By: Mike Riggs , The Bulletin

Robin Piacini's uncle still hasn't come home after 50 years. With little closure, she turns to her latest helper: a cotton swab.

William Charles Bradley, an Army medic in the 9th Infantry, 2nd Division, disappeared in Kun Ri, North Korea, on Dec. 1, 1950. Piacini, his niece, donated her mitochondrial DNA to the Department of Defense (DOD) in hopes that when the bodies of U.S. POWs are recovered, DNA samples taken from Bradley's remains will match her own.

While DNA has been used to identify the remains of POWs for years, until now, the DOD had to rely on the annual MIA/POW update meetings to get DNA samples. The Pentagon is now testing a program that mails DNA kits to families of missing servicemen in hopes of generating greater response. Pennsylvania is serving as a testing ground.

Relatives swab the inside of their cheeks and send the sample back to the Department of Defense, where it will be added to a DNA databank and matched with remains recovered from theaters of conflict.
"We're still seeking to account for about 8,100 from the Korean War, 1,700 from Vietnam, and about 78,000 from World War II," said Larry Greer, an official at the DOD. "It's a huge task, and DNA is a part of it. With a bone sample from a serviceman and a saliva sample from someone in the maternal bloodline, we can identify a DNA match."

Greer added that currently, the main focus is on World War II and Korea. "The percentage of DNA samples we have on hand for Vietnam is much higher than in the other wars. We're much closer to identifying 100 percent of the remains than with other conflicts."

Greer emphasized that the match will occur only with someone on the maternal side of the family. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from a serviceman's children won't match his own.

"Mitochondrial DNA is different from nuclear DNA," Greer said. Identical mitochondrial DNA can be shared by multiple people and simply denotes "a common ancestor."

Alexander Christensen, a DNA coordinator at the POW/MIA Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, says that using mtDNA can sometimes complicate the search for a relative as much as clarify.
"Mitochondrial DNA is an exclusionary method of identification. If the mtDNA sequence from an excavated body is the same as that of a living donor, it means they could be related." But it doesn't necessarily mean it's the person the family is looking for.

Christensen, whose job involves cutting sample pieces from the excavated bones and sending it to the Armed Forces DNA identification laboratory, cited one excavation where the mtDNA of two recovered servicemen was identical, but the passenger manifest said no one on the plane was related.
"They could have had a maternal ancestor as far back as 30 generations," he said.

The necessity of a maternal relative is fueling a sense of urgency at the DOD, as members of the World War II and Korean War generations reach their 70s, 80s, and 90s.

"If the family of Private John Smith comes forward and says they know that he is missing, we want their DNA in case they pass away before we identify his remains," Greer said.

"I've had a phone call or two from families where there's no maternal lineage left, and the families have to guess," Piacini said. She emphasized the frustration of getting the DNA samples by saying that her own mother heard about the DNA donations not directly from the DOD but from an ad in the back of a veteran's magazine.

Families' lack of information, not only about the DNA gathering process but also about their relatives' combat experience, is a significant problem.

"When I requested information, I got one page about my uncle and a map of where he went missing," Piacini said.

So she set about to contact men who served with her uncle. "One soldier mentioned his name as being killed in action. Another soldier said he died as a prisoner of war."

Christensen says that Korea has presented a unique obstacle for both excavation teams, who haven't been allowed in the country since 2005, and analysts who are doing their best to find out what really happened to servicemen like Piacini's uncle.

"In Korea, we have a large backlog of remains that we are trying to identify," he said. "In recent years, the biggest problem has been that we didn't have a large enough DNA database. Now, the problem is that a lot of our losses in North Korea are from battlefields we didn't reclaim. We just know that we have hundreds of people missing."

He added that in Korea, it's never "a nice, discreet group of remains. Sometimes it's as many as 400 people who died on a given battlefield."

Piacini believes that the DNA program could help clear the historical mists but that the Department of Defense must do more to alert families about the mtDNA matching program.

"This is something that has to be addressed," she said. "If it's a funding issue, we need to make it real clear to our congressman that helping families find out about their servicemen is one of the highest priorities of our government."

Greer, who is working with Piacini in hopes that Pennsylvania's grassroots MIA groups can get a larger number of families to donate, says that cost is not a deterrent.

"Mailing family members a DNA kit with instructions, a swab and a tube for the sample is a negligible $4-$5," Greer said. "If that little kit can help us identify a serviceman, it's well worth the effort."
Christensen says that donor response has increased exponentially as the program has gained publicity.

As of now, "438 Pennsylvania families have given the DOD their references [mtDNA], and there are 115 Pennsylvania casualties whose relatives' DNA we're looking for," he said.

Greer hopes that the mailings in Pennsylvania will prove successful enough to answer the DOD's questions in the positive.

"Is it productive?" he asked. Does it give us feedback? Do we have enough of a lead to try it with other families? These are the questions we hope to have answered in Pennsylvania."

Piacini echoes his sentiments. "How well we do here in Pennsylvania will determine how well this program does in the rest of the country, that's why we enlisted the veteran's affairs office to help us work county by county to inform people."

Mike Riggs can be reached at mriggs@thebulletin.us.