Officials at DOD look to be close to declaring Speicher KIA (again) after 18 years

Remains Identified as Navy Captain Michael Scott Speicher

“The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) has positively identified remains recovered in Iraq as those of Captain Michael Scott Speicher.  Captain Speicher was shot down flying a combat mission in an F/A-18 Hornet over west-central Iraq on January 17th, 1991 during Operation Desert Storm.”

Initially he was initially listed as missing in action, but that status was changed in early 2001 to “killed in action, body not recovered” (KIA/BNR). “Positive identification was made by comparing Capt. Speicher’s dental records with the jawbone recovered at the site,” they said.

To add to the stress his family was feeling, apparently after Speicher was first declared KIA, his wife remarried a Navy pilot friend of Speicher’s and began a new family. Despite this, she and her new husband former Cdr. Buddy Harris never gave up hoping for a return, alive or dead.

“The most important thing to Scott, his family and the rest of the military world was that his status would remain MIA and that we’re not going to give up on our guys,” said Buddy Harris, a former Navy commander and a close friend of Speicher’s who has since married Speicher’s ex-wife.