 All right. Good morning. I think we got the mic figured out. So hopefully we'll roll smoothly here for the formation You guys could stand at ease. I promise I won't be that long But once you guys stand in there pray rest and fall it out on me So we don't do formations very often at DPA Admiral Baparo, Mr. Baparo and family Thank you for joining us today. Giving us the gift of your time It's a sum of our alums. I see Johnny Webb and to our VSOs distinguished guests. Thank you so much for being here and joining us and to the DPA family here. Thank you guys for coming out on April 7th, 2001 We lost the lives of not just seven service members, but nine VNO the Vietnam office for seeking missing persons who support this mission For the last 38 years It's a good time to just honor their sacrifice And I'm taken to a proverbs that says take steadfast love and faithfulness and bind it around your neck and Etch it on your heart. That's what these service members and these Vietnamese officials did Going out to recover our missing service members from the Vietnam War With sacrifice, courage, commitment, steadfast love It's just One thing that I think from this tragedy tragedy that we learned is What we need to do to ensure the safety of our teams We send teams out. Every mission that we have is a live fire mission We are sending teams to 16,000 foot mountains in the Himalayas, rice paddies, mountains, cliffs throughout Southeast Asia The underwater missions off the coast of PNG Throughout the Indo-Pacific and we still send teams out to the battlefields of World War II in Europe and Day in and day out you guys are doing that exact thing taking out steadfast love courage commitment to never leave a falling service member behind I Can think of no other mission as noble and honorable as what we do here day in and day out I'm getting emotional here. I didn't even know these guys, but I know they are just like you day in and day out our attachments our civilians Are our counterparts and we're going into countries. We face the forces of nature sometimes earthquakes and PNG Cliffs in Laos we face Torrential downpour leeches You name it our teams are going through and and doing those things So as we today honor their service and their sacrifice I just want to tell you that I thank you guys for what you do I thank you for your commitment In your dedication to never leave a service member behind to keep that promise and not only for the Vietnam War Which is our operational priority but for our World War II our Korean War our Cold War and The first goal for losses that we were seeking So thank you for what you do day in and out This is probably one of my last ceremonies as the deputy director for operations here And I can't think of a more fitting way to tell you guys how humbled and honored I've been to be able to serve you in this in this capacity on this mission, and I appreciate what you do and Keep going at it. I will tell you that what we have learned from this tragedy is we do carb inspections We make sure that our helicopters that we put our service members and our partners on meet airworthiness standards based on those inspections every mission that goes out has a Risk assessment the team leaders the planners the team sergeants identify the risks that we are exposing our service members to and Do everything they can to mitigate those risks before we even send a team out to the field Those of risks are approved the mitigation those risks are approved by our regional directors Both Europe Medits reign in and Indo-Pacific So we are doing our very best to ensure that we are setting you up for Success and to ensure your safety and security day in day out Because the last thing we want to do is have another Incident where we lose your life seeking to recover Those who gave the last full measure of devotion and service to their country It's something we will continue to do we do it at risk because that's what sets us apart I think as a nation and as a human race We go out we never leave a service member behind and we will continue that effort with steadfast love faithfulness and Your commitment to duty. Thank you very much All right. I know we have some J-PAC alumni that were here and know these Men personally so if you want we want to give you an opportunity To step forward say a few words If you'd like to add anything Dr. John Byrd our laboratory analysis director, I I Good morning and thanks for coming out to recognize all of our friends And I will recognize mr. Webb and Steve Thompson over there who I know were also around with us back at that time Yeah, I knew a lot of the guys that were involved We were in the laboratory We were still high at the time which meant we were mostly the scientist in the 92 mics is mostly what made up still high mr. Webb was one of the leaders of the organization and Because of that we were most close with sergeant Murphy You know he was a had been a team sergeant a lot of our scientists deployed with him to the field and He had a reputation for being highly competent and always on top of what he was doing And so that was a terrible loss for us when we lost sergeant Murphy Colonel Corey was the debt to commander Colonel Martin was the incoming we didn't know him He was new coming in from Fort Bragg But Colonel Corey was somebody who had was coming to the end of his two-year tour and We had worked with him as a debt commander All that time and he was very popular with us with us civilians We liked him very much, you know as debt commanders came and went over the year some of them You could kind of forget Happily and others you do remember for being really easy to work with and being great at Facilitating the work we were trying to do in the field and and Colonel Corey was a very popular debt commander with the scientific staff And I think with the teams in general and so he was missed. I did not know personally a lot of the other Service members they were assigned to the JTF FA and they were analysts and did other functions And I didn't interact with them a whole lot but What I do know is that all of them were valued and all of them were sorely missed by their colleagues after the incident and You know that it was an accident didn't didn't come from neglect or Safety problems or anything like it was an accident that could happen, you know to anyone at any time It just goes to what colonel Brandon was saying with the risk that we take sometimes with the mission that we're doing Just an unfortunate accident, but but I will say that the the people we lost The people that I worked with and knew were outstanding people They did excellent work and and I would agree with Colonel Brandon. They're just like you guys I See what a lot of you you're just like Sergeant Murphy, you know, he was always on top of his game Again very professional very easy to work with very adaptable to things we encountered in the field and a lot of you are are just the same and You know, hopefully we won't ever have to do this again for anyone else But but I'm very grateful to all of you for coming out here to recognize our colleagues and friends and Does bring back a lot of memories For me, and I'm sure it does for a couple of others as well, but thank you very much This is star Levin, I didn't want to speak first because I'm a little emotional I was a joint task force member Joel Patterson was one of my bosses back then been here since then I Will tell you I did know the analysts I work with them. I'm here because of Steve Moser He encouraged me to be here encouraged me to take that step out and Be in the joint task force. I had to learn a lot and put myself in situations I had never been in before because I was an Air Force airman very young Air Force airman, so Air assault school repelling these things were not something I was used to But I did it and because of them I Had the privilege when I moved into operations of actually hiring Murphy's cousin Murph and I'm Just like his cousin. He was a super hard worker Amazing individual and we were so blessed to have him on our team and he carried that legacy as our air operations officer and but because of them we're we are doing things better and more efficiently safely and I'm just I'm really proud to have been able to be part of their legacy. Um, not only that Those two organizations still high in JPEC. This is one of the catalysts that helped us start Determining that we needed to become a joint organization become JPEC and weren't together and So because of that we became JPEC and now we're here as DPA and Really proud to have been served with all of them and even the VNO SMP They they were very dedicated to our mission and I got to work with a lot of them. So If any of you've been to debt too, we actually had a bar and in the in our old debt house called BN's bar named after Colonel BN Our medical center was named after Gonzalez so Long long-standing legacies of these folks So I have thank you Ladies and gentlemen Colonel Brennan and Sergeant Major Worsley will pay respect to the fallen by placing ladies upon the memorial Ladies are a common symbol of love friendship celebration honor an Essence a symbol of aloha an ancient Hawaii wearing a lady represented wealth royalty and rank at this time we invite our VSO guests to come forward and place a lay if they desire at this time We will call for a moment of silence to honor the fallen I would like to thank everyone who made this ceremony a success. This concludes today's ceremony Mahalo for attending