This article was based on a story in Stars and Stripes on Monday, written by Jennifer H. Svan.

In 2014 then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered a reorganization of the Department of Defense agencies tasked with finding and recovering the remains of the missing from previous wars.

Complaints of mismanagement and misconduct in the searches done by previous agencies such as JPAC led to the changes. The new agency combines all previous activities under the new U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA. While much of the previous search efforts have focused on Asia, the DPAA is accepting assistance from European private organizations and foreign governments in an effort to locate the remains of up to 25,000 missing U.S. troops across the World War II European and Mediterranean theaters.

The article details a search near the German town of Sinz and in the nearby Bannholz Woods. Two Americans had been reported missing after battles in the woods, and a search was mounted with 30 volunteers armed with metal detectors, maps, and shovels. Among the buried items discovered were two rusted German helmets, hand grenades, and many bullets.

Al Zelnis and Edward Ikebe, soldiers with the 94th Division, were reported missing in the woods after a battle Feb 10, 1945. Zelnis was killed when a German shell hit a tree and a large limb fell on his foxhole. The retreating U.S. troops could not remove the limb and Zelnis' remains might very well be buried under that limb. Ikebe was reported missing during the fight and the retreat. Despite their best efforts the remains of both men were never found, but the search continues.

There have been some successful searches including one which uncovered the remains of Lawrence Burkett, a 28-year-old private in the U.S. Army who was killed Dec. 11, 1944, in fighting in the woods near Dillingen. His dog tags were found along with his bones and it was all turned over to the U.S. Army. Burkett's remains were eventually returned to the U.S. and turned over to his three children for burial.

"It doesn't matter if it's German, American, British, Russian," Katherine Staub a Swiss volunteer searcher said. "I'm happy for whoever we find and hope that at least we give them a decent burial and hopefully we can give them back their name.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.