Remains in Tomb of the Unknowns Will Be Exhumed

Fourteen years after President Reagan presided over the burial of a Vietnam War veteran in the Tomb of the Unknowns, the remains will be exhumed to see if they can be identified after all, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen decided Thursday.

Relatives of Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie, a missing Vietnam War pilot, believe that his remains are in the tomb. Cohen’s decision, Blassie’s sister said, could put them “one step closer to bringing our family member home.”

The defense secretary agreed to disinter the remains “after weighing the sanctity of the tomb with the need for the fullest possible accounting,” said Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon.

“If we can identify the remains now, we have an obligation to try,” Bacon said. The families, he said, “deserve nothing less.”

Blassie’s family requested the remains be exhumed for possible identification in the hope modern, more sophisticated forensics techniques can help.

“I can’t say we’re surprised, but we’re certainly pleased,” Pat Blassie, the sister, said Thursday. “We’ve been told that in a best-case scenario, we will have word in one month. And the worst-case scenario is that it will take 10 to 12 weeks.”

The remains were placed in the tomb in 1984, several years after government scientists ruled they did not belong to Blassie.

Reagan presided over the funeral and awarded the unknown Vietnam veteran the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award. Reagan also acted as next-of-kin and accepted the interment flag at the end of the ceremony.

The Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery is dedicated to the nation’s unidentified war dead. It is watched over constantly by a military honor guard.

John Metzler Jr., cemetery superintendent, said an 8-foot-high fence will be erected around the site as workers prepare the tomb for the disinterment. A brief ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, when a flag-draped casket containing the remains of the Vietnam unknown are to be removed.

Cohen expects to attend the ceremony, a senior Pentagon official said.

The remains will be taken under military escort to the Army Forces Institute of Pathology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where a forensic examination will begin.

In theory, the remains could belong to eight other Air Force or Army fighter and helicopter pilots who went down in the An Loc area the same time as Blassie but whose bodies were never identified, the Defense Department said.

Last week, Charles Cragin, assistant secretary of Defense for reserve affairs, recommended to Cohen that the remains--the pelvis, right upper arm and four ribs--be examined to try to clear up conflicting evidence about whether they belong to Blassie.

Some evidence found with the remains, including dog tags and gear, indicates they could be those of the St. Louis pilot, whose A-37 attack plane was shot down over South Vietnam in May 1972, Cragin said.

However, other evidence such as blood type and physical characteristics--based on old forensic methods that could be unreliable--did not match, he said.

Government scientists said they will use DNA matching and other tests.

Of the nine pilots who disappeared in the area around the same time, Capt. Rodney Strobridge, a 30-year-old Army helicopter pilot who grew up in Torrance, Calif., most closely matches existing forensic evidence, Cragin said. But other evidence found with the remains does not match Strobridge.