The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency director shares an update on the agency’s mission with Legionnaires at the 107th national convention.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) Director Kelly McKeague spoke to delegates of The American Legion’s 107th National Convention in Louisville, Ky., Sept. 2, to provide an update on the agency’s POW/MIA mission. And to share DPAA’s gratitude.
“Thank you for steadfastly championing this important mission not just nationally but at your states, your departments, and your posts,” McKeague said. “Thank you for embodying the American Legion value principle of ‘honor those who came before us.’ You do so by paying perpetual respect for all past military sacrifices to ensure they are never forgotten by new generations. Those who remain missing in action are unreturned veterans who must not be forgotten.”
Of the 80,754 POW/MIAs who remain unaccounted for since World War II, an estimated 38,000 can be recovered. The DPAA works with 54 countries and has 189 people deployed because “searching for, recovering and identifying Americans missing from past wars is a sacred obligation because it involves your fellow veterans who answered the call to duty and in doing so paid the supreme sacrifice,” McKeague stressed.
Last year, a record 231 POW/MIAs were recovered and returned home. This is the result of an increased budget, McKeague said. However, because of reductions, the 105 teams that were deployed last year will only be 48 next year. “That's a 54% reduction of our ability to deploy teams to find your comrades in arms,” he added.
McKeague said the Vietnam War is the DPAA’s number one operational priority. More teams will be sent to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos “because these are the Americans that we know the most about.” He also gave an update that two teams are operating in China; one team is investigating three World War II crash sites.
Success stories of the teams who are in the field to bring home POW/MIAs to families who have long waited for their return were shared with Legionnaires. One was of Army 1st Lt. Morton Sher from South Carolina, a P-40 pilot who was shot down over the Hunan Province, China, and killed in action on Aug. 20, 1943. His remains were identified in June 2025, and his 93-year-old sister was there to welcome him home.
The last letter he wrote home read, “I let another pilot take that instructor job back in the U.S., for I find things too exciting here to leave right now.”
“A week later, he was shot down,” McKeague said. “But thankfully Lt. Sher is back home.”
Another story of a hero recovered was that of 20-year-old Army Private First Class Joseph Chancery from Alabama who was killed in November 1950 during the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. He was buried as an unknown until his remains were identified March 24, 2026, and he was buried next to his parents and his 12 siblings.
His niece was three years old when her uncle went missing, and “she remembers her father never stopped waiting for his brother to come home,” McKeague said. “Private First Class Chancery is now home where he belongs.
“They are why this mission matters, and how your appreciation, your support and your advocacy of this sacred mission enables us to provide answers, the ultimate answer to families like the Sher’s and Chancery’s. These answers they longed seek and, more importantly, long deserved.”
Read two more stories of how the DPAA is upholding its mission that were shared with the Legion’s National Security Commission during its meeting in Louisville for the national convention.
“Legionnaires, The American Legion’s commitment to this sacred mission is longstanding and resolute,” McKeague said, adding how its Legion Riders and Legion honor guards providing escorts and rendering final honors for the families of POW/MIAs when they are returned home. And he thanked the Legion for flying the POW/MIA flag and always having a POW/MIA table at its meetings. The black and white flag “solidly communicates this nation's determination and hopefulness … and the poignant words, ‘You are not forgotten.’
“Legionnaires, I can assure you, the Department of War has not forgotten, and will not forget. And thank you to The American Legion for not forgetting, and keeping the promise made to our unreturned veterans, your comrades in arms.”
- Convention