according to several people who have been interviewed for it, is expected to address management and leadership issues.

The new agency will also face questions about mission priorities.

The Pentagon has long focused its recovery efforts on troops missing from the Vietnam War, a decision that experts say might not be the best use of its resources now. In fiscal year 2013, for example, J-PAC spent 65 percent of its field mission budget in Southeast Asia, but identified just nine Vietnam veterans.

In part, this is because the soil in Southeast Asia is so acidic it eats away at bones, essentially dissolving them. Several current and former J-PAC scientists have said that time might have run out there – there just may not be bones left to find.

Still, it remains politically delicate to cross advocates for Vietnam vets, some of whom have accused the government of covering up the existence of live POWs.

Mills-Griffiths, the most prominent and well-connected advocate for those missing from Vietnam, has long pushed to keep Vietnam at the forefront of MIA recovery efforts. Hagel personally thanked her at his press conference announcing the reorganization, and many of its features were recommended by her.

, Mills-Griffiths blamed J-PAC’s decision to not increase field operations in Vietnam in part on a “misplaced focus by some on remains recoveries related to WWII as a means of increasing the number of IDs.”

Lisa Phillips, founder of WWII Families for the Return of the Missing, said, “We want exactly as Congress mandated. The fullest possible accounting of all POW MIA services members, regardless of the circumstances of the loss.”

Mills-Griffiths, whose brother is among the missing from Vietnam, has said the MIA effort was started for Vietnam vets, so families from other wars need “to “鈥� raising the ire of advocates for World War II and Korean War veterans. But she has also said it isn’t a competition. Efforts on behalf of one war’s veterans shouldn’t be at the expense of others, she said.

Some families of troops missing in Southeast Asia have fought the disinterment of almost 10,000 troops buried as unknown casualties of the Korean War and World War II. That discord led to a saying that exhuming the graves of unknowns and using DNA to try to identify them should take a back seat to finding remains of service members still lost on the battlefield.

Lumpkin said the new agency would pursue more disinterments, but didn’t provide any details. J-PAC currently only exhumes remains in about 4 percent of the cases in which such a step is recommended. The average disinterment costs about $1,000 鈥� significantly less than field operations.

Some families of missing troops from World War II and their advocates are hoping they will benefit from the move to embrace public-private partnerships, which could free their loved ones’ cases from the government’s grasp and allow them to move forward faster.

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The changes address the problems and , including outdated scientific methods, overlapping bureaucracy, a risk-averse disinterment policy for the 9,400 unknowns buried around the world, and poor laboratory management that inhibited the mission.

“The time has come for a paradigm shift,” said Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michael Lumpkin, who headed up a 30-day review of the mission Hagel ordered in February.

One of the bigger changes involves the military’s failure to embrace DNA. Our investigation detailed how the Pentagon identification effort relegated DNA to only a confirmation tool, rather than using it to lead the process as is now done in other countries.

Using a DNA-led process is “absolutely something we’re going to move toward,” Lumpkin said.

The Pentagon will “break away from the way of traditionally doing business…that didn’t fully embrace progressive science,” he said.

The Pentagon spends about $100 million a year on the MIA mission, yet it solves surprisingly few cases. Last year, the military identified just 60 service members out of the about 83,000 Americans missing from World War II, Korea and Vietnam. The lackluster efforts have been subjected to intense Congressional scrutiny and media coverage, including and .

In restructuring the mission, the Pentagon is eliminating the two main agencies 2014 the Hawaii-based Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command and the Washington-based Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office 2014 and creating a new single agency. There will be one chain of command and one budget.

“We’re streamlining everything,” Hagel said.

The reorganization “resolves issues of duplication and inefficiency” and makes the effort “more transparent and responsive” to families, he said. The changes will be implemented over the next 18 months.

Although it’s unclear at this point what positions and personnel will be eliminated besides the commanders of JPAC and DPMO, Lumpkin insisted the as-yet-unnamed agency will be a “fundamentally new organization.”

“It’s not business as usual,” he said.

The restructuring pushes aside J-PAC’s scientific director, Tom Holland, who has held the position for 19 years. As ProPublica and NPR detailed, Holland has had nearly total control of each step in the identification process. That job will now be handled by an Armed Forces Medical Examiner.

The move appears meant to address the fact that sign-offs on the lab’s decisions were little more than a rubber stamp. Putting a medical examiner at the head of the process 2014 someone who is scientifically knowledgeable 2014 ensures “the opportunity for rubber stamping doesn’t exist,” Lumpkin said.

Outsiders and former J-PAC officials said the changes were promising.

“I think the Armed Forces Medical Examiners are probably as well suited to do that as anyone else I could think of,” said Mark Leney, a former JPAC anthropologist who now teaches at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

“Selecting a scientific leader with a track record of working in an interdisciplinary scientific environment, preferably someone who has managed a large group of diverse technical and scientific experts before, will be key to making this work,” Leney said.

Hagel also announced a plan to develop public-private partnerships to “leverage capabilities” of nongovernmental groups who work on recovering and identifying MIAs 2013 we which included last month in a rundown of potential . “I think that would be a waste if we didn’t do that,” Lumpkin said.

ProPublica and NPR also reported that under Holland’s leadership the lab rejected 96 percent of potential disinterments of unknown servicemembers, despite DNA advances that could help lead to their identification.

Lumpkin said that policy will be changed, though he had no specifics.

The Pentagon is also considering a national campaign to collect DNA samples from family members of the missing.

The restructuring will create one case management system for all missing persons, which should make it simpler to conduct research and keep families informed. DPMO and JPAC, long embroiled in a turf war, have often fought over records, duplicated trips to the National Archives, and done competing investigations.

“We’re now taking concrete, enforceable steps to fix what has been a management mess 2014 but as with any effort to demand accountability, the devil will be in the details and the implementation,” Senators Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said in a statement. “So we’re looking forward to working with the Pentagon to ensure the families of our missing heroes receive nothing less than honesty and transparency in our efforts to recover their loved ones.”

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Lawmakers and Pentagon leadership have zeroed on the overlapping agencies and lack of clear chain of command in the mission. Last month, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered a review of how the military manages the effort.

But streamlining the structure won’t be enough, many outside experts say. Here are four ideas to really fix the effort.

Overhaul Use of DNA

The main agency involved is the Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command, which runs the forensics laboratory used to identify the remains of the missing. J-PAC starts with historical and medical records first and leaves DNA last.

That’s backwards from all other modern day efforts to identify the missing, which begin the process with DNA and let that powerful tool lead the process. Using DNA as the primary identification method was used in Argentina after the dirty war, in the Balkans after the genocide there, and here in the United States after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

If changes don’t bring the methods up to date with the latest forensics techniques, Ed Huffine, a DNA expert, said, “the system will still fail.”

Another issue is the type of DNA J-PAC uses.

It relies on mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down from the mother and is consistent along the maternal line for generations. A grandmother shares the same mitochondrial DNA with her daughter and her daughter’s children, for example.

But other scientists involved in identifying the missing stopped using maternal DNA almost 20 years ago. Instead, in places like Argentina and Bosnia, scientists use nuclear DNA, which can be compared to the mother, father, children and siblings of the person to make a positive ID. It’s also faster and cheaper to process than mitochondrial DNA.

In Bosnia, they would extract DNA from a bone on a Monday, sequence the DNA on a Tuesday and do any necessary troubleshooting by the end of the week, said Huffine, who helped designed the effort in Bosnia. For the Pentagon, similar DNA processing often take months. 

Since J-PAC works decades-old cases, scientists would face times when nuclear DNA samples from immediate family might not be available. In those cases J-PAC must rely on maternal DNA, using, for example, the DNA from a missing soldier’s niece. But here too, experts say, J-PAC could make better use of DNA.

J-PAC won’t rely on maternal DNA to make an ID, because it can be shared across different families. However, even the most common mitochondrial DNA is only shared by 5 percent of the population 鈥� meaning J-PAC could be 95 percent sure of the person’s identity when using it, according to Joshua Hyman of the University of Wisconsin. He and others argue that DNA is the strongest and fastest place to start an ID, regardless of the type, rather than leaving it last in the equation.

Family samples of maternal DNA could also be combined with samples of paternal DNA to make a match. J-PAC should request all the different types of DNA to be sequenced at once.

Do a National, High-Profile Outreach Campaign to Collect Needed DNA Samples for WWII 鈥� Before It’s Too Late.

Siblings are among the best DNA matches for WWII missing service members, especially if the MIAs had no children. That generation is dying. The Pentagon could enlist the help of Hollywood 鈥� Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg have been suggested 鈥� to publicize a massive effort to collect as many DNA reference samples from family of the missing. TV ads, social media, radio and YouTube videos and more could all be used to solicit participation. The U.S. government has actually given Argentina millions of dollars in grants to do just that.

The more samples for a missing service member are on hand the easier it is to make a match.

“Given that close relatives of WWII soldiers are older, how long are we going to wait to collect their DNA? They represent the best opportunity to find a match,” Hyman said. “Are we just waiting for the issue to go away, assuming that when they die there will be no one left that cares enough to cause a fuss?”

Do Massive Disinterments of 9,400 Unknown Servicemembers to Try to Identify With DNA

More than 9,400 service members from WWII and the Korean War are buried as “unknowns” in American cemeteries around the world because of the limitations of science at the time.  But many of them could now likely be identified if the Pentagon exhumed the remains for DNA testing.

“Seems to me like the logical approach,” Clyde Snow, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist said.

With the copious records the U.S. military has, the unknowns could be broken down into like groups from theater, battle or event, and dug up accordingly to keep it manageable.

In order to be both efficient and respectful of the remains, scientists say the bodies could be left in place and tested using a mobile DNA unit and then housed in a mausoleum while DNA cross referencing is done.

Embrace Outside Help

Experts say about 45,000 MIAs are recoverable, likely an overwhelming task for any one organization or agency. So some people formerly involved in the effort have suggested enlisting universities, historical organizations, military unit associations, veterans and other interested groups.

At J-PAC’s sister agency, the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, there was an idea floated of building regional centers that could be responsible for researching and building cases on the missing from their area. That would tap into a pool of people who care deeply about those who are missing, building “a cadre of people who are focused towards the mission in manageable chunks,” said Navy Commander Renee Richardson, formerly of DPMO.

“We’d be leveraging all the things universities already do,” said Richardson. “If you go to a university, let’s say Harvard, and tell them, 鈥榝rom your class of 鈥�37, you still have three people missing from WWII.'”

This would require much more openness with records and findings than the Pentagon has been willing to share in the past, Richardson said.

In the search for remains 鈥� the hardest task of the mission 鈥� locals can often help. There are Belgians, for example, who live near the and have long worked to find missing American soldiers. They have the advantage of speaking the native language and being a part of the community, but are often shunned by the Pentagon.

Anthropologists have also suggested outsourcing overseas archaeological operations for continuity and efficiency. Rather than flying scientists from Hawaii to spend a few weeks looking for remains in, say, Papua New Guinea, there could be a team stationed there. Their work would be continuous rather than filled with the time lags of sometimes years between digs that hinders J-PAC’s efforts.

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Arthur 鈥淏ud鈥� Kelder, Eakin鈥檚 cousin, had died while a POW during World War II, but his body had never been found. Bud鈥檚 parents had sent handwritten letters to the Army for years, asking to have their youngest son鈥檚 body returned to them in Illinois.

鈥淚t is our hope that his remains may be sent here, for burial at home,鈥� pleaded one.

Six decades later, Eakin, a stubborn Texan who was himself a vet, resolved to find out exactly why Bud had never come home.

In the fall of 2009, Eakin reached out to family members and found that Bud鈥檚 older brother had kept a trove of historical documents laying out Bud鈥檚 saga: the telegram announcing he was a POW, newspaper clippings, letters sent between Bud and his .

Before the Japanese invaded the Philippines, Bud had worked as a dental assistant at the American hospital in Manila, a plum assignment in a tropical getaway. In late 1941, the Army private wrote to his parents about saving his paycheck to buy a custom-made sharkskin suit. It 鈥渞eally is a peach,鈥� Bud wrote.

After war broke out in December 1941, Bud was among 12,000 American troops who were besieged by the Japanese for four months on the Bataan peninsula, just south of Manila.

鈥淲hat I dream is there will be no more separations between us again and we鈥檒l spend more time together,鈥� he wrote to his parents in cursive two months later. 鈥淧.S. Mother! Don鈥檛 worry about me.鈥�

The Americans surrendered on April 9, 1942. The Japanese made Bud a driver during the infamous five-day, 65-mile Bataan Death March. He eventually ended up at Cabanatuan, one of the largest POW camps for American troops.

When Eakin tried to figure out what happened next, he ran into an unexpected roadblock.

The Pentagon spends about $100 million a year to find men like Bud, following the ethos of 鈥渓eave no man behind.鈥� Yet it solves surprisingly few cases, hobbled by overlapping bureaucracy and a stubborn refusal to seize the full potential of modern forensic science. Last year, the military identified just 60 service members out of the about 83,000 Americans missing from World War II, Korea and Vietnam, around 45,000 of whom are considered recoverable.

At the center of the military鈥檚 effort is a little-known agency, the Joint Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command, or J-PAC, and its longtime scientific director, Tom Holland. He alone assesses whether the evidence J-PAC has assembled is sufficient to identify a set of remains: A body goes home only if he signs off.

Over Holland鈥檚 19-year tenure, J-PAC has stuck with an outdated approach that relies primarily on historical and medical records even as others in the field have turned to DNA to quickly and reliably make identifications.

Though finding missing service members can be difficult 鈥� some were lost deep in Europe鈥檚 forests, others in Southeast Asia鈥檚 jungles 鈥� Holland鈥檚 approach has stymied efforts to identify MIAs even when the military already knows where they are. More than 9,400 service members are buried as 鈥渦nknowns鈥� in American cemeteries around the world. Holland’s lab has rejected roughly nine out of every 10 requests to exhume such graves.

Holland鈥檚 cautious approach is animated by a fear of mistakes.

鈥淥ur credibility is only as good as our last misidentification,鈥� he said in an interview. 鈥淚t doesn’t matter that I’ve identified 500 people correctly. If I misidentify one, that鈥檚 what going to be the focus. That鈥檚 what’s going to be on the news. That is what is going to erode the credibility. That鈥檚 what I go home with every night.鈥�

The top military official at J-PAC, Gen. Kelly McKeague, said he believed the standards for laboratory work to identify a veteran should be higher than the FBI lab鈥檚 standard for a death penalty case. With what J-PAC does, he said, there鈥檚 鈥渁 lot more at stake.鈥�

In recent years, J-PAC and the other agencies responsible for the MIA program have come . In 2010, when Congress added World War II to J-PAC鈥檚 mission, it mandated at least 200 identifications overall a year by 2015 鈥� a benchmark the agency has already said it will not meet. The problems, including those of DNA, go beyond J-PAC. Last month, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered a review of how the military manages the effort.

Time is running out. There are 35,000 missing who experts say are findable from WWII. But the MIA鈥檚 closest relatives are dying off 鈥� and often with them so are the chances for using DNA to finally identify their long-lost loved ones.

Forgotten Files

Working from a home he built by hand in Helotes, just north of San Antonio, the gray-haired, lanky Eakin began his search by requesting Bud鈥檚 records from the Army.

He got back a remarkable document. Despite horrid conditions, the Americans prisoners had left a road map to find Bud and others like him: the 鈥淐abanatuan POW Camp Death Report.鈥�

Barely surviving on a little more than two cups of rice every day, the POWs had still managed to document the deaths of their comrades. It was a monumental task. Of the several thousand prisoners housed at the camp, only about 500 made it out.

Each day, the survivors dug a single unmarked grave to bury that day鈥檚 dead. And each day, the officers kept a meticulous ledger of the men who had died. However little that death roster meant in the prison camp, later, the POWs knew, it would be crucial to getting the fallen home.

The entry for Nov. 19, 1942, lists 14 men. Among them: Private Arthur 鈥淏ud鈥� H. Kelder, dead at 4:35 p.m. The 26-year-old had succumbed to pellagra, a vitamin deficiency common among the starved prisoners.

Bud鈥檚 parents, unaware of his death for eight more months, kept writing him. On May 20, 1943, Bud鈥檚 father wrote, 鈥淒ear son, another week has gone and still no word from you. We hope you have a few letters on the way to us.鈥�

Bud鈥檚 34-page file had sat untouched by the government for nearly 60 years, a forgotten folder in a vast repository at the National Archives. Had anyone looked it over, they would have found what Eakin did: The military actually had a pretty good sense of where Bud was.

The files included not only a date for Bud’s death, but also a specific grave for him. After the war, the Army had gone to the POW camp to dig up and identify the bodies of more than 2,700 men who died there. Using the Cabanatuan camp report and recollections of the survivors, the Army numbered the communal graves and matched them with the death list.Bud and 13 others had been in Grave 717.

Limited by the science of the time, the Army was able to identify and send home four men from that grave but not Bud. In the early 1950s, the remaining 10, along with more than 900 others who died at Cabanatuan, were reburied individually as unknowns in an in Manila. White crosses marked their graves, bearing the words 鈥淗ere Rests in Honored Glory A Comrade in Arms. Known but to God.鈥�

To Eakin, it seemed obvious that Bud was among the 10 unidentified sets of remains from Grave 717 鈥� a relatively small group of bones that the military could dig up and test against the DNA of family members. He tried to make it easier for the Pentagon by tracking down relatives of the men in the grave, so they could provide DNA for comparison. He even turned over an .

Eakin said he thought identifying Bud would be “such a no-brainer.鈥�

Reviewing details of the case later, Joshua Hyman, the head of the University of Wisconsin-Madison鈥檚 DNA Sequencing Facility, described it as a 鈥減iece of cake.鈥�

But no one in the military seemed to show much interest. Every month, Eakin called the Army, asking, 鈥淲hen are you going to go dig up these remains?鈥�

Bud鈥檚 fate rested with Holland and J-PAC鈥檚 lab on a joint Navy-Air Force base in Honolulu.

Honolulu Lab Holds the Key

With his beard, slightly ruffled appearance, and a penchant for storytelling, Holland has the air of a liberal arts professor. Walking through the hallway outside his lab, he pointed proudly to displays of artifacts found with recovered remains: Tattered uniforms, faded, crinkled pictures and pineapple-shaped grenades.

Holland joined J-PAC in 1992 and has spent his entire scientific career there, becoming the lab’s director in 1995. 鈥淭he lab has been his life,鈥� said Mark Leney, a former J-PAC anthropologist who worked with Holland for six years. 鈥淗e has an enormous sense of ownership of it.鈥�

Though J-PAC is a military command, the generals who rotate in and out for temporary assignments take no role in the scientific decisions, leaving them to Holland. Almost a dozen current and former staffers described Holland as someone who bridles at being challenged and fiercely protects his fiefdom.

鈥淓xpressing dissent was clearly not appreciated and frowned on,鈥� said Leney, who now teaches at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Leney said he and another anthropologist wrote Holland a memo in 2002 about problems with procedures and standards at the lab. They asked for guidance and clarification. 鈥淗ere is my guidance: Don鈥檛 ever write a memo like this again unless it is stapled to your resignation,鈥� Holland wrote back.

J-PAC currently has about 500 employees, including historians and military logisticians to coordinate overseas digs, but it鈥檚 work in the lab that people are most likely to conjure. The lab has even been featured on the new 鈥淗awaii Five-0.鈥� (Holland had a cameo.) Holland鈥檚 longtime work at the lab recently earned him a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Swiping his badge and entering the bright, sterile lab, which is not much bigger than a classroom, Holland walked by 16 long metal tables with bones laid out, some with complete skeletons, and others with pieces of bone that look like piles of jagged stones. Some bones were grayed out like seashells, and others were dark brown, almost burnt looking 鈥� the different colors betraying the countries in which they were found. Vietnam鈥檚 acidic ground bites at bones, leaving them pitted. One skeleton had a green-tinted sternum and ribs, a patina from oxidation of a copper belt with bullets that was strapped to the vet鈥檚 chest.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no formula that applies to every case,鈥� Holland said.

Under Holland鈥檚 direction, J-PAC鈥檚 lab hasn鈥檛 prioritized DNA analysis, despite it being an advancement that has revolutionized forensic science. J-PAC鈥檚 method begins with historians sifting through archival material to start to narrow down who someone might be.

鈥淚t may be 100 people, 200 people, 500 people, that鈥檚 fine,鈥� Holland said.

Then they compare bones to dental charts and other medical records. Combining that with archaeological analysis and artifacts, they try to winnow down the list to one person. DNA comes in last, only as a confirmation tool.

Scientists engaged in similar work elsewhere do the opposite. They start with DNA and let it drive the process, taking samples from bones they dig up and cross-referencing them against databases of DNA from the families of the missing to find a match.

鈥淚t鈥檚 how you get people identified these days,鈥� said Clyde Snow, one of the world鈥檚 foremost forensic anthropologists. 鈥淚t opened up a whole new world for us.鈥�

Since the earlier 2000s, the DNA-led approach has been used in more than 30 countries to efficiently identify casualties of mass tragedies, including the United States after Sept. 11.

In post-conflict Bosnia, scientists initially used the traditional anthropological techniques that J-PAC relies on now and identified only seven out of the more than 4,000 bodies from the Srebrenica massacre, according to Ed Huffine, a forensic scientist who later designed a DNA-led process there.

Once they turned to DNA, Huffine said, they were able to make 400 identifications per month at the peak of their efforts.

J-PAC does occasionally start from DNA when bones from many people have been mixed together 鈥� as they have done with a complicated case involving 500 co-mingled remains from the Korean War.

But Holland鈥檚 deputy at J-PAC, John Byrd, said the lab rarely needs to resort to that. While using DNA first makes sense in places like Bosnia, where authorities lacked medical records for the missing, the U.S. military keeps copious records. And even advocates of DNA agree that relying on records can make sense in some cases.

J-PAC has also faced cases in which DNA wasn鈥檛 an option. Soldiers buried as unknowns from the Korean War were embalmed, making DNA extraction impossible. Holland鈥檚 team developed a much-admired innovation to get around that limitation, matching clavicle bones to chest radiographs taken to screen for tuberculosis.

But those cases are an exception. Typically, Holland鈥檚 lab has been able to extract DNA, including on all WWII cases it has worked on.

鈥淚f we worked together, concentrating on DNA, we could decrease greatly the time it takes to make identifications,鈥� said a current J-PAC anthropologist, who favors using DNA first.

Holland insists his process works. Making an identification 鈥渋s an awesome burden,鈥� Holland said, sitting in his paper-strewn office. Sticky notes act as a Rolodex, one wall displays dozens of photocopies of his hand with notes he wrote on his palm during meetings, and on a shelf in his bookcase are copies of he penned 鈥� starring a fictionalized version of himself. 鈥淎t the end of the day, I carry that burden.鈥�

鈥淚f there is a better way to do it, I鈥檓 willing to take a look at it, but at some point the government pays me to do my job,鈥� he said in a measured cadence that conveyed both annoyance and self-restraint. 鈥淎nd clearly I鈥檓 biased here, but I think I do a fairly good job.鈥�

Holland鈥檚 job has been made harder by the overall military鈥檚 failure to systematically collect and sort comparison DNA samples from family members of the missing.

Scientists in Argentina, where around 9,000 disappeared in the country鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� started assembling a database of such samples even before they had the technology to analyze them.

鈥淲e were collecting samples even though there was no possibility to process them, but the relatives were dying,鈥� said Mercedes Doretti, co-founder of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team. Later, Argentina launched a national campaign 鈥� funded in part by the U.S. government 鈥� to collect more DNA, using famous actors and soccer teams to promote it.

There has been no such campaign in the U.S. In an era of Facebook and Twitter, J-PAC officials heralded a 2001 Pentagon letter that ran in the widely syndicated 鈥淎sk Ann Landers鈥� column. It didn鈥檛 work. Fewer samples came in after the letter than before, an Army official said.

Huffine and other experts say using DNA effectively requires one central database and single authority overseeing it. But the Pentagon has six different agencies handling aspects of DNA testing and collection, spread out from Hawaii to Delaware. Each military branch is tasked with collecting samples from relatives of the missing from their service.

The Pentagon has relatively complete records for Vietnam and Korea but only a fraction of the needed samples from WWII. Nothing was on record for Bud or the others from Grave 717 until Eakin got involved.

The Army organizes its samples broadly by war and not by theater, major battle or event. Officials said they had no way to discern how many samples they had in hand related to the Cabanatuan unknowns, for example.

Once the military does get DNA samples, there are further delays. The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, which processes samples for J-PAC, takes 110 days on average to sequence DNA, much longer than commercial labs.

鈥淛ust waiting for DNA and trying to find a donor for DNA鈥� from a family member 鈥� 鈥渁 lot of the pauses in progress occur there,鈥� a former J-PAC anthropologist said.

The Search for Bud

Eakin first heard of Bud as a teenager, when, looking at framed photographs on the wall, he asked about a black-and-white photo of a young man he didn鈥檛 recognize.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 Bud,鈥� his grandfather told him in a quiet voice.

鈥淭hat was the only time I saw my grandpa cry,鈥� Eakin recalled.

The correspondence Bud鈥檚 parents had from the military ended in 1950 with a letter telling them that Bud was 鈥渘ot recoverable鈥� and 鈥渟hould any additional evidence come to our attention indicating that his remains are in our possession, you will be informed immediately.鈥�

His parents died in the 1960s, without any resolution about their son.

Herman Kelder was Bud鈥檚 only sibling. He left his son, Doug, a file box full of documents. Doug and Ron Kelder, Bud鈥檚 cousin, have looked to the dogged Eakin to solve the family mystery.

Bud鈥檚 story wasn鈥檛 meaningful to Eakin just because he was family. As a rowdy teenager in rural Indiana, Eakin joined the Army after a night of drinking with his buddies and did two tours in Vietnam. He wouldn鈥檛 easily give up on the cousin who hadn鈥檛 been as lucky as he was to make it home.

In the spring of 2010, Eakin had two breakthroughs.

He tracked down an audio tape recorded by Bud鈥檚 older brother in 1994, shortly before he died.

鈥淚 got out of dental school in 1935,鈥� Herman Kelder said on the tape. As he started to build his practice, he had worked on Bud and 鈥減ut some gold inlays in his mouth where he had some silver fillings.鈥�

Distinctive dental work like that could help identify Bud among the 10 unknowns from Grave 717, Eakin realized. Perhaps the military had noted in its files if any of the bodies had gold inlays.

A week after making the discovery, Eakin attended a meeting hosted by the Defense Prisoners of War and Missing in Action Office, or DPMO, another Pentagon agency whose mission overlaps with J-PAC鈥檚. The meeting鈥檚 purpose was to update family members on the search for their loved ones, but officials told Eakin that even aided by his new information, Bud was unlikely ever to be identified.

Not long after that, Eakin received a package in the mail from a sympathetic source inside the Pentagon: It contained what the government calls X-files for the 10 unknowns buried in Grave 717.

When the military couldn鈥檛 identify a set of remains in the years after WWII, it put all the documentation it had assembled 鈥� where the body was found, skeletal details and dental charts 鈥� into a file assigned an X-number to stand in for a name. There are about 8,500 X-files from World War II.

Eakin went through the X-files for the bodies in Grave 717. Only one 鈥� X-816 鈥� had gold inlays.

Eakin was ecstatic that the clues led so directly to his cousin. Unknown soldier X-816 鈥� seemingly, Bud 鈥� was buried in grave A-12-195 in the Manila American Cemetery. Eakin went back to the Army that April, thinking, 鈥淲e鈥檒l have him home in a week.鈥�

By September, the only progress the government had made was to produce a on Bud鈥檚 case. Heather Harris, a DPMO historian, concluded that the archival evidence 鈥� mainlythe death report ledger that the POWs had kept at Cabanatuan 鈥� was unreliable and therefore insufficient to warrant disinterment. She also noted another complication: Some of the remains appeared to have been commingled when they were first disinterred in the 1940s. It was possible that identifications made then had been wrong.

On Sept. 21, a J-PAC dentist compared the dental records in the Grave 717 X-files with other dental records for the 10 men buried in that grave. He couldn鈥檛 conclusively match any of them. There鈥檚 no indication in that Herman Kelder鈥檚 taped statement about Bud鈥檚 gold inlays was part of the analysis.

Eakin had hit another wall.

By this time, proving X-816 was really Bud had become an obsession. Eakin was prone to such quests. When serious injuries from a helicopter crash ended his career as a pilot in the mid-鈥�80s, Eakin combed through FAA data to understand the cause of the accident. He couldn鈥檛 simply file it away as an unfortunate accident and move on.

鈥淚 had to know why it fell out the sky,鈥� he said.

Teaching himself to write computer software, he turned the agency鈥檚 4-foot stack of 9-track tapes into a searchable database, then sold the agency his improved version of its own data. Consulting on aviation accidents became Eakin鈥檚 full-time job.

鈥淚f J-PAC thinks he鈥檚 going to give up, they鈥檙e wrong,鈥� said Joan Eakin, his wife of 38 years.

Increasingly frustrated by the military鈥檚 inaction, Eakin broadened his efforts beyond Bud. After a drawn-out battle with the Department of Defense, Eakin obtained access to all World War II and Korea X-files, more than 9,400 in all. Then he built a database with material from 3,000 files for unknowns buried along with Bud in the American cemetery in Manila, methodically entering information for weeks in the evenings.

He discovered that all the way back in the 1940s, the military had made tentative identifications for more than half of those X-files, tying each set of remains to a few service members or, in some cases, just one. Many of the cases seemed as solvable as Bud鈥檚. In one instance, Eakin concluded, a Silver Star recipient had never been identified because his name was spelled wrong.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not rocket science,鈥� he told anyone who would listen.

Eakin didn鈥檛 understand why the military didn鈥檛 just exhume all the men who had been buried in Grave 717.

While some oppose focusing on disinterments, arguing those men have already been found, the Pentagon began encouraging J-PAC to exhume more unknowns 15 years ago based on the emerging promise of DNA. J-PAC has done just 111 disinterments since then. Half of those were exhumed in the past two years, in part a response to the mounting pressure to make more IDs.

鈥淭he laboratory is pursuing disinterments very aggressively,鈥� Holland said.

J-PAC recently set a goal to dig up 150 sets of remains per year by 2018. Even at that pace, the agency would need until about 2081 just to get the 9,400 unknown World War II and Korea service members out of the ground.

Holland approves just a handful of the disinterment requests that come across his desk. Cases go first to the head of the disinterment unit, who dismisses about 80 percent of them, Holland said. The rest go to Holland, who said he rejects another 80 percent. That means only 4 percent of cases considered for disinterment move forward.

Holland said he is 鈥渉andcuffed鈥� by a that requires a 鈥渉igh probability of identification鈥� before exhumation.

There is disagreement within the military about whether the policy is still in effect. Officials at DPMO, which frequently squabbles with J-PAC, say it isn鈥檛.

鈥淚t鈥檚 J-PAC鈥檚 choice,鈥� said Navy Capt. Doug Carpenter, chief of accounting policy for DPMO. 鈥淗ow they choose to hold themselves accountable for disinterment is up to J-PAC, and they do a fine job.鈥�

Regardless, Holland has the power to define the exact standard for disinterment. He has imposed strict parameters for how many people a set of remains could possibly be before moving forward to dig them up: typically, no more than five. He will not lower the threshold even in instances where comparison DNA could be used to identify disinterred remains.

Holland might still be smarting from a 2003 blunder in which J-PAC dug up remains of unidentified sailors who had been on the USS Oklahoma when it sunk in Pearl Harbor. Agency officials had failed to investigate the historical archives adequately and exhumed a container with bones from hundreds of people instead of the five they were expecting.

After this, the Pentagon decided to halt any further Oklahoma cases and required additional layers of bureaucratic approval for disinterments, but as a practical matter it is still Holland who makes the calls.

McKeague, the military commander of J-PAC, now has to endorse disinterment requests approved by Holland. Asked whether he ever questions Holland鈥檚 judgment, McKeague held up his hand like a stop sign and said that lab decisions were squarely Holland鈥檚 domain.

鈥淗is credentials are impeccable,鈥� McKeague said.

The request next goes to DPMO, which has its own historians check the work, then to the assistant secretary of the Army for final approval, but the Army has never turned J-PAC down.

Holland acknowledged that what he called the Pentagon鈥檚 鈥渒nee-jerk鈥� reaction to the USS Oklahoma mess left him reluctant to push for disinterments for fear of losing more autonomy. He expressed concern about having bodies that J-PAC can鈥檛 identify stack up in his lab.

鈥淚 might have a certain amount of discretion in how I interpret 鈥榟igh probability,鈥� but that discretion will be taken away from me鈥� should the ratio of exhumed graves to identifications get out of balance, he said. 鈥淚 guess in that sense, I am a little risk averse.鈥�

In January 2011, Eakin鈥檚 persistence finally seemed to spur some progress.

J-PAC anthropologist Paul Emanovsky examined the cases of the 14 men who had been buried in Grave 717 in Cabanatuan, including Bud鈥檚, and concluded that identifications were possible.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 worth pursuing these cases, there are some pretty strong correlations for a couple of causalities, and others are reasonable,鈥� Emanovsky wrote in to Holland and the lab manager, John Byrd.

Regardless of the likely poor condition of the bones, 鈥淚 think that all hope is not lost,鈥� Emanovsky鈥檚 note said. Since the bones of the soldiers might have been commingled, he advised exhuming them all and comparing them with DNA from family members. 鈥淲e could potentially identify several of these individuals,鈥� he said.

Ten months later, the head of J-PAC鈥檚 office of disinterment reviewed the case and echoed Emanovsky鈥檚 findings in a , noting that while the bones were 鈥渆roded,鈥� DNA 鈥渕ay help in identification of remains from Common Grave 717.”

The memo was sent to Holland on Oct. 19, 2011. Even then, he did not act to disinter Bud and the others and carry out DNA testing.

At another family update meeting in Texas on Feb. 26, 2012, Eakin met with Johnnie Webb, J-PAC鈥檚 external relations chief. Despite the reports from members of the agency鈥檚 staff supporting disinterment, Webb told Eakin there was no evidence to support further investigation into Bud鈥檚 case.

Eakin had had enough. 鈥淲e waited and waited and finally filed a lawsuit in federal court,鈥� he said.

On Oct. 18, 2012, Eakin sued the Department of Defense, naming the secretary of defense, Webb and the head of DPMO, in United States District Court in Texas to force them to disinter Bud and the other World War II unknowns.

The lawsuit has survived several government motions to dismiss.

In a January 2013 prompted by the suit, Holland cited the policy that, again, he himself interprets.

鈥淣o definitive individual associations could be established based on the available documentation,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淲hile it is possible that one or more individuals could be realized if all unknown remains from this incident were disinterred for analysis, the existing and available data do not meet the level of scientific certainty required by current DoD disinterment guidance.鈥�

Citing the suit, J-PAC and DPMO declined to comment on any specifics of Bud鈥檚 case.

After years of fruitless struggle, Eakin has become convinced that J-PAC鈥檚 鈥渏ob is justifying doing nothing 鈥� and they do their job well.鈥�

It鈥檚 unclear whether the law will come down on Eakin鈥檚 side, but there鈥檚 reason to believe the judge is sympathetic to his claim.

鈥淣otwithstanding giving his last full measure of devotion to this country,鈥� U.S. District Judge Fred Biery , 鈥淧rivate Kelder鈥檚 government declines, on technical legal reasons as opposed to spirit of the law, to give him a decent burial in a marked grave alongside others who died in service to the United States.鈥�

The Kelders want to put Bud in the family crypt in the Norwood Park neighborhood of Chicago where Bud grew up. That鈥檚 where Bud鈥檚 parents, who so badly wanted to bring their boy home, are interred.

鈥淎ll this isn鈥檛 about just digging up a bunch of old bones. This is about giving a family closure,鈥� Eakin said. 鈥淭hese men gave their all, and we can at least give them their names on their headstone.鈥�

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