Science & Nature
Chicago Researchers on a Mission to Bring Home Remains of Fallen American Soldiers
Inside the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago, a dedicated team of researchers is working to solve decades-old mysteries by locating and identifying the remains of missing American service members who never made it home from war.
Rick Elliott and Jessica Bishop work at the university’s Center for the Recovery and Identification of the Missing (CRIM). The center partners with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), a federal agency that recovers U.S. service members who were killed in past conflicts and are still unaccounted for.
“We get to participate in this mission to bring service members home and help families,” Bishop said.
The DPAA brings together teams of historians, archaeologists and forensic scientists to search for soldiers from conflicts such as World War II and the Vietnam War. CRIM researchers have searched for WWII soldiers in the Philippines and supported missions in Vietnam and Italy.
“First we’ll do the historical research to figure out what happened in each case to see if we can find the location, you know, where the aircraft might have crashed,” Elliott said.
So far, Elliott has been on six missions and is preparing for his seventh trip, this one to the Philippines. Conditions can be extreme.
“I’ve gone on investigations to places where we get no cell service,” he said. “You’re strictly on the satellite phone, and that’s the only way you can get word out.”
Teams use advanced detection devices and forensic technology to locate remains in remote and rugged terrain.
Last year, CRIM researchers made a major breakthrough along a mountainside in Laos bordering Vietnam, locating five American service members.
One of them was U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Willis R. Hall.
His son, Steve Hall, said he was 18 years old when his father was deployed.
“When they told me that they had found my father’s remains, it was like a hit in the chest,” Steve Hall said. “It took my breath away. I completely broke down because it was something that I thought I would never see.”
His father was among 19 men involved in a classified mission known as Lima Site 85, a secret U.S. operation that placed a tactical air navigation radar system atop a remote mountain in Laos during the Vietnam War.
Rick Holland’s father was also stationed there. Holland was 8 years old when his father left.
“Lima Site 85 was an attempt by the U.S. Air Force to place their most sophisticated radar on a remote mountaintop in northern Laos,” Rick Holland said. “For them to do that, they sent a bunch of dedicated American patriots over there who had to give up their military careers, walk away from their military careers, to go over there and do that, and it didn’t turn out well for everybody.”
In 1968, the site was overrun. Eleven men were killed, including both Hall and Holland’s fathers.
For years, families waited for information. Holland’s mother sued the U.S. government to have details released, and the mission was finally declassified in the early 1980s.
Rick Holland continues to work with the DPAA, pushing for continued efforts to recover the remaining men lost on the mountain — including his father, U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Melvin Arnold Holland.
Last year, Rick Holland stood on the very mountainside where his father likely took his last breath.
If it hadn’t been for the DPAA, Rick Holland said, “I probably never would have made it up on that mountain, and most definitely never would’ve got to take the helicopter ride around the mountain.”
He said it was powerful to see the DPAA team at work.
Recovery missions require teams to prepare for extreme weather, unstable terrain and life-threatening conditions.
“These kids that don’t even know us volunteer to go out there on the side of that mountain,” Rick Holland said. “They are literally risking their lives every day, every time they’re out there on the side of that mountain, and they’re doing that for people they don’t even know.”
For Bishop, every excavation site represents more than remains.
“It represents a name, a family and a commitment to bring soldiers home,” Bishop said. “You’re dealing with weather and logistics, and we don’t stop digging until we know that, OK, we’ve done all we can.”
For Steve Hall, the discovery of his father’s remains ended nearly six decades of uncertainty.
“We did so many things together, so not only did I lose probably my best friend, but I lost my father,” Steve Hall said. He added that he’s very thankful for the DPAA and hopes other families can have the same sense of closure.
For the families still waiting, the work continues one mission, one mountain and one name at a time.
Rick Holland remains hopeful in his search for his father. The DPAA recently recovered new remains during a mission. He will have to wait several months to find out whether the remains can finally provide his family with the answers they have been praying for.
Four soldiers remain unaccounted for among the 11 men killed during the Lima Site 85 mission.
