Miscellaneous costs of empire

[Carl Remick]

Tonight the PBS NOVA series aired a show, "Last Flight of Bomber 31," about 
attempts to retrieve remains from a US Navy bomber that crash landed on the 
Kamchatka Peninsula in 1944.  The web site for this program includes this 
remarkable factoid:  "The United States wants its dead back so fiercely that 
it spends more than $100 million a year trying to find and retrieve them as 
well as identify them and give them a proper burial with full military 
honors. Nearly 600 military and civilian personnel work full-time on the 
POW/MIA effort. Their task is staggering, as the combined total of U.S. 
service personnel from World War II to the present listed either as 'missing 
in action' or 'killed in action, body not recovered' exceeds 88,000."

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bomber/mias.html>

Carl

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