Hirono co-introduces bipartisan legislation to recover missing service members quicker

U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Hawai‘i Democrat, joined 8 of her Senate colleagues to introduce the bipartisan Bring Our Heroes Home Act.

The legislation would eliminate obstacles preventing families and caseworkers from accessing records needed for recovery of America’s prisoners of war and missing in action.

“Families of service members who never returned home deserve to know that the government is doing everything it can to determine the fates of their loved ones as quickly and efficiently as possible,” said Hirono in a release about the proposed measure. “This legislation will help to eliminate bureaucratic obstacles and streamline processes to identify and recover our lost service members so we can properly honor their lives and legacies.”

Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency data show about 80,930 Americans remain unaccounted for from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, the Gulf Wars and other conflicts — including more than 150 from Hawai‘i.

The Bring Our Heroes Home Act would:

• Create a collection of missing U.S. Armed Forces and civilian personnel records at the National Archives and Records Administration for families and caseworkers to easily access.
• Require executive agencies to identify, locate and transmit any missing U.S. Armed Forces personnel records to the National Archives for placement in the collection.
• Establish an independent Missing Armed Forces and Civilian Personnel Records Review Board to identify missing personnel records, facilitate the transmission and disclosure of these records and review any decisions by federal agencies to postpone declassification for purposes of protecting sensitive classified material.

In addition to Hirono, the proposed legislation is co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Alex Padilla of California and Jacky Rosen of Nevada; and Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch of Idaho.

Full text of the legislation is available online.