Not "MIA." Instead: "Wherabouts Unknown?"

[Lissa]

Has anyone else heard about this?

Hubby told me that tonight (3/26) while watching Larry King Live, a story came on about the troops who are missing after battles in Iraq. The mother and father of one of these troops were on the show and said that their son’s status has been changed from “Missing in Action” to “Whereabouts Unknown.” They added that this “changes his benefits” to his pregnant wife.

Why would the army re-classify this soldier who before was deemed to be MIA? “Whereabouts Unknown” sounds like he stepped out to go get a pack of smokes and never came back instead of dissapearing in the midst of combat, and being “Missing in Action.”

What the heck is this? CNN’s website has no mention, and a Yahoo! news search yielded no information.

[zigaretten]

Try searching DUSTWUN (duty status - whereabouts unknown) -

I’m not going to link to any sites because they keep screwing up on me, but it looks like this is a temporary status which means that they think he is a casualty (which would include MIA and PW)but aren’t yet certain. It definitely doesn’t mean they think he went AWOL or some such thing.

[UncleBill]

And when we started having troops captured, I saw the Vietnam era POW/MIA shirts come out in protests. The Pentagon may be trying to avoid the connection.

[RTA]

I’d be interested in hearing how the unnamed pregnant wife’s benefits package has been altered by such newfangled doublespeak.

Strange. If they think he is a casualty (which includes missing), then why not list him as missing? Is he missing or not? Obviously he is missing or else he would not be, yes?

[SmackFu]

It doesn’t sound like they would switch someone from MIA to DUSTWUN. From here:

DUSTWUN is a transitory status, applicable only to military personnel, that is used when a commander suspects that one of his or her Marines may be a casualty, but no sufficient evidence exists to determine whether the Marine is missing or deceased. Assigning the DUSTWUN status to the Marine gives the commander a maximum of 10 days to investigate the disappearance. This status assignment protects against a premature missing person declaration. After 10 days, the commanding officer must declare the Marine to be either UA or deceased, or a report must be submitted to the Headquarters of the Marine Corps recommending that the Marine be placed in a missing status.

[Coriolanus]

We have seen the POW’s and gruesome pictures of slain soldiers partly because this is war and partly for the enemy’s propoganda.

I saw the Al-Jazeera tape and pictures of some soldiers in the 507th and I was mostly sure of one ID and quite sure of another but I said nothing. The Pentagon - hours later - notified the families of those soldiers.

One oddity of the A-J tape was showing soldiers wearing green cameo fatigues - while all army personnel should have been wearing the light beige colour. No news org has reported seeing either or both of the female captives.

I listened to GWB’s address today. He promised justice.