Tomb of Unknowns Stays Empty

(AP)  The Tomb of the Unknowns will probably never again contain a symbolic victim of the Vietnam War, the Pentagon said Thursday. A new inscription on the crypt will instead honor those who remain missing.

Defense Secretary William Cohen "has determined not to inter remains in the Tomb unless and until it can be assured in perpetuity that the remains of the American serviceman would be forever unidentifiable," said Rudy de Leon, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

Scientific advances, particularly the use of DNA matching techniques, makes it possible to eventually identify all the remains the United States has collected so far, de Leon said. That means there are no suitable unknown remains to substitute for those of a pilot whose exhumed body was identified last year, defense officials said.

The Vietnam War crypt at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery has remained empty since the body of Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie was removed in May last year. The Tomb was opened under pressure from Blassie family members who believed his was the body laid to rest there 14 years earlier as a symbolic unknown war victim.

Blassie's body was identified using DNA technology, and his family reburied him at another location.

On National POW/MIA Day Sept. 17, Cohen will dedicate a new inscription on the crypt cover that will read: "Honoring and keeping faith with America's missing servicemen." There are still more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers listed as missing from the Vietnam War.

About 200 sets of bones, teeth and other remains await identification in the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, and the United States continues to receive new remains from the Vietnam War, as crash sites are excavated and the Vietnamese government hands over recovered bodies.

"I think that as long as there are living relatives of some of our missing men, there will always be a hope that remains that are now at the lab will be identifiable at some point," de Leon said.

The Tomb also holds remains of unidentified soldiers from World War I, World War II and the Korean conflict.