Military using DNA to ID fallen soldiers

ROCKVILLE, Md., May 25 (UPI) -- A spokesman for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, Md., says the military is attempting to identify fallen soldiers through DNA testing.

Institute spokesman Paul Stone said by collecting DNA samples from the survivors of missing U.S. soldiers, the military is attempting to positively identify recovered yet unclaimed remains, The Dallas Morning News reported Monday.

"The military doesn't want any more 'unknown soldiers,'" Stone said.

A female line of a family carries the same human mitochondrial DNA through generations, a vital detail in regards to the military's DNA identification purposes.

"We were able to pull DNA off a licked love letter a Korean soldier had sent to his wife," Stone told the Morning News.

Yet learning that a missing loved one's body has been positively identified can be an emotional experience.

"When they called, I started crying. I almost fell out of my chair," Texas resident Sunny Patton said when she learned the body of her brother, Starring Winfield, was recently identified as a casualty of the historic Pearl Harbor attack. "It brought everything rushing back."