Marine dedicates his life to leaving no one behind, Part 2

Justin D. LeHew assembled a decorated 30-plus year career active in the United States Marines. He still lives by the credo, “Once a Marine, always a Marine” as well as the branch of the military’s philosophy of leaving no man behind. 

LeHew serves as the Chief Executive Officer of History Flight, a nonprofit based in Fredericksburg, Va., dedicated to researching, recovering and repatriating the remains of fallen American soldiers around the world. 

The desire to bring the remains of fighting men and women home is “uniquely American,” he said. The unmistakable black flag in honor of POW-MIA is the only one allowed to be flown below the stars and stripes. 

Unlike the American flag, which has been burned in displays of political unrest, LeHew has found that no one wants to burn the POW-MIA flag. Respect for American veterans and the families they left behind is almost universal. 

During a recent visit with Central College students, he shared the story of a visit to the post office that did not have the POW-MIA flag. He had some in his car and offered to give the clerk one, but she insisted one was on order through the proper channels. As he was preparing to leave, she came running out to collect one from him. 

LeHew had been working for multiple agencies trying to locate the remains of American servicemembers – primarily in Germany, the Philippines and other parts of the theater from World War II. His friend, Mark Noah, founded History Flight in 2003, through which the two became acquainted. Noah’s efforts had earned him the distinction of being an Honorary Marine – something around 100 non-enlisted Marines can claim. 

“This pilot from UPS that was never in the military has been spending his own money flying out to these Pacific islands and locating these lost individuals,” LeHew said was the reason meeting Noah became I priority. “When I gave him the award and I was still on active duty, we struck up a friendship, kind of like me and Harry (Smith, the professor who brought LeHew to Central).  I always believe, at the right time, people are dropped into your paths that you may not know.” 

Noah called LeHew to ask if his active-duty time with the Marines was up. When LeHew answered the call to meet with him, he entered a room full of people. 

“Then he walked me out and he goes, ‘So have you figured it out yet?’ I'm like, ‘What's that?’ He goes, ‘Well, that's a job interview if you want it,’ and I'm like, ‘What job are you talking about?’ He said, ‘Well, we all kind of got together after listening to you talk, and we want you to run this entire organization, not just be this guy down here starting out going to do. We want you to run the whole thing,’ and all I said was you're going to have to define what quote ‘the whole thing’ is, and then that was when I would fly to Germany. I fly to France, wherever operations were at, I just said I would like to fly unbiased. I don't want them to know who I am. I'm not a spy. I want to see and talk to the people in the field doing the work to understand what's the problem, what's their needs. 

“I did that for 30 days between the Pacific and Europe. I typed up a report, handed it to him, and he said, ‘So how much is that going to cost me?’ And I said, ‘Free. Here you go.’ And he goes, ‘I knew we had the right guy. The last person charged me $80,000 for that report.’ And he said at the end of the report, ‘If I ever lose interest in doing this, the whole organization's just going to fold.’ And I said, ‘Well, we're just going to find more like-minded people to make sure that that doesn't happen,’ and then people like Harry comes on, and people like it. Just it's magical how that's all panned out like that.” 

To date, History Flight has found the remains of 400 American service members who had been listed as Missing in Action. Of those, 181 have been identified through the DNA process or material evidence. 

One of the challenges for LeHew and History Flight face is skepticism from family members that the organization and the process are legitimate when asked for DNA samples to cross-reference. History Flight is working on finding missing pieces of family DNA to identify the other hundreds they have in their possession. 

“The problem normally is getting people to understand that the DNA somebody's asking your family to give is not going to be used to clone sheep or something,” LeHew told the Express. 

When families are reunited with their loved ones, it provides a sense of relief. As an active-duty Marine, he had the unfortunate job of delivering families news of casualties. There is quite a difference. 

“The reason that I enjoy this so much is when you were that guy that went to the door to told somebody the worst news they were ever going to have in your life,” He said. “Now I get to be the guy that knocks on the door and tells them some of the best news they've ever had in your life. Like we just found your grandfather, and it's none of that visceral. It's overjoyed. It's reaction. It's disbelief. It's, ‘Oh my God,’ and then to be able to follow some of these families out to a cemetery, to sit at their mother's headstone, and they say, ‘Mom, we promised we wouldn't stop looking. We found they found Jimmy,’ and she's talking to the headstone, and then you're kind of like, ‘Can I ask you why?’ She goes, 'My mother on her deathbed made us all promise to never stop looking for Jimmy, and it was our family's responsibility to do this, and then you finally found him.’ 

“So now the family is complete, and I found out. Who would not want a job in the world, outside of maybe being a healing priest or something, of showing up on somebody's doorstep to fulfill such a big hole in people's lives that they can finally put that period on the end of something and kind of move on?”

The DNA process does not take long to complete. Remains have been found in Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Cabanatuan, Palawan in the Philippines. 

“A lot of the Marines you see was on this small little island called Tarawa, out in the Gilbert Island or the Kiribati Island chain, and there was 541 that was left out there,” LeHew said. “We've probably recovered maybe just under half, and due to a lot of the international involvement with Chinese expansion and that, that a lot of times hinders you being able to get back into those regions while construction is happening to be able to I know where they're at. You just have to get the team back there to get them before somebody's going to build another parking structure because once they do, all of that dirt just gets dumped out in the ocean, and they're gone forever.” 

History Flight has been able to recover the remains for at a lower average cost than the  American government, due to bribery, gouging and other costs taxpayers have been charged. 

“Before you even enter the country, we need $100,000 from you,” LeHew said, because there are still those who want to punish America for the war.  “When you break down the 400 compared to my balance sheets over the years that come in, the 400 recoveries have been delivered to America breaks down to approximately $26,000 per recovery, compared to $9 million or 6 million of what one recovery costs the United States government to look for somebody.”  

LeHew added there's a need for a nonprofit element aside from a government element that that works in conjunction to enhance the government’s mission, but can also do it in industry specific ways according to scientific standards, and more flexibility than the government can do by having it done in a privatized industry.

History Flight is a 501 industry one can support. More information can be found at www.HistoryFlight.com.