OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A bill to help bring Missing-in-Action service members back home has been introduced in Madison.
“We send them out into battle, we need to do everything we can to make sure that they come home,” said State Sen. Roger Roth, R-Appleton.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Missing in Action Recovery and Identification Project hits close to home for Roth – a veteran airman.
“I spent 16 years in the Wisconsin Air National Guard, I’ve deployed to Iraq; I know how important it is for the men and women who are serving now to know that their country’s going to do everything in its power to make sure that, no matter where they go and what they do, they will come home.”
Sen. Roth announced Thursday that the state will give $180,000 over two years to fund recovery, identification, and return of Wisconsin MIAs
There are about 80,000 service members across the nation still Missing in Action. Over 1,500 of them are from Wisconsin.
Phillip Moore, a Vietnam war veteran, tells FOX 11 about a man he knows is one of them.
“His wingmen never heard from him again. Rescue crews saw only a fire, but no wreckage and Captain Shine was declared Missing in Action.”
Years later Captain Shine’s daughter Colleen flew to the battlegrounds he fought on, in search of some closure.
“She was able to find the wreckage of her father’s plane, and was given a helmet by a local villager that had her father’s name inside the helmet.”
On June 6, 1995, at the urging of Capt. Shine’s daughter, the site was excavated, and Captain Shine was no longer missing.
The suffering loved ones and the families like Colleen are the reasons why the UW MIA project exists.
“They want that closure,” said Moore. “They want the body being brought back, and we vowed, ‘No man left behind.’”
The UW team has carried out three successful missions for the Pentagon since 2014. It hasn’t been assigned to any Wisconsin MIAs to date.
The UW MIA Recovery and Identification Project says, “This bill will give us the ability to focus primarily on Wisconsinites, using the tools within the University of Wisconsin, as well as within the state of Wisconsin.”
There’s a multi-year backlog in locating the remains of these MIA’s, so time is of the essence.
“We don’t leave a comrade behind,” Roth emphasized.
Roth says the funds from the grant will allow the UW team to identify up to three additional Wisconsin-specific MIA service members.
