A mission to bring America’s missing service members home

In a quiet field in Poland, surrounded by fragments of a World War II bomber, retired Lt. Col. Rich Ingleby had a realization he could not shake. The work of bringing fallen service members home was moving forward, but far too slowly.

Each passing year meant more waiting for families and more stories left unfinished. Standing there, watching time stretch out over decades, he began to imagine a different path forward.

That moment would eventually spark the creation of the Arizona Center for the Missing in Action, an effort he and colleague and friend Jesse Stephen, chief of innovation at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, launched to help accelerate the search for more than 81,000 Americans still listed as missing in action.

For Ingleby, now the center’s director, the mission is not abstract. It is deeply personal, rooted in a promise to never leave a fallen service member behind and a growing urgency as time threatens to erase critical evidence and connections to living families.

At the heart of the initiative is an ambitious and patriotic idea: turn Arizona State University students into active participants in one of the military’s most meaningful humanitarian efforts. Through a study abroad program, ASU ROTC cadets step out of the classroom and into history, traveling overseas to help recover the remains of American service members lost in past conflicts.

Students will spend three weeks — June 29 to July 17 — in the field, working long days excavating crash sites, sifting through soil for fragments of aircraft, personal items, and, in some cases, remains. 

Along the way, they study the lives of the fallen, gaining a deeper understanding of sacrifice and service that few classroom settings can replicate.

For these ASU cadets, the mission carries an added weight. Many of the cases will involve service members from their own state, transforming distant history into something immediate and personal. It is not just about honoring the past, Ingleby says, but about fulfilling a responsibility to bring “one of our own” home.

In honor of Memorial Day, Ingleby discusses the moment that inspired the center, how students are helping reshape recovery efforts and why the clock is ticking to solve one of the nation’s most enduring military commitments.

Note: Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Question: With more than 81,000 U.S. service members still missing, what inspired the creation of the Arizona Center for the Missing in Action, and why is this moment critical for advancing recovery efforts?

Answer: The urgency of this mission is what inspired the creation of the center. Last year, I was on a field recovery mission of a WWII B-17 bomber in Poland. At the time, there was not even a thought of doing anything bigger, just helping out on that mission. When I got there, I found out it was the sixth year the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency had been working on that site. As I stood there, I noticed from all the metal detector hits out ahead — little orange flags in the ground — we easily had another six years to go. Each year comes with significant recurring costs to the agency and, more importantly, each year means yet one more that these families have to wait for answers. Each additional year on that site also means another MIA somewhere out in the world must wait even longer for his mission to get started as well.

I remember standing in that field one day, asking the project foreman what we needed to do to get this done faster. His answer was immediate: “Simple – I just need more people.” That comment stuck with me. Then when we returned home, we received a ton of local interest and media attention on the mission. Jesse (Stephen) and I quickly realized that we had a significant amount of support in our community, and that if we focused our efforts towards our Arizona missing, we could leverage that excitement to help bring more of these guys home. It was from seeing that excitement, and that one comment while out there digging through Polish dirt, that the idea of the Arizona Center for the Missing in Action was born.

Last year the DPAA and its partners conducted 107 field recoveries — an all-time record year. But even when using their best mission numbers, DPAA is on track mathematically to complete their mission of bringing home the 80,833 Missing in Action in 170 years. By then the remains will be gone. Further, finding families for DNA matches will be next to impossible. DPAA needs help. Really, families who have been waiting so long without answers need help. It’s clear Arizonans are excited to do so, so we just needed something to connect that enthusiasm with the mission.

Q: How does this new study abroad program transform traditional classroom learning for ASU ROTC students into hands-on historical and humanitarian work in the field?

A: Sun Devil students will study everything about the mission prior to and throughout the actual recovery. This includes what happened that tragic day in December 1944, when this B-24 bomber they will be recovering went down. These studies will include who the men of its crew were, and what’s been done to find and bring them home since. This will all be done through readings and on-site discussions.

This year, all our participating students are ROTC cadets — one from each of the services, plus a cadre member as a supervisor. Each of them is about to put on the uniform in the near future and lead our nation’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. In the U.S. military, we pledge to never leave a fallen comrade — these students/officer cadets will get to see that that promise still matters, even 80-plus years later.

Thanks to this experience, they are going to see firsthand what sacrifice truly is and means — that the people they will one day lead are real people bravely serving in harm’s way. Usually, it takes experiencing actual combat before a service member starts having that realization; these cadets are going to get a little of that before they ever ship out. So, with this group, we’re making an even bigger impact here — we’re making a very real impact towards developing and preparing our nation’s next military leaders.

Q: The center emphasizes collaboration across universities, agencies and communities — what role do ASU students specifically play in supporting the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s mission?

A: This is actually what is so exciting about this particular mission. Initially we had slated ASU to assist on a mission in France, along with the center helping coordinate several other schools at different locations. Then we started searching through the list of where the MIAs from each mission were from and saw that the one in Poland had a crewmember from Yuma. So we quickly swapped the Sun Devils over to Poland.

This is just one of the many aspects that make this center something special — we’ll catch the small but important details like that, then generate, coordinate or flex resources to make things happen. It’s truly a statewide team effort, but in the end, thanks to the center, we are going to be able to send Arizonans to bring one of our own home.  

Q: Can you walk us through what a student might actually experience on one of these recovery missions abroad — from research to excavation to identification?

A: Sure. At this point, with this particular mission, most of the research has been done. DPAA historians have previously dug through the records and narrowed down the location of the crash site. They then sent out an exploratory mission to speak with locals, metal detect and otherwise try and locate the exact site of the crash. Now larger teams are there trying to excavate the whole thing systematically to ensure we do not miss any remains. We’ll come back year after year to make sure we haven’t missed anything. I want to say this one is in its sixth year as well.

So our students will show up on-site and work six days a week for three weeks. They’ll work full days out there in the summer sun — on their feet, shoveling dirt, running it through metal screens. As they work the dirt through, parts of the plane will start to appear from the muck onto their screen; everything from metal fragments, pieces of cloth, .50 caliber ammunition, rank insignia and, hopefully, remains. The latter are all cataloged, then handed over to DPAA. Following this, forensic labs will run DNA analysis on each piece. Eventually — hopefully — each missing airman is eventually identified, accounted for and returned home with honor to their families.

On top of that, there’s a cultural aspect as well. They are going to live in Poland. Not just tour around and take photos, but live and work there every day. They’ll find favorite restaurants, and the staff there will get to know them. They’ll work with Polish archeologists all day, getting to know them and making lasting friendships that they wouldn’t otherwise.   

Q: What does the future of this program look like?

A: As I mentioned, we’re just getting started. While this year we’re only sending a small team of Sun Devil ROTC cadets, going forward, we plan to send even larger teams of students, from all academic disciplines. Some like history or archeology will be a natural fit, but any student that wants to be a part of bringing our MIAs home is who we are looking for. The plan is to get our research classes going each year on campus — again, open to any degree — then send teams of around 15 to 20 on fully funded recovery missions abroad each year. Eventually, we’ll run the sites ourselves, conducting a recovery mission without having to rely on any resources from DPAA; that’s the ultimate target.

Where each will be, I don’t know. It could be anywhere from the jungles of Guadalcanal or Vietnam to Korea or all over Europe. We’ll go where our missing are, and where DPAA needs help. That’s going to create some unique and diverse experiences for our students each time, but again, the impact will be lasting. Couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead!