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Department of Defense Establishes POW/MIA Task Group

April 15, 1971

1971-04-15_ShieldsPOWTaskForce_Jan-1973
1971-04-15_ShieldsPOWTaskForce_Jan-1973
The POW/MIA Task Group works in the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center, January 1973. (OSD Historical Office)

The Department of Defense establishes the POW/MIA Task Group under the direction of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs. The group is the coordinating body for all POW/MIA matters. Its objective is to obtain the release and full accounting of American POWs and to devise policies and procedures for their return to the United States.

The group manages multiple issues relating to returnees’ repatriation, including medical evaluations, debriefings, and family, financial, and legal counseling. The task group remains in place through the return of prisoners in 1973.1

Vernon E. Davis, The Long Road Home: U.S. Prisoner of War Policy and Planning in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Historical Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2000), 183–85, 187–88, 196 (quote on p. 185); Stuart I. Rochester, The Battle Behind Bars: Navy and Marine POWs in the Vietnam War (Washington, D.C.: Naval History and Heritage Command, 2010), 62–64.