cover image WHERE THEY LAY: Searching for America's Lost Soldiers

WHERE THEY LAY: Searching for America's Lost Soldiers

Earl Swift, . . Houghton Mifflin, $25 (307pp) ISBN 978-0-618-16820-0

This solid and informative study by a seasoned military journalist offers the first full-scale account of the work of the Central Identification Laboratory. Dedicated to the location, recovery and identification of the remains of missing American soldiers, the lab has worked mainly with Vietnam MIAs. Swift focuses on the search for an army helicopter crew that went down in Laos in 1971. He interweaves accounts of a generation's worth of site sifting, involving everything from the most basic shovel work to satellite relaying of computer data, with the whole history of the remains-recovery project. He adds short biographies of the four lost airmen—Jack Barker, John Dugan, Billy Dillender and John Chubb—and the details of forensic and archeological techniques used over the last generation. He also paints a vivid portrait of deeply impoverished Laos, the sometimes helpful Laotians and the military professionals and technical specialists who make up the search teams. Neither antimilitary nor prowar, the book exhibits thorough research, intelligent assimilation of personal experience (including some of the shoveling) and what might be called a commitment to commitment as represented by the whole quest for the American MIA that is now entering its third generation. (Nov.)