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To repatriate every American service member who has not come home through research, searches, recoveries and other methodologies.
To provide information and closure to the families of these service
members. To provide a platform to educate all on the importance of
service to one’s country. To provide unique educational opportunities
in the arenas of science, history, leadership, and diplomacy to a select
and committed student audience in conjunction with our missions in
order to provide a real world application to the students and further educate the public.
A team of volunteers, trained specialists, and professionals, each with essential expertise (history,
aviation, diving, navigation), who are dedicated to locating and assisting
with identifying American prisoners of war (POW) and missing in action (MIA) from
World War II and other conflicts around the world. This effort is done through
research, searches, recoveries, and other methodologies while coordinating with
appropriate national authorities.
- Safety
- Each team member, and the team as a whole, have individual and joint
responsibilities in ensuring safety, both in planning and in execution
of each and every mission. No team member will knowingly expose other
team members to harm. Each team member has the ability to suspend
an operation for any perceived safety issue.
- Leadership
- We understand that leadership within the team is essential, and the
need constant. We strive to promote leadership as part of the search
experience for all team members. We encourage everyone to step up
and take charge of what they are responsible for.
- Respect
- For the POW/MIAs and their families. For each other. For the cultures
with whom we interact. Respect encompasses all aspects of our project,
including such things as privacy, property, need for information,
differences in outlook, and differences in backgrounds, laws and traditions.
We are bound by this respect to avoid belligerent confrontation.
We are especially respectful of the privilege of working in other
countries.
- Humility
- Our affect is determined by our understanding that Americans have died in defense
of us and our families – without ever having known us. We know we can
learn from all around us. Our focus is our POW/MIAs and their families – not
ourselves nor the general public. We orient pride, including self-pride,
toward our team and our joint accomplishments. We view arrogance as a shallow
shield hiding ignorance.
- Integrity
- We value integrity, which is the integration of honesty with reality. Integrity
of each individual and the team as a whole is fundamental to our success.
We recognize and correct our mistakes expeditiously, privately and publicly,
starting from within the team and extending as needed to those affected.
- Responsibility
- We understand that individuals, families and others can and will be affected
by our actions and we have a commitment to anticipating, as much in advance
as practical, the ramifications of our efforts. Team members accept the responsibility
to visualize the second and third order effects of their actions, and the
team’s actions all the way to the national and world level.
- Rigor, Diligence and Perseverance
- These overlapping values create a team obligation and approach to investigate,
study, search and prepare for and follow through with each mission using
all practical venues so that our search can be productive. We either accept
each mission fully or not at all. We owe this to the POW/MIAs and their families, to the individuals, agencies
and governments we work with and to ourselves. In doing so, we understand that
such values also define practical boundaries hindering potential success. This
leads to a constant re-evaluation of our approaches, methodologies and techniques,
while having a never-ending thirst for knowledge and success.
- Innovation and Resourcefulness
- We are resourceful in maximizing use of technologies, records, personal
recollections, selection of future team members and whatever else is needed
to accomplish
our mission. We do not let individual or collective experience hinder future
solutions. We value thinking ‘outside the box’.
- Education
- Through our thirst for knowledge, we seek to learn from others’ experiences,
knowledge, and talents. We embrace and utilize education for sharing our efforts,
methods and accomplishments with others.
- Sharing of Information
- We commit to timely sharing of information and discoveries within our organization,
with families, agencies and others. We recognize that we have need to be
both transparent and confidential in that sharing: transparent with ourselves
and as appropriate, with agencies, families and others – confidential
in holding information closely as appropriate.
- Trustworthy and Trusting
- Once accepted, each team member is deemed worthy of team trust in accepting
and carrying out our mission. Because of this, differences between or among
team members can and must be brought forward and expeditiously dealt with.
- Joy and Fun
- Our mission is somber, for which we are respectful. Nonetheless, these
separate but overlapping values provide continuity and humanity to our efforts.
If
we cannot smile at what we are doing, we are not doing what we should.
- Team Participation
- Each team member is selected as, and considered to be, a valuable asset
in the quest for finding POW/MIAs. Each team member is encouraged
to participate in any and all aspects of any mission: from archival
research to crawling in the mangroves. Each mission will have assigned
tasks that will be distributed among all team members based on experience,
skill set and desires.
- Direction
- We understand that our mission is both focused and flexible. We jointly
accept that we go where our results may take us and we determine
the size, expertise, scope and all other factors based upon the direction
we decide to pursue. Such direction determines in turn the size and
scope of our individual and overall missions. Semper Gumby!
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