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Ambassador Ray (fourth from the right) with Cambodian and American POW/MIA officials before his departure by helicopter from a dig site in Ratanakiri.
Top U.S. POW/MIA Official Visits Cambodia
U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh
November 03 - 06, 2007
The senior U.S. government official responsible for policy oversight of accounting for POWs and MIAs visited Cambodia November 3-6 as part of a tour through Southeast Asia. Ambassador Charles A. Ray, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Affairs, met with U.S. and host nation officials to emphasize the U.S. government’s commitment to the fullest possible accounting of American missing in action servicemen. Ambassador Ray will also visit Laos and Vietnam on this trip.
During his stay in Cambodia, Ambassador Ray met with Prime Minister Hun Sen, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Sar Kheng, and POW/MIA Committee Chairman General Pol Sareoun. The Ambassador also visited the site of an American excavation in Ratanakiri where an attempt to recover wartime remains is being conducted.
Ambassador Ray stated, "I am heartened by the fact that Cambodia is very cooperative -- the government and the people -- in helping us to get answers. On behalf of the American government and the America people, we really do appreciate the assistance provided to us by Cambodia in accounting for our missing personnel. This has been an issue here that has been humanitarian from the start and the support has never wavered."
Ambassador Ray has a longtime association with the POW/MIA mission – and the region – from his experience as the Ambassador to Cambodia from 2002-2005, his posting as the first U.S. Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City in 1998, and his service in the U.S. Army. He has visited the area once—in January 2007—since assuming his current duties in September 2006.
More than 600 U.S. specialists are at work every day around the world locating and identifying the more than 88,000 Americans still missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War. Since 1973, U.S. teams have located and identified the remains of more than 850 Americans who were once missing as a result of the Vietnam War. In Cambodia 29 U.S. service members have been accounted for, while 55 remain missing in action.
