Where They Lay

Where They Lay is both an account of an elite military team's high-tech, high-risk search for a Vietnam War pilot's remains, and a moving retelling of his intense final hours. In far-flung rain forests and its futuristic lab near Pearl Harbor, the Central Identification Laboratory (CILHI) strives to recover and identify the bodies of fighting men who never came home from America's wars. Its mission combines old-fashioned bushwhacking and detective work with the latest in forensic technology. Earl Swift accompanies a CILHI team into the Laotian jungle on a search for the remains of Maj. Jack Barker and his three-man crew, whose chopper went down in a fireball more than thirty years ago. He interweaves the story of the recovery team's work with a tense account of Barker's fatal attempt to rescue trapped soldiers during the largest helicopter assault in history. The first reporter ever allowed to follow a recovery mission-as these archaeological digs are called-in its entirety, Swift got his hands dirty, combing the jungle floor for clues amid vipers, monsoons, and unexploded bombs.