Peace Time: October 18, 1999

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There are 866 unknown dead from the Korean War buried at a cemetery in Hawaii. The Army is studying whether DNA tests can identify these remains. There are several problems. For one, there must be a living relative who is descended from the same maternal blood line, e.g., a mother, a sister, or the child of a sister, for an identification to be made by mitochondrial DNA. The second problem is that it would be impossible to compare every set of remains to every family that has a missing relative from the Korean War, so only those bodies with a tentative identification can be compared to the blood of three or four possible families. Of the 866 bodies buried in Hawaii, only about 50-70 have a realistic chance of being identified.--Stephen V Cole


The Army has just announced bonuses of up to $12,000 for new recruits in certain specialties, most of them in combat arms. Some non-combat specialties with high bonuses ($8,000 or more) include electronics repairmen, wheeled vehicle mechanics, and cooks.--Stephen V Cole