The battleship suffered more loss of life than any American ship during the attack, its 1,177 dead comprising nearly half the 2,403 killed at Pearl Harbor.

Of the ship’s dead, 277 of its sailors and Marines are buried in Honolulu’s National Memorial of the Pacific. The identity of 86 of those men remains unknown to this day.

The exhumations will begin with the disinterment of eight caskets from the National Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the “Punchbowl,” on Dec. 7 and will continue with about eight caskets removed each week until the total of 86 is reached, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Forensic specialists from DPAA will then seek to match DNA from the remains with DNA provided by the family members.

“DPAA is honored to be able to provide long-sought answers to families of these Unknowns,” Kelly McKeague, a retired Air Force major general and director of DPAA, said in a statement.

“Being able to disinter the 86 Unknowns associated with USS Arizona is singularly due to the determined initiative and extraordinary efforts of Operation 85,” McKeague said, referring to the group led by Kevin Kline, a Virginia real estate agent and grandnephew of Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Robert Edwin Kline who perished when the Arizona was hit by at least eight bombs dropped by Japanese warplanes.

Kline’s group began gathering DNA Family Reference Samples from the families of those listed as unknowns as part of the USS Arizona (BB39) Unknown Identification Project after the Navy and the Defense Department said the project could not be done and would cost too much to attempt.

Then last April, DPAA announced that Operation 85 had reached the 60% threshold of DNA Family Reference Samples for the Unknowns, allowing disinterments to begin.

”Reaching this milestone does not conclude the search for additional USS Arizona and associated Pearl Harbor family members who may be able to provide viable DNA Family Reference Samples,” DPAA said in the April announcement. “DPAA, Operation 85, and the service casualty offices continue to encourage any family member who may be related to a missing USS Arizona crew member to participate in this ongoing effort.”

In a phone interview with Military Times, Kevin Kline said the beginning of exhumations on Dec. 7 “doesn’t mean we’re done. We’re still looking [to] take those words unknown off those graves” remaining in the Punchbowl. “I think this is a problem we can fix.”

A total of 1,177 sailors and Marines from the Arizona were killed in the surprise Pearl Harbor attacks, and more than 900 of those killed remain entombed within the sunken hull of the ship beneath the stunning USS Arizona Memorial.

On board the submarine, the crew had assembled on the deck in dress uniforms, which were starkly different than what American sailors were wearing. A dashing figure in officer’s regalia bearing a row of medals across his chest stood at the conning tower. Suddenly, the larger vessel was bumped by a small motor launch with a reporter on board.

“Have you come here to be interned?” asked the curious newspaperman.

“No,” answered the distinguished officer. “But I’ve brought a letter for the German ambassador. Will you mail it for me?”

The submarine’s commander was Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose of the Imperial German Navy. On Oct. 7, 1916, while World War I raged across Europe, he boldly sailed his submarine, U-53, into the neutral port under the incredulous gaze of the U.S. Navy in an attempt to rattle the American public and convince the country to stay out of the conflict.

“Audacity,” says Ret. Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox, director of naval history and curator for the Navy at the Naval History and Heritage Command. “That’s the only word I can think of to describe Rose cruising into Newport. The U.S. was still neutral then, but he did not know how the Navy would react to his arrival.”

That event 110 years ago made banner headlines in newspapers across the country and around the globe. Planned months in advance, Rose was under strict orders to sail across the Atlantic Ocean and show up at the Rhode Island naval base to introduce himself to American officers as a “goodwill” gesture. In reality, his courtesy call was a propaganda move designed to shock the United States into fearing the far-reaching dangers of German submarine warfare.

“Rose was basically trying to say, ‘My U-boat can reach your shores and you should be aware if you decide to get involved in the First World War,’” said David Kohnen, Naval War College professor, in a video posted on C-Span Classroom

At the time, millions of lives were being sacrificed on the killing fields of Europe as the Central Powers of Germany, Austria and Turkey tried to deliver a knockout blow to the Entente allies: France, England and Russia. With an impartial stance, the United States looked on as both sides became mired in the mud of trench warfare.

Though officially neutral, American factories were churning out armaments — mostly for Entente armies, but also for the Central Powers. Cargo ships of all registries transported this matériel from U.S. ports to the battlefront, prompting the Imperial German Navy to begin hunting freighters carrying “contraband” on the open sea.

Early in the war, Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare — meaning its unterseeboots would attack ships without warning if they believed they were transporting munitions. That changed in 1915 with the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, a British luxury ocean liner. Some 128 American citizens were killed in the attack, prompting calls for U.S. intercession in the war.

To calm nerves across the Atlantic, Germany then intercepted ships and checked manifests for wartime supplies. If carrying such a cargo, the ship would be sunk after passengers and crew were offloaded onto lifeboats.

“Americans were concerned by the sub threat,” Cox says. “Newspapers carried stories of how freighters were being sunk, some not far off U.S. shores. There was a great deal of tension since ships were the way most people traveled distances then.”

Rose received his orders from Cmdr. Hermann Bauer, who was in charge of the German U-Boat fleet. Bauer had cleared the plan with German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II, who believed it would shock the United States into staying out of the war.

“Convinced the Americans were essentially spineless, [the Kaiser] reasoned that a German U-boat sally into a U.S. naval harbor would be so intimidating as to keep the United States out of the war,” wrote journalist Wellington Long in a 1966 article.

On the mission, U-53 was supposed to escort the Bremen, an unarmed merchant submarine designed to carry cargo under the British blockade of Germany. However, the two vessels failed to rendezvous, so U-53 crossed the Atlantic on its own (the Bremen was later presumed lost at sea, possibly sunk by a British mine or torpedo).

It took U-53 three weeks to make the trip. On Oct. 7, Rose and his crew surfaced in American territorial waters just off the coast of Rhode Island. According to neutrality laws, belligerent warships were allowed into neutral ports for 24 hours, usually for food, water, fuel, repairs or to surrender. Rose needed none of those things, but was concerned how he would be received in the American port, home of the Navy’s Atlantic destroyer fleet.

“There I was, a 31-year-old German naval officer… heading my submarine for Newport naval harbor, and no one really knew how neutral those American destroyers would be,” the U-53 commander told Long in an interview.

Uncertainty was prevalent that day. Telegrams flew between Newport and Washington, D.C., as local commanders sought guidance on how to respond to the unusual situation. Eventually, the commander of the Second Naval District arrived to find out what was going on in his homeport.

A confused Rear Admiral Austin M. Knight asked if Rose required repairs, fuel or anything else, only to be told no. Finally, the American officer stammered, “Well, then, what the devil do you want here?”

“I only wanted to visit you, Admiral,” Rose responded.

U-53 became a spectacle in Newport Harbor. Yachts and pleasure craft tied up next to the German submarine for a closer look. Citizens and reporters walked her deck and were greeted by friendly German sailors. Officers of anchored American destroyers, including USS Jacob Jones, stopped by to see the U-Boat. Even Rear Admiral Albert Gleaves, commander of the destroyer flotilla at Newport, came aboard — along with his wife and daughter. They were given a tour below decks of the submarine.

That afternoon, Rose left the U-53 by water taxi and visited Coasters Harbor Island. He strolled up the steps to the Naval War College and knocked on the door, according to Kohnen. When greeted, Rose answered, “I’m here to mail a postcard.” It was addressed to his mother back in Germany.

Eventually, Rose sensed his welcome was wearing thin, so he bid farewell to his hosts and left the harbor. He anchored off of Nantucket Lightship that evening. At first light the next day, he was underway and cruised past the U.S. 3-mile territorial limit. Then it was back to war as he began hunting for cargo ships carrying contraband.

U.S. Navy destroyers left Newport and stayed a short distance away as U-53 intercepted, inspected and sank five freighters. The American ships rescued 216 survivors from British, Canadian, Dutch, Norwegian and U.S. freighters.

Before the mission, Rose said he was informed by Cmdr. Bauer that the Kaiser planned to announce a return to unrestricted submarine warfare — something Rose believed was necessary if Germany was to win the war. That didn’t happen until 1917. The Kaiser was reticent to do so, fearing it would provoke the Americans into joining the war, which it did. A year later, the United States declared war on Germany.

Rose would go on to become one of Germany’s most successful U-boat captains, sinking 81 merchant ships with a gross weight in excess of 200,000 tons. He was also credited with sinking the USS Jacob Jones, whose officers toured his submarine in Newport Harbor. It was the only U.S. destroyer to be lost in enemy action in World War I.

Designed to strike fear into the American public, the arrival of U-53 in Newport had the reverse effect. If anything, it confirmed U.S. suspicions that Germany was dangerous and forced many isolationists to reconsider their neutral stance. It also proved to the United States just what was at stake in the Atlantic with German submarines on the prowl.

“U-53 demonstrated that the U-boat commanders were audacious and a foe that deserved to be treated with respect,” Cox says.

“I just got tired of watching my friends die” without recognition, Kerr said of what drove him two years ago to found the Utah Agent Orange Veterans Foundation, a non-profit with the mission “to honor veterans of the Vietnam War who were exposed to the deadly herbicide known as Agent Orange.”

In a phone interview with Military Times, the 78-year-old Kerr said, “We’re just a bunch of old guys trying to get this done” by Veterans Day.

Kerr served two tours in Vietnam with the 412th Munitions Maintenance Squadron, whose members have a presumption of exposure to Agent Orange based on the locations in which they served. Since leaving the service, Kerr said he has dealt with a bout of testicular cancer and heart disease, and will soon face an operation to remove three tumors on his bladder.

But what angers Kerr most is the treatment of veterans who came back from Vietnam with medals for valor and were told that their illnesses were not service-related.

“We’ve had so many survive, come back with Purple Hearts, Silver Stars, and then come back here to die of Agent Orange — that’s what really burns my butt,” Kerr said.

Kerr’s push to honor Agent Orange victims led Mayor Scott Wiggill and the city council of Sunset City, Utah — a town of 5,400 about 25 miles north of Salt Lake City — to grant permission to the Utah Agent Orange Veterans Foundation to put up a memorial in Sunset City Veterans Park.

“We were more than proud to do it,” Wiggill, whose office is non-partisan, said in a phone interview with Military Times. He added that “It’s a shame our federal government failed to recognize the Agent Orange victims for such a long time.”

The Memorial will mark one of the great tragedies to come from the Vietnam War that began with the approval in 1961 by the administration of President John F. Kennedy for the military to conduct defoliation and herbicide spraying missions.

On Jan. 18, 1962, Operation Ranch Hand was launched using twin-prop Air Force C-123 Provider aircraft. The initial spraying missions focused on transportation routes and the perimeters of U.S. bases.

Soon, the Ranch Hand aircrews began engaging in gallows humor about their missions, claiming that their new motto was “Only you can prevent a forest,” a takeoff on the Smokey the Bear public service announcements of the National Park Service.

The operation quickly expanded beyond Agent Orange to include other herbicides, code-named Agents White, Purple, Blue, Pink, and Green. In all, more than 20 million gallons of tactical herbicides and defoliants were sprayed in Vietnam between 1961 and 1971. Roughly 61% of the total came from Agent Orange, which was contaminated with the highly toxic chemical compound dioxin, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The strategy behind the use of the defoliants was intended to deprive the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars of the cover provided by the forests and jungles; make them more vulnerable to ground and air attack; and also destroy the crops that sustained them.

Army field manuals at the time stated that the agents were “relatively non-toxic to man or animals,” which led commanders to drop precautions when spraying was nearby.

In his memoirs, Army Gen. William Westmoreland, the former commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam, defended the use of Agent Orange as a tactical necessity: “The enemy used the jungle to hide, to ambush, to move troops. We had to find a way to deny him that cover.”

Following the war, veterans continued pressing for a service connection to the illnesses they developed after the conflict and for disability compensation that would come with the service connection. However, the VA maintained that “there is no positive evidence for deleterious effects on the health of individuals exposed to these herbicides which is of a permanent nature,” according to a 2024 VA report.

Yet the military discontinued use of Agent Orange and the other herbicides in 1971 and, tellingly, it gathered up the remaining stocks of Agent Orange and shipped them to Johnson Atoll, about 825 miles southwest of Honolulu, where they were incinerated in 1977.

In 1984, Vietnam veterans and their families filed in Brooklyn federal court what would become a landmark class-action lawsuit against seven chemical companies, including Dow Chemical and Monsanto, which resulted in a $180 million settlement for the veterans while allowing the chemical companies to continue denying any liability for the health problems of the veterans.

At the time, Victor John Yannacone Jr., the Long Island lawyer who first filed the class action suit for the veterans in 1979, said that the settlement should spur more action in Washington: ‘’I hope that the President of the United States directs the Veterans Administration to honor the claims of the Vietnam combat veterans and recognizes that chemical bullets are just as deadly as lead bullets — they just take longer to kill.”

Finally, on Feb. 6, 1991, President George H. W. Bush signed into law the Agent Orange Act to establish a group of “presumptive” conditions for Vietnam Veterans exposed to herbicides, meaning that veterans with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, soft tissue sarcomas and chloracne could now receive medical benefits from the VA as a result of service in Vietnam.

Since the signing of the Agent Orange Act, the VA has added to the list of “presumptives,” and there are now roughly 19 specific presumptive conditions linked to Agent Orange and other herbicides.

Now, Kerr and his fellow veterans in Sunset City, Utah, are working to recognize the decades-long fight to recognize and honor Agent Orange victims.

The inscription on one of the panels being put up by Kerr succinctly speaks to the veterans affected by Agent Orange:

“This memorial stands as a promise that their sacrifices will never be forgotten, their voices will never be silenced, and those who follow will be protected.”

Bernardino Mijares has spent most of his life searching for his father.

For many years, all the 33-year-old tricycle taxi driver knew was the name his mother had told him — which later was found to be incorrect — and that his father had served in the Philippines with the U.S. Navy. Growing up in the city of Antipolo, Mijares was often singled out because of his darker skin and curly hair. He came to understand that his father was Black, but looking different from other Filipinos exposed him to bullying at school and limited his opportunities later in life.

“Discrimination, it’s hard,” Mijares said. “I didn’t have recognition in school. I don’t have a family tree. I feel incomplete.”

Mijares is one of more than 100,000 Amerasians, a term commonly used for children born in Asian countries to U.S. service members and local women. Many grew up in the aftermath of American wars and military deployments in Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and elsewhere, often facing stigma, poverty, and exclusion. While U.S. forces over the years have been deployed worldwide, the scale of the Vietnam and Korean wars resulted in high numbers of children fathered by US servicemen in Asia. This, coupled with the perception of the U.S. as the enemy or an occupying force, contributed to heightened stigma for the children they left behind.

Now, as many of the American servicemen from those wars enter their twilight years, some Amerasian children are running out of time to find them.

Those who served in Vietnam and Korea, in particular, “are getting old,” said Chelle Reed, founder of the charity WarBabies, which works to reconnect U.S.-based Amerasians with their fathers. Her father was a Vietnam War veteran who she later learned had fathered a son during his deployment before she was born. Unfortunately, her father died before her brother was found.

Stories like these are why Mijares considers himself one of the lucky ones. After years of searching — and a decade spent talking with a man who turned out not to be his father — a DNA test finally gave him an answer.

Days before Father’s Day in June 2025, the nonprofit Father Founded confirmed that Clifford Jeudy, a 52-year-old radio DJ living in Orlando, Florida, was Mijares’ biological father.

Jeudy had no idea he had left a child behind during a three-week stint to the Filipino island of Luzon in 1992.

He was 18, fresh out of high school, and serving on his first Navy deployment aboard the USS Belleau Wood. The ship was stationed in Subic Bay as the United States prepared to end its permanent military presence in the Philippines.

Jeudy described his relationship with Mijares’ mother as a “whirlwind.” He said he was drawn to her resemblance to Holly Robinson, one of his favorite actresses at the time. But the relationship ended when the ship departed.

“We didn’t have the internet [or] cell phones,” Jeudy recalled. “We talked about her coming over, but it was such a whirlwind type of situation, and the next thing you know, I’m in my dress uniform on the ship and we’re leaving Subic Bay.”

Neither heard from the other again and so he had no idea that months after he left, she gave birth to a son.

Thirty-three years later, Jeudy was on his way home from work in Florida when his fiancée called to say she had signed for an important-looking envelope. He asked her to read it aloud. As he stared at the road ahead, hands gripping the steering wheel, he learned that he not only had a son, but three grandchildren.

Father Founded, which has successfully identified family members in 452 cases, had used DNA to identify Jeudy and contacted him on Mijares’ behalf. The nonprofit also served as an intermediary between a father and son living on different continents and speaking different languages.

Jeudy was stunned.

“I went from having one biological son and two stepsons to having a whole bloodline,” said Jeudy, who had no other grandchildren. He did not need to study the DNA results. The enclosed photograph of Mijares was enough.

“The pictures when he was young … the similarity [is] amazing,” Jeudy said.

Jeudy’s other son and extended family welcomed Mijares, albeit only over video calls so far. Jeudy says he hopes to visit the Philippines soon.

The Cost of Being Amerasian

Mijares’ reunion with his father brought answers after decades of uncertainty. But his childhood reflected a broader pattern experienced by many Amerasian children born in the aftermath of U.S. wars and military deployments.

Brian Hjort, founder of Father Founded, said Amerasian children were often stigmatized because of their American parentage and mixed-race appearance in Vietnam. In some communities, he said, they were treated as reminders of “the enemy.”

“[They] are discriminated [against], not allowed to take certain jobs or education,” Hjort said. “They grow up being outcasts.”

Mijares’ mother left him in the care of his grandmother and went on to marry and have three other children. He had to navigate life as an Amerasian without any of his peers looking like him or knowing who his father might be.

“My mother could not take care of me back then because she had her own family, and her other children were her priority,” he said. “People would always ask where my father was, wonder why I had no middle name, or notice I stood alone during family days. … But I managed to get through all of that.”

With limited financial means, he was not able to go past the elementary level in school, narrowing his employment options and earning potential. He relied on friends and his grandmother to support him until he was old enough to work.

“I was only 12 years old at the time and I could not work to provide for myself,” Mijares said of his life after finishing elementary school. “I just went wherever I could, until I was no longer able to continue schooling.”

For Julie Henning, who grew up in South Korea after the Korean War, the consequences were even more severe.

Henning said she and her mother were shunned because she was the child of a Korean woman and an American serviceman. People saw them as bringing shame and dishonor to the community.

“[I was] considered a half-breed, less than a dog,” Henning said.

Her father had returned to the United States by the end of the war in 1953. At this time, South Korea had plunged into the worst levels of poverty globally, and Henning’s mother struggled to support her family. It didn’t help that societal stigma from having been involved with an American soldier blocked her from certain employment. Henning remembers growing up without running water and foraging for dandelions, mushrooms, and snails. Her sister died of malnutrition.

Henning said her mother considered putting her up for adoption multiple times, but could not go through with it.

When Henning was 13, she received a scholarship to attend the Pearl S. Buck Opportunity Center near Seoul, run by the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, which served children who faced discrimination because of their mixed heritage. Soon after Henning arrived in the South Korean capital, her mother died.

Henning has long believed that her mother saw her departure for school as a chance for her daughter to build a different life.

“[My mother] impressed upon me to get an education and go to America, the land of your father,” Henning said through tears.

The author Pearl S. Buck later adopted Henning and brought her to the United States, where she attended college and became a math teacher and author.

Mijares’ and Henning’s experiences were not unusual. The discrimination Amerasians faced was one reason Hjort started a group to help them.

In Vietnam, some Amerasian children were derided as “dust,” a reference to those left to survive on the streets. In South Korea, biracial children were sometimes labeled “mixed bloods,” while in Thailand they were called “half children.” Research has documented Amerasians struggling with poverty, limited educational opportunities, and lasting harm to employment, income, and mental health.

“I saw the Vietnamese really treat them badly … talk down to them and abuse them,” Hjort said, speaking of the time he spent in Vietnam in the 1990s and the impetus for creating Father Founded.

His work is made harder because many veterans themselves do not know they left children behind, but finding them has become easier than it was in the 1990s. Researchers once relied on military records to determine where servicemen had been stationed and when.

Today, DNA testing, ancestry databases, and social media can narrow the search. Even so, some cases take years. Once the organization identifies a likely father, it contacts him on the child’s behalf. Some men are overjoyed. Others are hesitant.

“Sometimes people don’t want to be reminded about the past,” Hjort said. “[These were] very bad wars and people have remarried and had their own kids.”

For the children, however, the past has never been distant. Many grew up facing discrimination because of their appearance and American parentage, without knowing the identity of the father who shaped how others saw them.

The Immigration Barrier

For some Amerasians, finding an American father is tied not only to identity, but also to hope of learning more about the United States and perhaps one day visiting.

The Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1987 allowed certain Vietnamese children of U.S. service members born between 1962 and 1976, and their immediate family, to immigrate to the United States without definitive proof of paternity. Applicants could qualify based on interviews, physical appearance, testimony, and other evidence. Prior to this, a broader act, the Amerasian Act of 1982, applied to those born in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand after 1950 and before 1982, but only applied to the Amerasians themselves, not the family members.

The law ultimately allowed at least 25,000 Vietnamese Amerasians and 70,000 relatives to immigrate.

“Our country knew that our men over there did this and left so many children behind,” said Reed. “They didn’t have DNA testing back then … but the government wanted to do the right thing.”

WarBabies’ Reed said the law allowed her Amerasian brother to leave Vietnam in 1990 even though he had not yet identified their shared father. Reed has a different mother from her brother and was born after her father returned to the U.S. Years after finding one another, brother and sister now live in Georgia, about 15 minutes away from one another.

For Amerasians born elsewhere in Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines, no comparable program exists. Without documented proof of paternity in the form of a birth certificate or a recognized claim to U.S. citizenship, immigration can be difficult.

“They want to have the love of their father and to be accepted,” Hjort said. “Of course, they hope to go to America, but they realize … it’s not easy.”

For Mijares, however, the search was never about moving to the United States. He wanted to know who his father was, understand his American heritage, and fill a gap that shaped his life.

Mijares now speaks regularly with his younger brother and has connected with members of Jeudy’s extended family. Jeudy hopes to meet his son and grandchildren in person in the near future.

Jeudy said he believes children who can prove a biological relationship to an American parent should have a clearer path to recognition, and, where legally justified, United States citizenship. The State Department offers support if a person can prove their father’s U.S. citizenship and has their name on their birth certificate. The challenge is when an individual lacks that vital paperwork or doesn’t know who their father is. Even in cases where they have identified them and there is DNA available, it would need to be backed up with an affidavit from the father in place of a birth certificate, but even then citizenship is at the discretion of the embassy or consulate in question.

“If we could prove that these are our children … they should have the option to get their names changed and potentially citizenship,” Jeudy said.

Time is Running Out

As Vietnam veterans in particular enter their final years, Amerasian families are running out of time to find them.

“A lot of them have Agent Orange exposure, and they’re very ill,” said Reed. She said her organization has helped reunite 102 families.

The time factor applies to veterans from other missions too. By the time math teacher and author Julie Henning found her father’s relatives in South Carolina, he had been dead for four years. She later visited his grave, the only connection still available to her.

“This is the man I never knew, but this is the man who gave me life,” Henning said. “It was [a] really strange unreal feeling. … You cannot quite put it in words.”

She also learned that she had a brother, but he too passed away, months after she spoke to him for the first time.

Reunions are not always simple.

Families may face language barriers, cultural differences, conflicting expectations, and resentment over decades of absence.

People have ideas that their mystical father will be “sitting on a white horse,” Hjort said, then they realize he’s more likely to be “an old chap with a beer gut.”

Some fathers have also spent decades searching for children they left behind.

Jim Reischl served one tour in Vietnam when he was 21 and had a girlfriend, whom he rented a room for near his base. After a few months of dating and just before he was set to head home, she told Reischl she was pregnant. He didn’t want to stay in the country longer than necessary, and he’d been warned in orientation upon arrival in Vietnam that this was a common line used to try to secure passage to America. Skeptical, Reischl left Vietnam but wrote her letters, hoping to learn more about whether the child existed. He never heard back.

In 2005, the question mark over whether he had a child in Vietnam loomed too large, so he reached out to Hjort’s team for help locating the woman and her potential child. He found her after placing an ad in a local newspaper in 2015, and he traveled to Vietnam the following year to visit in person. Reischl’s former girlfriend said that after giving birth, she gave the baby to a local woman to put up for adoption after her family warned of the difficulties of raising a biracial baby. But with few details, he’s still unsure whether he has a child out there or who they might be.

Robert Elliot left a military base near Da Nang, Vietnam, in 1971, knowing the woman he had been seeing was eight months pregnant. He felt that staying wasn’t a realistic option at the time, but planned to maintain contact and figure out a solution. That didn’t happen.

Now, 55 years after leaving Vietnam, Elliot still does not know what became of the child.

“I’ve been searching for close to 30 years, but I haven’t received any hits on DNA,” Elliot said.

Reed said such unresolved cases are common. Her organization has 29 open searches, and many Amerasian families continue looking without knowing whether the veteran they seek is still alive.

“They don’t want to … disrupt their [fathers’] lives,” Reed said. “But they have a deep, internal knowing that they need to know who they are—just a picture or a name. Even to be able to give that to them would satisfy them.”

She urges veterans who believe they have fathered children overseas or their family members to submit DNA to ancestry databases that can then help to identify family members and ancestral ties. Even when Amerasians do not find their fathers in time, DNA testing can connect them with siblings, cousins, or other relatives.

“I don’t care if they think or deny that they had a possibility of children,” Reed said. “They should get tested now.”

For some veterans, testing can create a reunion — or help some other family resolve their case. But for others, a match may only lead to a grave, a photograph, or the name of someone who died before they could be found.

But with each passing year, even those answers become harder to reach.

This article from The War Horse was edited by Paul Szoldra, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar.

Fewer veterans died by suicide in 2024 than the previous year, and the rate — the number of deaths per member of the veteran population — also declined slightly, according to a new report from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA’s annual suicide prevention report, released last week, said that 6,488 veterans died by suicide in 2024, down from 6,662 in 2023. The rate of suicide among the nation’s veterans in 2024 also fell, from 36.6 per 100,000 in 2023 to 36.4 per 100,000 in 2024.

Despite the declines, the suicide rate among U.S. veterans remains more than twice the rate of the general U.S. population, which was 16.4 per 100,000 Americans in 2024 and 16.7 per 100,000 in 2023.

According to the report, the risk of suicide remains high for young veterans, with the highest rate — 45.5 per 100,000 among veterans ages 18 to 34. The rate was 38.5 per 100,000 for those ages 35 to 54; 32.7 per 100,000 for those ages 55 to 74; and 35.8 per 100,000 for those aged 75 and older.

But within those figures, there’s some good news for younger veterans: According to the VA, the rate decreased for those ages 18 to 34 by 4.7% and for those 35 to 54 by 2.3%.

The VA has invested millions in suicide prevention and outreach in recent years, conducting an outreach program to veterans that resulted in enrolling 250,000 veterans in VA care since January 2025 and launching a “Don’t Wait. Reach Out” public service campaign that the department says has contributed to 3.5 million veterans taking action.

The VA announced Tuesday it had awarded $111 million in grants to nonprofits, state and local governments and organizations to support suicide prevention programs. The Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program aims to connect with veterans who aren’t connected with VA services.

While the rates of suicide among veterans who receive health services from the VA remain higher than those who don’t get VA medical care, the rate for those enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration fell 4.8%, which VA officials said was significant given the complex medical needs and risk factors for suicide among veterans seeking health services.

Leaving military service has traditionally also been a significant risk factor. But suicides among those separated from active duty have declined dramatically since 2019, when the rate was 51.1 per 100,000 veterans. In 2023, the most recent year the data was available, the rate was 36.1 per 100,000.

VA officials said the Solid Start program, an effort to provide outreach to those recently separated from the military, has had an impact, with the rate of suicides among those who have been contacted at 30.5 per 100,000, and 42.7 per 100,000 among those the VA has tried to reach but did not make contact.

The department has launched several initiatives it hopes will make a bigger impact on veterans’ suicide, including tracking staff efforts to encourage veterans to enroll in VA care.

“VA healthcare saves lives, so we’re making every effort to get more Veterans into the system to get the care and benefits they’ve earned,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “That means deploying innovative new ways of reaching unenrolled Veterans, screening them for suicide risk and expanding suicide prevention training both inside and outside VA.”

More than 159,000 veterans have died by suicide since 2001. Those at highest risk include homeless veterans, those with mental health conditions and female veterans.

According to the new report, 17.7 veterans die by suicide each day, down from 19 per day in 2018, when a record 7,015 veterans took their own lives, according to the VA.

The data contained in the VA’s annual suicide report is based on national and state reports.

Floyd Johnson, who served in the Army from 1983 to 1985, was sentenced in 2013 to 40 years in prison on felony charges in Florida. While incarcerated, Johnson was diagnosed with service-connected post-traumatic stress disorder and received an 80% disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Because Johnson was in prison, however, his rating was reduced to 10% because veterans who are incarcerated for more than 60 days are restricted by law from receiving full benefits.

To fight the reduction, Johnson, who represented himself, filed a case in a Florida district court arguing that Congress violated his constitutional rights by instituting a law that placed caps on veterans’ benefits for those in prison.

The Middle District of Florida court dismissed the case in 2022. Johnson appealed to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where he received legal representation and requested to name a new defendant — the VA or the VA secretary. He also strengthened his argument against the Veterans Judicial Review Act of 1988, which created a process for veterans to appeal disability claims decisions.

Under the law, a veteran whose claim is denied or disputed goes to the Board of Veterans Appeals, and if the result is not satisfactory to the veteran, it can be appealed to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Johnson’s attorneys argued that the Veterans Judicial Review Act improperly limited the process to the BVA and CAVC, stripping a veteran of the right to file suit in a district court.

They argued that a previous case allowed veterans to pursue benefits cases elsewhere under circumstances that involve constitutionality. They also noted in their Supreme Court petition that other appellate courts have agreed that veterans may take their cases to district courts.

“A veteran’s access to the courts should not vary depending on where he lives. This case presents an ideal vehicle for resolving this conflict on an important question of federal law,” they wrote in the petition.

During oral arguments Monday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the system “odd,” but not for the reasons that Johnson’s attorney — Jeffrey Chen of the Atlanta-based firm Bondurant, Mixson and Elmore — cited.

Sotomayor pointed out that with a regulation in place saying the BVA can’t address constitutional questions, the veteran can still appeal any decision that comes out of it, but the government cannot, according to the law.

“We have to take the system as it exists, and that’s a very odd system, is it not?” Sotomayor said. “It leads to your conclusion … which is let constitutional questions go to the court because that’s where the government would have a right to defend the law.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett pointed out that if the Board of Veterans Appeals violated a veteran’s constitutional rights, they could appeal to the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals and eventually, the federal circuit where constitutional questions are decided.

“He has that route. He still has a way of pressing the constitutional claim,” Barrett said.

Chen argued that restricting claims reviews and suits to the BVA process would “empower the inferior officers of the BVA to render final decisions” and disregard laws.

“None of the government’s proposed workarounds is consistent with the Veterans Judicial Review Act,” Chen said.

Assistant to the Solicitor General Kevin Barber argued that the current system is sufficient and the previous case cited by the plaintiff preceded the VJRA and should not apply because the law changed the entire process.

“VJRA fundamentally changed the statutory scheme. … It’s the current statute that matters,” Barber said.

He added that the plaintiff’s additional argument, that the VA can’t decide constitutional challenges to statutes, “is mistaken.”

“True, the Board of Veterans Appeals in the past has been inconsistent on its authority, sometimes deciding such claims and sometimes not, but as we see it, the board can and must decide veterans’ constitutional claims,” Barber said. “Petitioner’s contrary view would conflict with the statutory text and deprive veterans of their ability to bring such claims to the agency. It would even compel the VA to enforce a hypothetical benefit statute that was blatantly unconstitutional.”

An estimated 107,400 veterans are incarcerated in state or federal prisons, according to the Department of Justice, although not all receive VA disability benefits. Johnson’s case does not challenge the law that limits the amount of VA benefits veterans receive while imprisoned. But in their petition, Johnson’s attorneys said he plans to pursue that effort after the current case is decided.

“This case illustrates the impact of a single veterans’ benefits statute. Section 5313, the statute Mr. Johnson challenges, limits the benefits of thousands of veterans. Moreover, 30 percent of all veterans experience service-connected disabilities, and veterans with PTSD are disproportionately at risk of incarceration,” the petition states.

The court is expected to rule early next year.

Andrew Tangen, attorney and superintendent of the Veterans Assistance Commission of Lake County, Illinois, alleges that Lukas Simianer and his company, VetClaims.ai, posted defamatory statements on social media accusing Tangen of having “backed fraudsters from his government email to maintain … [a] monopoly” in assisting veterans with their claims.

Simianer said he developed the VetClaims.ai system following his own challenges with the VA disability claims process.

Tangen’s lawsuit, filed Sept. 15 in federal court in the Western District of Texas, alleges that Simianer “attacked the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, The American Legion, and [National Association of County Veterans Service Officers], as a monopoly” in assisting veterans with claims.

Then, Tangen alleges, Simianer pointed veterans to the company he owns, which sells services that veterans service organizations provide at no cost. The lawsuit names Simianer and Patriot Claims, LLC, doing business as VetClaims.ai, as defendants.

In an interview with Military Times, Simianer said he has no intention of removing the comments about Tangen and the other veteran service organizations.

Instead, he would like to bring more attention to the issue.

“Truth is the ultimate defense to defamation,” Simianer said.

Tangen ‘tagged and taunted’

Tangen is also the president of NACVSO. Simianer has challenged Tangen, the VFW, DAV, American Legion, and the NACVSO to debates about the current system versus the benefits of the VetClaims system of assisting veterans with their claims. VetClaims.ai is based in Pflugerville, Texas.

The VACLC, which Tangen heads, is a public, county-funded veterans service agency within Lake County government. It’s staffed by officers accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs who provide the same pro bono claims assistance as private veterans service organizations.

For years, veterans and their advocates have complained about a handful of for-profit companies, sometimes referred to as “claims sharks,” that take advantage of veterans by charging them excessive amounts of money to help them file disability claims, when a number of veterans service organizations provide these services for free.

Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs has reduced the claims backlog to under 70,000 for the first time in six years. The average wait time is now about 78 days.

Federal law limits who can act as an agent or attorney in preparing, presenting or prosecuting a benefits claim with the VA. They must be accredited by the department to do the work.

The law also limits when veterans can be charged fees. Accredited agents and attorneys generally aren’t allowed to charge or receive fees for claims representation services provided before a veteran receives notice of the initial decision.

Tangen alleges that in the fall of 2025, a veteran came into the Veterans Assistance Commission of Lake County and told Tangen that a woman who claimed she worked for VetClaims.ai asked him for $1,250 “to file a VA claim he could file for free.” He checked and found that VetClaims.ai is not accredited by the VA.

Tangen referred the matter to the Illinois Attorney General for investigation. According to the lawsuit, Tangen said nothing about the referral in public and stepped aside after handing the matter to authorities.

“He spends his career helping veterans obtain their earned benefits at no charge,” the lawsuit states. “Reporting improper solicitations to the authorities is part of that job.”

Tangen told Military Times in late September that VetClaims.ai isn’t the only company his office has referred to the Illinois Attorney General.

The state attorney general’s Military Rights Veterans Bureau “received one complaint from a Veterans Assistance Commission superintendent claiming VetClaims.ai is exploiting veterans for disability claims while sharing personally identifiable information to an artificial intelligence platform,” said April McLaren, deputy press secretary in the Office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. “While the Attorney General’s office is actively investigating similar companies and claims, we do not share details of ongoing investigations.”

The core allegations of the lawsuit are about Simianer’s alleged defamation of Tangen.

“The accusations attack the honesty on which Mr. Tangen’s life’s work depends,” the lawsuit alleges. “He brings this suit to clear his name, recover the damages allowed by law and have the statements identified in this complaint taken down.”

Tangen told Military Times he has never charged veterans for his work. He became a county veterans-service officer to help veterans without taking a share of the benefits they are able to recover, he said.

His only compensation is the fixed public salary he receives as the VACLC superintendent, and he works regularly with the VA, the VA Office of Inspector General, state authorities and members of Congress on deceptive practices that harm veterans.

Months after Tangen filed the report, the state attorney general, Simianer, and his company “told a national audience that Mr. Tangen was corrupt,” the lawsuit alleges, referring to a June 4 post by Simianer on X.

Tangen denied the accusation and posted the government email showing he had reported VetClaims.ai to the Illinois Attorney General.

For weeks, Simianer “tagged and taunted Mr. Tangen across social media platforms,” the lawsuit alleges.

In his lawsuit, Tangen asks the court to require Simianer and VetClaims.ai to remove false and defamatory statements, and asks for an unspecified amount in damages.

Simianer told Military Times that at no point has the Illinois Attorney General’s office conducted an investigation on VetClaims.ai.

Charging for claims assistance

VetClaims.ai charges veterans $1,250 for their services. The company draws on a plethora of resources to help veterans back up their claims, Simianer said.

“When they go to VetClaims.ai, within six days they will have everything they need to file a claim,” he said. “We support them through the appeals process at no extra cost,” he said.

Simianer and the company website acknowledge that VetClaims.ai is not accredited by the VA.

“This country was not built by men who follow unjust laws,” Simianer said. “Anybody who looks at this law and has any ounce of legal research to their credit or capability would understand that vets are the only federal claimants who are forced to fail first before they can seek professional help.

“Some make the argument you should go to the VSOs. They’re free. God bless, free stuff is great. But if free stuff worked, there wouldn’t be a $1 billion market. The VA’s own accredited attorneys are taking home $33 million a month out of veterans’ own back pay. “

By law, the VA may withhold a portion of a veteran’s back pay to pay accredited representatives directly, under strict conditions, and the fees are generally limited to 20%. According to the VA website, $37.2 million in these fees were paid in August.

Simianer contends the current system costs veterans money. He cites an example of one veteran who had been rated by the VA with a 20% disability since 2013, but with three months of working with VetClaims.ai, he was granted 80%.

“Being stuck at 20% instead of 80% from 2013 to 2026 due to an incompetent [veteran service organization] cost this veteran roughly $233,000 in unpaid compensation,” Simianer claimed. “And closer to $350,000 once you count what that money would have earned had it been in their hands all along.”

According to the VetClaims.ai website, the company’s veteran experts “use advanced AI to quickly and accurately prepare claim strategies by generating compliant medical evidence, documents, and communications that meet the VA’s strict standards.”

Meanwhile, the VA has spent millions of dollars on automated systems, including a program called Automated Decision Support, which pulls together information and a variety of evidence for claims adjudicators to consider when deciding a claim. The department has also increased the size of its processing staff.

Veterans of Foreign Wars defended its record of helping veterans, noting that they have modernized their processes alongside the VA and its technology partners, among other actions.

“Over the past decade, our program has evolved to reach more veterans, now representing more than 600,000 beneficiaries who received more than $16 billion in earned benefits last year alone,” said Ryan Gallucci, executive director of the VFW Washington Office.

VA-accredited representatives are subject to “rigorous training, professional conduct requirements and legal obligations to protect veterans’ information, Gallucci added.

“Veterans deserve to know the difference between accredited professionals providing accountable representation and unaccredited profiteers exploiting regulatory loopholes under the guise of innovation,” Gallucci said. “There’s no debating that if someone fails to adhere to basic accreditation standards, their motivations are likely somewhere other than serving veterans.

“Instead of recycling outdated tropes about VA or flashing their largesse across the internet, perhaps these unaccredited actors should spend more time understanding how today’s veterans’ benefits system has evolved to better serve veterans.”

The latest BLS data, gathered through mid-September, showed only 29,000 jobs added to non-farm payrolls in September, compared with the revised August figure of 133,000 jobs added, as the overall unemployment rate ticked up from 4.1% in August to 4.2% in September. The 29,000 jobs added were well below market expectations that the economy would add 84,000 to 95,000 jobs in September.

The slower-than-expected job growth suggested that the job market, which has shown remarkable strength going back to the Biden administration despite rising gas and diesel prices, war with Iran, and tariff wars with once-firm allies, may be showing signs of weakening.

In its report for September, the BLS said that the unemployment rate for all veterans at 3.5% remained the same as the 3.5% recorded in August, while the jobless rate for the generation of veterans who joined the military after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks went up from 3.5% in August to 4.1% in September.

In response to the jobs report, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said that the BLS data showing that 9,000 manufacturing jobs and 12,300 construction jobs were added in September were “proof that President Trump’s reindustrialization agenda is working,” and Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council.

When asked on Fox Business whether the BLS report was disappointing, Rogers responded, “No, not even a little bit.”

However, Navy Federal Credit Union Chief Economist Heather Long said the report was “disappointing for a lot of Americans — it’s still a low hire, low fire economy.”

In a phone interview with Military Times, Long said that “wage growth has been totally wiped out by inflation.” She noted that average hourly earnings fell 3% on an annual basis in September, compared to the current 3.4% inflation rate.

“Nothing here looks alarming,” Long said of the BLS report, but the overall “hope for hiring picking up is gone.” However, the market for veterans with blue-collar job skills “still looks pretty good,” she added.

Despite the disappointing jobs report, “we’ve exceeded all our placement goals” for 2026, said Kevin Rasch, a retired Navy commander and now regional director in Florida for the Wounded Warrior Project’s Warriors to Work program.

In a phone interview, Rasch told Military Times that the goal for 2026 was to find job placements for 1,375 veterans, and the Wounded Warrior program had already helped to find jobs for 1,535 vets, Rasch said

He attributed part of the success of the Wounded Warrior program to “being a little bit more proactive in our outreach efforts. We’re meeting vets where they are.”

Starting in November, veterans won’t have to pay insurance premiums for three months, ending in January 2027, according to a Department of Veterans Affairs announcement.

All told, the break is expected to save veterans nearly $150 million in insurance payments, officials said.

On average, veterans pay about $110 a month for VGLI coverage. VGLI insurance premiums vary and increase every five years as veterans age. Payments range from $30 a month for the maximum $500,000 in insurance to $2,200 a month for the maximum coverage for veterans 80 and older.

All veterans with VGLI policies are eligible for the premium holiday if they have a current policy that hasn’t lapsed or been cancelled due to non-payment of premiums.

Eligible veterans don’t have to take any action. They will be automatically exempted from the three months of premium payments and will be notified by letter or email within the coming weeks if they are eligible. Many veterans pay by allotment from military retired pay, or by withdrawals from their bank account.

Those veterans who paid in advance can either receive credit on their policies for three months or ask for refunds, officials said.

Officials said the program’s financial performance has been “incredibly strong,” making the premium holiday possible.

“VA is all about making life better and more affordable for veterans, and this premium holiday will help the men and women who served this nation keep more of their hard-earned money,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins in the announcement about the initiative.

Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance coverage doesn’t automatically carry over after leaving the military. Everyone leaving the military with SGLI coverage qualifies to sign up for VGLI, with certain time limits.

However, VGLI is more expensive than SGLI, so experts advise shopping around for other life insurance options. One advantage of VGLI is that veterans who sign up within 240 days of leaving the military don’t need to prove they’re in good health.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ranking member of the Senate Veterans’Affairs Committee, and six other Democrats on the committee sent a letter Sept. 23 to Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison and CEO Mike Sicilia demanding documents and detailed explanations for the increase. The lawmakers gave Oracle until Oct. 23 to respond.

The request comes weeks after VA increased the ceiling on its Oracle EHR contract from roughly $10 billion to approximately $27 billion.

At a Sept. 2 House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing, lawmakers repeatedly pressed VA officials to explain what specifically drove the additional $17 billion.

VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence told lawmakers that VA had estimated what it would cost to complete the system’s deployment through 2031, asked Oracle for a proposal and then relied on the department’s acquisition team to negotiate the contract.

But Lawrence said he was not involved in the negotiations and could not explain the specific basis for Oracle’s proposal, how much VA negotiated from Oracle’s request or what specifically drove the additional costs.

When lawmakers asked where the $17 billion was going, Lawrence said it was not necessarily all going to Oracle.

Oracle declined to appear at the Sept. 2 hearing after initially accepting the invitation. The House committee subsequently voted 19-0 to subpoena Ellison and Sicilia to testify.

The Senate lawmakers said they support the House subpoenas and expect Oracle to comply. They also separately asked Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., to hold a full committee hearing examining the EHR modernization program’s costs, delays and patient-safety concerns.

The Senate lawmakers are now asking Oracle to provide documents and analyses supporting the increase, including a full itemization of the “unanticipated complexities” cited as the basis for the additional costs.

They also want Oracle to explain what changed since 2022, when Sicilia told the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee that Oracle was committed to delivering the VA system without exceeding the contracted cost of $10 billion and would fix issues at Oracle’s expense.

The lawmakers also want Oracle to describe its role in helping VA address the 14 outstanding Government Accountability Office recommendations related to EHR modernization that remain not fully implemented. Documentation of cybersecurity performance measures have also been requested, along with an inquiry as to what Oracle has implemented or has plans to implement for the EHR system, in light of the GAO’s finding that the program lacks adequate cyber performance measures.

The $27 billion contract ceiling is separate from VA’s broader estimate of the program’s total lifecycle cost.

Lawrence told House lawmakers that VA estimates it will cost about $37 billion to complete deployment of the system through 2031, plus roughly $11 billion for sustainment, for a total of about $48 billion. He acknowledged during questioning that the estimate was not an independent assessment.

The GAO also told lawmakers that VA had not provided an updated cost estimate or enough detailed documentation for the watchdog agency to determine whether the department’s plans followed best practices.

The GAO reported that VA had fully implemented four of its 18 EHR modernization recommendations but had not fully implemented 14, including 12 priority recommendations, as of August.