SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine (WMTW) – Hundreds of family members are expected to attend a Department of Defense multi-agency family briefing Saturday for updates on their missing loved ones.

About 81,000 service members from past war conflicts are unaccounted for. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency estimates that approximately 38,000 of these members are recoverable.

Just over 460 of the 81,000 missing service members are from Maine. Most of Maine’s missing service members, about 416 people, were in World War II. Another 45 were in Korea, and another 11 were in Vietnam.

Saturday’s event allows families to learn more about what the government is doing to recover their missing loved ones. Some briefings will discuss the process and scientific methods used to search and identify people. Families can also request updates on their service members’ cases.

“It’s important because for family members, often times they’ve gone through, they’ve gone through multi-generational trauma of not having someone to come back from a conflict,” said Dr. Kyle Bracken, the Indo-Pacific directorate of DPAA.

The DPAA will provide an overview of the recovery operations, details of the forensic work carried out and the DNA analysis used to assist in the recovery of the remains.

“For me personally, it’s being able to tell a story of an individual who didn’t get to come home and tell their own story,” Bracken said.

Ellen Smith is one of 368 family members planning to attend Saturday’s event. Her uncle, Earl Dorr, was a staff sergeant in World War II and died in a plane crash nearly 80 years ago.

“I’m here basically to represent our family, to consistently say that we’re still a family that is pursuing, hopefully, a conclusion to bring him home to the United States,” Smith said.

Smith said her uncle’s case is still active and she hopes it will wrap up this weekend.

The all-day event will be held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in South Portland starting at 9am

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