Government To Update Chicago Families

WBBM780 - Chicago, IL, USA

Posted: Monday, 21 July 2008 8:28AM

Government To Update Families Here On Missing Soldiers

CHICAGO (WBBM) - Few answers have come out about the fate of tens of thousands of American soldiers still missing, going back to World War II.

This weekend, on Saturday July 26, the defense department is sending representatives to Chicago to update families here, as WBBM's Steve Miller reports.

The defense department is inviting Chicago area families whose loved ones are still missing in action to meet at a hotel ballroom near O'Hare on Saturday - the 26th - to get an update.

The Chicago Family Update meeting will be held at the Sheraton Gateway Suites Chicago O'Hare, 6501 N. Manheim Road, Rosemont, Ill.

More information can be found at www.dtic.mil/dpmo/index.htm

It has been about nine years since the defense department had one of these "Family Update" meetings in Chicago.

Leading the update meeting will be Adrian Cronauer, whose own service as a radio DJ in Vietnam was profiled by actor Robin Williams in "Good Morning Vietnam."

Cronauer says about 200 families have been invited to learn about the search for their loved ones - and, perhaps, to get new information.

"About 80 percent of our cases now are confirmed by DNA analysis, but we don't have reference samples from anybody back in Vietnam or Korea or World War Two.

"So if you are a relative, there's a good chance we might be able to take a swab from your cheek and use that as a sample what we think is a possible set of remains and their identification."

Cronauer says all families who have missing military personnel are welcome to come.

He says there are 88,000 people still missing from all conflicts; 78,000 of them are from World War Two.

It was Christmas Eve 1965 when Captain Dennis Eilers disappeared. It's believed that his plane went down along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.

No wreckage. No bodies. At least, none the U.S. government knows about.

Eilers' son Curt was three years old.

Curt Eilers is 45 now, with his own family in Naperville.

Despite making a trip to Vietnam with his brother in the mid-'90s, he doesn't have much information on his father.

Curt Eilers says he has a sense of obligation to find out what happened.

"I definitely wish I had known him better. Obviously, (my) genetic material came from him. And so there's a lot of curiosity and respect, and it's hard to know how to show that."

Eilers says the search site for his father's remains has been narrowed down, and he says he's still hopeful he can get more information.