Truck Driver Assists in Search for Missing WWII Airmen

A 25-member team from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, is in the Normandy region of France, searching for three missing airmen, whose C-47A aircraft was presumably shot down by German anti-aircraft fire on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Army Sgt. Michael Fuentes, a motor transport vehicle operator, said he volunteered to be on this recovery mission, which is his first.

“This is completely outside of my job, which is cool because it’s a new experience. Obviously, the mission itself is something unique, that we don’t usually get the opportunity to do,” he said.

“I feel honored that we get to give these families peace of mind by recovering the remains of their loved ones,” he said.

The work itself, he said, involves a lot of manual labor. Shoveling dirt into buckets and then sifting the dirt in search of remains.  

Fuentes joined the Army in April 2018. His hometown is Santa Ana, California, where his wife and two daughters are now.

Both of his parents are from Mexico, and they taught him Spanish when he was a youngster.  

They were not too thrilled when they learned he was going into the Army, because they thought it would be dangerous but now, they’re okay with it, he said.

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