Across the world, about 81,000 American service members are unaccounted for — buried in unidentified graves, still in their crashed planes — their final resting place unknown to their loved ones.

“For many of the families, the wounds of uncertainty still remain very raw,” said Denise To, with the U.S. Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

The agency strives to identify about 200 service members each year, To said, and the agency estimates about 38,000 are potentially recoverable.

World War II Army Technician Clifford Strickland from Fowler was among those identified in December, more than 80 years after his death, said To, who is the federal supervisory and laboratory manager for the agency.

She told Strickland’s story Monday under brilliant blue skies at Pikes Peak National Cemetery during a Memorial Day ceremony expected to draw more than 1,000 people.

Strickland was fighting in the Philippines when he was captured following the American surrender of the Bataan Peninsula in 1942, when 12,000 Americans became prisoners of war. He was among those who made the 65-mile Bataan Death March. He was buried in Common Grave 215 in a local cemetery, To said. Following the war, he was moved to the U.S. military mausoleum near Manila where some of his fellow troops were identified. Those who could not be identified, including Strickland, were buried in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.

In 2018, his remains and others from the same common grave were exhumed again and brought to a laboratory in Hawaii for identification, To said. He is expected to be buried for the final time in Florence.

World War II Army Pvt. James B. McCartney, from Ridgway, was also identified in the past year. He was killed in 1945 while his unit was on patrol near Wildenguth, France. In 1951, his remains were deemed nonrecoverable.

In 2022, he was exhumed from his grave in France for an analysis of his teeth, DNA and other clues that led to his identification. In March, he was buried for the final time in California, she said.

In recent years, the agency has had good luck identifying service members in unidentified graves, To said in an interview. But the work was slowed significantly during the pandemic that upended politics in foreign countries where investigators work.

Some of the most important relationships are with local authorities who grant access to burial sites, she said. The agency has teams working in Vietnam, Kuwait, the Philippines, Germany, France and Bosnia.

During fiscal year 2023, the agency identified 158 service members, and it’s building back to its pre-pandemic level of work. To identify more people annually would take additional resources, she said.

“We persist in our determination in achieving the most comprehensive accounting,” she told the crowd.

Skyler Holmes, Pikes Peak cemetery director, was unaware of any veterans identified through the agency buried at the new national burial ground.

The cemetery opened in 2018 after 23 years of work to bring the community the cemetery it needed, retired Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Pete Tetley told the crowd. During the event, parking in the cemetery filled up and attendees parked along the narrow two-lane Drennan Road to attend and many wore hats, shirts, jackets, patches and other proclamations of their own service.

Former American Legion State Commander Jay Bowen recounted for the crowd numerous tales of heroism of individuals and of the grand scale of D-Day, when about 156,000 troops landed in France.

He also acknowledged that many in the crowd saw the sacrifices and fought alongside those honored Monday.

“Veterans have seen heroism in its purest form,” Bowen said.

Contact the writer at mary.shinn@gazettedev.gazette.com or (719) 429-9264.