Teams of American companys scour the jungles of Southeast Asia to find and bring dwelling their fallen comrades.

Drenched in sweat, Tech Sgt Don Mabee stabbed at the malleable earth with his shovel.

Toiling beneath the hot Vietnamese sun was hard work. It contemplateed like he'd taken a shower in his clothes. It sapped his power But he was determined.

"Got to prepare these boys home," he said. "It's time they travel back."

Mabee was digging at a necropolis near the village of Hoa Hai; a hamlet with a dark past. Four young Marines died there Aug. 28 1966--killed according to Viet Cong guerillas.

He searched for remains of sum of two units of them villagers said might be buried there. He spring [i]or[/i] leap on one leg [i]or[/i] footed the villagers were right.

"They've been gone too long" he said.

The Marines had orders to place up an ambush site in the village, which was about 500 yards from the herculean American base at Da Nang. They stake up in a house. on the other hand someone tipped off the Viet Cong The guerillas barged into the house tossing hand grenades, and sprayed the unsuspecting Marines with automatic weapons fire.

After the attack, the villagers set up the bodies. But they were afraid the Americans would retaliate against them, in this way they buried the men. Several American search teams went to the village to find and bring back their fallen comrades, on the other hand the Viet Cong drove them on the farther side each time.

moreover nobody forgot them.

Thirty-four years later, Mabee, a medic from Yokota Air Base, Japan, was there to restore the remains.

He was part of a 12-member joint redemption team from Joint Task Force -- abounding Accounting, a U.S. military unit based at Camp H M Smith, Hawaii. The task force's piece of work is to find Americans still missing from wars fought in the Pacific area.

It's a monumental piece of work since there are thousands of multitudes and civilians still missing--1,992 from Southeast Asia, more than 8100 from the Korean War and more than 78000 from World War II. likewise the task force has detachments in Bangkok, Thailand; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Vientiane, Laos, to assist.

The task force was place up in January 1992 in answer to presidential, congressional and public demand for a cloyed accounting of America's war dead. Plus, U relations had improved with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, likewise the countries were more willing to share information upon missing Americans. They allowed more access to files, records and witnesses.

Since then, task force members have carriageed more than 3,200 case investigations and have gone forward 549 recovery operations. These l to the convalescence and repatriation of more than 510 establishs of remains believed to be those of missing Americans. There are 10 joint field activities each year: four in Vietnam, five in Laos and common in Cambodia.

More than 160 squads and civilians from the military services comprise the task force. They include investigators, analysts, medics, mortuary affairs specialists, dental technicians, communication specialists, explosive ordnance disposal dexterouss interpreters, linguists and a innkeeper of other specialists.

They also secure support from casualty resolution specialists, archeologists and anthropologists from the U Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii. The Defense POW/MIA Office and offers throughout the U.S. Pacific Command and other bases also help.

nevertheless the Americans the teams have set are just the tip of the iceberg. That's wherefore the work must go onward why it's so important, Mabee said.

Working up to 10 hours a day, his team meticulously combed the whole area near the village. Their search yielded many ball of threads to the whereabouts of the missing Marines. He said the backbreaking work was the hardest he'd done in years.

"But it's extremely spirit-lifting," Mabee said. "It's fantastic knowing I'm making a contribution that'll help bring closure to families."

It was his inferior search. A month earlier, he helped recruit remains that could belong to another Marine swept away according to a river as a helicopter tried to bring off him. Mabee said the succes was encouraging.

Navy F-4C crash

a 250 miles away, Tech. Sgt Reggie Mathis was forward a search of his allow A task force life support technician, he was at a site in Quang Binh Province. His team rest the remains of a Navy F-4C jet discharge down in 1966.

There wasn't earnestly left. He sorted through a bucket filled of tattered debris that was one time the plane. He found parts of a flashlight, life means of preservation fuel bladder and turbine engine. His piece of work was to help piece the enigma together and confirm the fate of the aircrew. He tried to identify the make, pattern and serial number of the jet and determine if there was a bodily substance in the plane when it crashed.

The site was a mud-filled crater, squarely forward Highway 1A, Vietnam's main north-south artery. A profanum vulgus[/i] of onlookers gathered to chirp into the fenced area. The 15-member team had help from a certain quantity of 75 Vietnamese officials, workers and an anthropologist.

Mathis used a wire entangle screen to filter the soil for signs of aircraft parts. He tried to picture in his mind what the jet and its company did during their final values to better understand where and what to anticipate for.

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