#179: Bringing Home America's Green Berets - Project Recover X Green Beret Foundation

America maintains a promise to its citizens…we will never leave you behind. The realities of war and conflict challenge that foundational truth and today, regrettably, thousands of American service members remain missing in action; their stories untold, their families still waiting for answers. For most the reality that their loved one has passed has set in; but the promise to bring them home has never faded. Project Recover https://www.projectrecover.org/ is dedicated to locating, identifying, and repatriating Americans missing in action. By combining historical research, advanced technology, and field expeditions across land and sea, they maintain America’s promise to bring closure to families and honor the legacy of those who gave everything for those they will never meet. To expand the reach of this mission, Project Recover and the Green Beret Foundation https://greenberetfoundation.org/programs/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21048654951&gbraid=0AAAAAp3PO--6HDaBfgmcKRwHdwUG3U6rB&gclid=CjwKCAjwx-zHBhBhEiwA7Kjq64GimNlHCq-6KRlupAejEe4uRi6cfGWnfh_NA_qKl9Xq_f9g3b2UqBoCiSsQAvD_BwE have formed a groundbreaking partnership committed to finding Special Forces soldiers still missing in action, reuniting them with their families and ensuring that the sacrifices of America’s Green Berets are never forgotten. Live from the 2nd Annual Stars and Stripes Classic, Fran Racioppi https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisracioppijr/ sat down with Derek Abbey, PhD https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekabbey/, President and CEO of Project Recover, and Charlie Iacono https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesiacono/, President and CEO of the Green Beret Foundation, to announce this partnership and share how it’s changing what remembrance and recovery mean for the Special Forces community. This episode is about honoring America’s promise and supporting the families of our missing Green Berets, wherever their final resting place may lie. QUOTES “There’s no expiration on that promise.”“58+ Green Berets MIA’s in Vietnam and now less than 1,600 who are still missing, that’s a pretty significant number.”“We’re still working on cases related to World War II.”“This gets to the core essence of what Green Berets do.” “The work just doesn’t end in Vietnam. I think this is just the starting point.” “We always work with a sense of urgency and acknowledge time is not our friend in any of these cases.”“Green Berets are such incredible communicators, particularly with the populations they have worked with.”“When somebody goes missing, they hold on to hope.”“The vast majority of the American public have really no understanding that people are missing.” HIGHLIGHTS 0:00 Introduction1:44 Welcome to the Stars & Stripes Classic3:26 GBF x Project Recover6:45 MIA Recovery Process9:47 Partnership Timeline14:27 Bringing Closure to Families The Jedburgh Podcast is brought to you by University of Health & Performance http://university-hp.com/, providing our Veterans world-class education and training as fitness and nutrition entrepreneurs. Follow the Jedburgh Podcast https://www.instagram.com/jedburghpodcast/ and the Green Beret Foundation https://www.instagram.com/greenberetfoundation/ on social media. Listen on your favorite podcast platform https://pod.link/1558608802, read on our website https://greenberetfoundation.org/the-jedburgh-podcast/, and watch the full video version on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@jedburghpodcast as we show why America must continue to lead from the front, no matter the challenge. The Jedburgh Podcast and the Jedburgh Media Channel are an official program of The Green Beret Foundation https://greenberetfoundation.org/.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Fran Racioppi?

  America maintains a promise to its citizens. We will never leave you behind. However, the realities of war and conflict challenge that foundational truth. And today, regrettably, thousands of American service members remain missing in action. Their stories untold, and their families still waiting for answers. For most, the reality that their loved one has passed has set in, but the promise to bring them home has never faded. Project Recover is dedicated to locating, identifying, and repatriating Americans missing in action. By combining historical research, advanced technology, and field expeditions across land and sea, they maintain America's promise to bring closure to families and honor the legacy of those who gave everything for those they will never meet. To expand the reach of this mission, Project Recover and the Green Beret Foundation have

• 0:47Fran Racioppi?

  formed a groundbreaking partnership committed to finding Special Forces soldiers still missing in action, reuniting them with their families, and ensuring that the sacrifices of America's Green Berets are never forgotten. Live from the second annual Stars and Stripes Classic, I sat down with Derek Abbey, President and CEO of Project Recover, and Charlie Iacono, President and CEO of the Green Beret Foundation, to announce this partnership and share how it's changing what remembrance and recovery mean for the Special Forces community. This episode is about honoring America's promise and supporting the families of our missing Green Berets, wherever their final resting place may lie. The Jedberg Podcast is brought to you by University of Health and Performance, providing our veterans world-class education and training as fitness and nutrition entrepreneurs. Follow the Jedberg Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on social media, listen

• 1:31Fran Racioppi?

  on your favorite podcast platform, read on our website, and watch the full video version on YouTube as we show you why America must continue to lead from the front, no matter the challenge.

• 1:44Fran Racioppi?

  Derek, Charlie, welcome to the Jedberg Podcast.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Thanks, Fran. Happy to be here. Great to be back.

• 1:48Fran Racioppi?

  Back? It's only been a couple of hours.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51Fran Racioppi?

  All right.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  I'll hang out all day, brother. You know that.

• 1:54Fran Racioppi?

  This is a good spot. Listen, we can't really complain, but second annual Stars and Stripes Classic, we're like halfway Through the first PLL game, they got one more and then it's really the main event. Nobody here really understands it yet. We do, but the main event is six o'clock tonight. ESPN and it is ESPN U. Let me be clear. All right, but we're super thankful that we're going to be on there, but that's the Green Berets versus the Navy SEALs. And it's time to go seek revenge and retribution for last year's game. And I know they've been putting the work in, but we got some things we got to talk about first. Primarily, we got a partnership that we got to talk about right here. And we got to talk about the fact that we at the Green Beret Foundation and Project Recover

• 2:36Fran Racioppi?

  are here to commemorate our Vietnam generation who were so instrumental in the formation of what is modern day special forces. We have spent a tremendous amount of time, certainly on this show, talking about the Jedbergs and the first real special operators who went on to form our regiment. But 20 so odd years later, it was the Vietnam generation that had to go forward. And we're going to have a couple of them on here in a few hours, but they really bore the brunt of a lot of that combat there and some of them haven't come home yet. So we're going to partner.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:14Fran Racioppi?

  And we're going to go find them.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  That's right. And a lot of people think that Vietnam was in the late 50s, early 60s. But when you were an 80s kid, as you know, many of your next door neighbors had gotten home maybe 10 years before that. And they just shined a really big light on the numbers of missing. And then when I got to the Green Beret Foundation and talking to people like Tilt and the historians that used SOC and you know, others and just understanding McAfee SOC and the significance of it. And a good number of them are still missing in action. That's closure that has not been able, ever been able to be brought to those families. And it's long overdue. And so we've been chatting for some time and yeah, we feel we have an opportunity. We know the community is supportive of it and we're going to go find those souls and we're going to hopefully bring their, their remains home where they belong.

• 4:01Fran Racioppi?

  When faced with a challenge, Green Berets adapt, overcome, and keep moving forward. Now's your chance to stand with them. Join the 1952 Society with a monthly gift of just $19.52 to provide critical medical devices for wounded, ill, and injured Green Berets. Your support fuels their recovery, helping them return to duty or continue serving their communities. A Green Beret's mission never stops. Neither should our support. Join the 1952 Society today and stand with those who stand for us.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Well, I'm also an 80's kid, and I like to think back of, yeah, all those people that were coming home, and to include family members of mine that were veterans of Vietnam. And, you know, that was, that shaped my life and really kinda led to me having a life of service in the military, and then ultimately this work with Project Recover. And serendipity, you know, seems to show itself all the time with this work. And we don't even call it, you know, coincidence or serendipity or anything like that. It was coined by one of the MIA family members that we were working with. We found their loved ones. And we just had these conversations about, hey, there's no coincidences and all this stuff. And she's, and she said, no, those are things you need to pay attention to because those are angel taps. And so anytime, you know, we feel one of these angel taps occurring, and whether it's the first time connected with Charlie, and then that grow into a relationship between

• 5:16Speaker 02

  the Green Beret Foundation and Project Recover, we're certainly listening to that. And we're really excited about the potential to bring more of these guys home because we made a promise to them and their families when they swore no to the Constitution and donned the cloth of our nation that we're going to do everything that we can to bring you home, and there's no expiration on that promise. And so it's been too long, but when you look at those numbers, you know, 58 plus MIA, Green Beret MIA's in Vietnam, and now less than 1,600 who are still missing, that's a pretty significant portion of the MIA's from that conflict. And it just shows how much they influenced that war and that conflict, and how much they gave, and the importance of that sacrifice. And so I'm more excited about working together to provide some answers, you know, bringing

• 6:00Speaker 02

  these men back to the soil that they belong on, and then provide some comfort, some answers, and hopefully some healing and closure for those families that've waited too long.

• 6:09Fran Racioppi?

  Can you talk about the process? Because the goal here is to take a team, go to Southeast Asia, whether it be Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. But it's been 50 years. So it's not like a just, let's just show up and we're here to try to find an American who was killed in action and never brought home. What does that process look like?

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and 50 years seems like a daunting number. And it is, but it's not something that we haven't faced in the past. So we're still working on cases related to World War II. We were contacted by some folks that had some really good information related to some losses from the frontier wars of the mid 19th century. So I like to say that this work starts in the basement of an archive somewhere. We're building out these cases, but it's not just combing through files and things like that. It's doing interviews. And luckily, we still have a lot of these folks around that can provide some really, really good information, firsthand accounts, information that, and then we'll build those cases from that. And then that creates a search area of where we're going to look. But it's a snowball process or action research where you're consistently adding new data that emerges. And especially when you get into the field or you get into the countries

• 7:17Speaker 02

  where we work, more information tends to come out of the woodwork when people realize that you're not looking for treasure. It's treasure to us, but not gold. We're looking for people. And once you, people realize, you know, hey, you're looking for somebody that's lost, there's this values overlap and people tend to show up with valuable information. So we'll continue to add to that case and hopefully narrow down the search area where some of these folks are missing and search those areas thoroughly with boots on the ground, but also applying some of the most modern technology that we have available to us today and that we continue to develop. That's going to have an impact on this. Things like environmental DNA resources where you can test soil to determine if somebody is located or buried nearby, which is a long conversation about how that science works. But then, once you find those sites, doing a full excavation

• 8:01Speaker 02

  to cover any remains that we can, identifying them appropriately. And then from there, the process picks up as if they were killed in action the day before and they'll be appropriately memorialized and celebrated when that takes place.

• 8:14Fran Racioppi?

  How does it work with the interaction with the host nation, country? Because this is not, this is not a conflict zone.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, you just don't drop in.

• 8:21Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah, US doesn't hold authority over these places. We can't, there has to be some level of coordination.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can't do any of this work without the permission of the host nation. You can't just go to another country, start putting shovels in the ground and things like that. It's looked poorly upon or, or you can't do it, but there's a consequence, right? And a lot of work has taken place in Vietnam and some of the, these are some of the hardest cases that are left. So we will get the permission of the host nation. We'll also, you know, let the Department of Defense know and the appropriate agencies on the United States side know because there is some deconfliction that we want to make sure that we're doing. We're not replicating effort, but we're putting forth new effort, make sure that it put forth the right way. But yes, this, this work cannot be accomplished without the support of the host nation. And I'll actually be in Vietnam next month, uh, working with the Vietnamese, building out some of those relationships that we know that are going to help us advance this mission.

• 9:11Fran Racioppi?

  Charlie, what are we looking at for a timeline on this? Cause I've got to brief my crew here who's going to hear it for the first time.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Well, this is, what I think makes this so incredible, before I get to the timeline piece, is this gets to the core essence of what you Green Berets do. You embed in indigenous communities, you build relationships, you force multiply your network, you work together with host nations, you gather intel, reconnaissance, understand the mission, and then you move forward out and you, you execute that mission. So we're looking at it from a foundation's perspective in that same similar fashion. I'm often asked, you know, by the board and by, by donors, you know, what is the timeline? And the answer, easy answer for me, I'm a big idea guy, I'm a dreamer, is there is no timeline. Like this is not just a transactional news media flash. This is what we're doing.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Like my goal would be like, we worked with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and we do everything we can until they're all brought home. So if that takes 10 years, great. If it takes a hundred years, fine. You know, we're going to do it. But there is some planning, some execution. It's certainly some time away from families. I mean, obviously we're going to document it via documentary with Jedward Media. So the American public can understand the importance of not only this mission, but the importance of Project Recover. Because what Derek has also talked about, there are still hundreds of men and service members that were lost in conflict in the Second World War and in other conflicts that have not returned home. And so the work just doesn't end in Vietnam. I think this is just the starting point for this foundation

• 10:46Speaker 01

  and the growth and the trajectory for this mission. And I would also say too, one of the biggest pieces that we have to look at is even if we don't find a Green Beret, but we find a service member, mission accomplished. Obviously, it's our goal to find Green Berets. We're the Green Beret Foundation. But there are plenty of men that fought beside MACVSA guys and other Green Berets in country and died fighting to defend them and to keep them safe and to try to keep the unit together and preserved. And they too are deserving of that return home. And this is certainly a marathon. It's not a sprint. And we're going to fund it the appropriate way. We're going to partner with corporate America. Private philanthropists are going to support it. We're going to bring Green Berets, former Green Berets,

• 11:31Speaker 01

  over with us to be a part of it, to help with the mission itself. Not a shocker that a lot of our guys are very comfortable in that sphere of the world. So we're going to make this a multilateral approach to solving this complex mission.

• 11:45Fran Racioppi?

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• 12:25Speaker 02

  And I'll add on to that, you know, you can't put a timeline around it because you know, the evidence dictates what you can, what you can do and what you can't do, what action you could take, but that doesn't mean there's not a sense of urgency. We always work with a sense of urgency and acknowledge time is not our friend in any of these cases as time passes, more and more erosion just through the elements and weather and things like take place, but also human development. And in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos encroaches on these sites and you don't know who might stumble across them and what they might do with that information, whether they'll report it, which would be wonderful, but they may not, or they might not realize what they're stumbling across. So it's always difficult to put a timeline on these cases, but I will definitely reiterate that there is a sense of urgency in how we approach this mission and we're going to do everything we can as soon as we can.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  You know, it's interesting too, just to add on a little bit more, when I worked at the USO with Christian, I had the privilege of touring AFMEA down at Dover Air Force Base and just an incredible group of individuals that take care of those US service members that come home and that have paid the ultimate sacrifice. And we were talking about a mission that they did with a whole number of different entities of the government that brought some lost service members back from Vietnam. And the individual told me the story that they were, they thought they had zeroed in on the area where the remains would be. And this elderly man came up to him and said, you're, you're not anywhere near where you're supposed to be. And so they talked to this gentleman and said, yeah, no, you're actually like six clicks this way. And he said, I was a kid when, when those service members were

• 13:54Speaker 01

  executed and he brought them to the site. So human intelligence is key, right? The generation that served in Vietnam is this next iterative version of the greatest generation, right? There's, they're in their early eighties, late seventies. So are the people that witnessed Vietnam and that war. So our window is closing there too. So that's why I think the natural partnership between the Green Beret Foundation and Project Cover makes so much sense because Green Berets are such incredible communicators, particularly with the populations that they have worked with. So that's why we're going to build a really cohesive team between the two organizations, put actual Green Berets on that team and get to work.

• 14:31Fran Racioppi?

  You've both had the opportunity to sit down with the family members of fallen service members and Green Berets and also those who have never come home. What does closure like this, does it give closure? And what does an operation like this do for the family?

• 14:48Speaker 02

  When a family member goes missing in action, it's different than somebody that's killed in action. You know, all of us know somebody that was lost in combat. And even if they weren't lost in combat, but somebody close to us that has died and the trauma associated with that. But when somebody goes missing, and I don't care how much of a slim chance it is, it could be 0%, .0, they hold on to hope that that service member somehow survived. And then something happens within these families when somebody passes away and we know that they passed away. We don't talk about it, but role changing occurs and things like that. And so you get, just people take up new roles and the grieving process moves forward. But when somebody goes missing and they hold on to that hope, role changing doesn't occur because they're probably going to come home at some point and the grieving process is

• 15:33Speaker 02

  interrupted. And so we have seen over and over how this is passed to the next generation, to the next generation. And people even ask us today in some of the like the World War II losses, well, hey, is there anybody even around that knew this person? And there might not be, but it's still incredibly important for that family because this person is a myth and that grief has been passed to the next generation. And so we've had the honor of witnessing and working with these families when somebody is brought home and you can see the grieving process pick up where it left off, even for those that didn't have a chance to know that individual. It's incredibly important. And then when they do come home, whether it's Arlington National Cemetery, where it was last week for a memorial, or Small Town USA, it's this incredibly unifying effect on the families, but also the communities come out and really hold them in those moments.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  I had a colleague that coined it that said, you know, we know the freedoms that we live with every single day by the sacrifice made by all the service members that went before us. But when an MIA comes home, there's a second wave of impact that occurs through this unification and this healing impact that has on families and communities. And during these kind of divisive times, it's absolutely incredible to witness. And so, and you see the value, I mean, it's almost tangible. You can almost put your fingers on it, how thick it is. And you know, for us at Project Recover and the honor of working with Green Beret Foundation to provide this for more families, you know, our team, we've had the opportunity to witness, witness it. And you know, for those of us that served post-service, you know, you get to see the impact that you continue to create in the, in the world and the impact that this creates for these families. It's absolutely special and incredible.

• 17:04Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. One of the things that always resonates with me in a number of conversations that we've had when we look at national security, we look at the military culture on a larger scale is that there's some promises that America has made and soldiers make, you know, and some of them live in various creeds. I'll never leave a fallen comrade. But also, America has a promise to its people to bring them home. And we've had the opportunity to partner with Hostage US and do a numerous episodes with former American hostages, whether that be of terrorist organizations, or whether they were political prisoners of nation states. Of Green Beret, led that organization, not only involved in Hostage US, but served as the special presidential

• 17:49Fran Racioppi?

  envoy for hostage affairs. And Roger Karsten, longtime friend of mine, and served distinctly in the regiment and was charged with bringing them home alive as often as possible. But that promise exists, that we're going to come back and we're going to bring you home. Just like that promise exists, that we're going to pursue our adversaries until we find them and eliminate them from the battlefield. And so, project like this becomes critically important to me, our entire organization. We're going to have a chance to sit down with two of our former MACV SOG operators, and we're going to talk to them about this project and the importance of it, get their opinion. But I appreciate very much what you're doing.

• 18:30Fran Racioppi?

  Look forward to the partnership with your team at Project Recover. And Charlie will lead us in the Green Beret Foundation side in bringing this to fruition. We're going to be there from the Jedburgh Media Channel side. And really looking forward to getting out there. And as Charlie said, regardless of what the outcome is, you know, our goal is to bring somebody home and have that closure for their families. And look forward to that.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  You know, I'll end with the fact that the vast majority of the American public have really no understanding that people are missing. But in addition to that, the vast majority of American public, and this is a failure of the municipalities, the local government, some of the state governments, schools, the only flag that's allowed from a flag protocol perspective to be And directly underneath the United States of America flag is the POW MIA flag. It's why in our front lawn with our flag post, there's that flag. Not enough people realize that as a kid, I I immediately knew what that flag meant. We need to start to change that narrative. Kids need to understand that sacrifices have been made, not let alone dying for your country and paying the ultimate sacrifice for people that you've never met. But some paid that ultimate sacrifice.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  And then in addition to that, paid another sacrifice that they're still there. And so, you know, I would challenge the American public as they see this to learn more about the Green Beret Foundation, learn more about the Project Cover, learn more about the partnership that we're going to launch and support it because it doesn't happen without the support of the American people, much like anything else that we do. It takes a team to accomplish the mission and we want the American people to be behind this mission just as much as we want the Green Beret Foundation or Project Cover. So we're thrilled. I got a present for you, Derek, here. It's a Mac V Sog Stars and Stripes Coin Classic. Appreciate that. Keep that as you head over to Vietnam, you can give that to one of the people and you say that that's the first exchange of commitment to it from our foundation to their people

• 20:25Speaker 01

  to because I'm sure that they want to help us make this this vision a reality.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  Hundred percent. And and I'll add, you know, about the excitement of working together. You know, I was a Marine. We have a lot of ceremonies, a Marine, and of course, always POW MIA table. When I was 19 years old, you know, we'd be standing at attention and going through that process. I would say a silent prayer to myself, but really never fathomed the impact that I could create on this community. And it was and even coming into this work initially, it just seemed like a mountain to climb. And it is, it's a significant mission, but we can accomplish it. It just takes perseverance and I have no doubt that we're going to work extremely hard on this and we're going to have some positive results. So I'm super excited to be working together and the impact that we're going to create. And thank you for highlighting this.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  You'll appreciate this. When we agreed to come to Philadelphia, the PLLs that are there, any requests? And I said, the only way that we'll go and play our game there is if they dedicate one chair to a POW and MIA. So there's, there is a chair that will be recognized ahead of the game and will continue to be recognized at this stadium. And that's a commitment that we're going to have. We're going to change the narrative and it takes one person, one person at a time to make a difference and we wholeheartedly believe in that. And the media channel is going to be a big part of this. So thank you, friend, for having us on today.

• 21:37Fran Racioppi?

  All right. Awesome. Thank you.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 21:42Fran Racioppi?

  American Jedbergs went on to form the foundation of the United States Special Forces and the Special Activities Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Thanks for listening to the Jedburgh Podcast, an official program of the Green Beret Foundation. I'm your creator and host, Fran Richoak. Join us next week for a new episode on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check us out on YouTube for full episodes, highlights, and other long and short form content. If you like what you heard, give us a like and leave a review. Follow the Jedburgh Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X or Threads. Send your comments and inquiries to [email protected]. As former members of Special Operations Forces, the Jedburgh Media Channel and the Green Beret Foundation remain committed to supporting all generations of US Army Special Forces and their families. Thanks for joining us on this episode.

• 22:27Fran Racioppi?

  How you prepare today determines success tomorrow.