David Metherell

Retired U.S. Air Force

Why I am a Marauder

David Metherell & his son

Background: David Metherell

Current Residence: Philippines.

David Metherell is a native of Bellevue, Washington.

I live in the Philippines now, am retired US Air Force. Spent 22 years in the service where I was fortunate to be sent all over the world. 1st duty station was 1985 here in the Philippines, left in 1988. Did 4 long years at Mt. Home AFB, Idaho. Then was stationed in Tokyo for 4 year, followed by a year in South Korea. Then to McChord AFB, Tacoma Washington. Off to Okinawa, Japan after that, then Hawaii. In Hawaii I was assigned at a Team Sergeant to the World Wide Investigations Team as a member of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC). JPAC is the military unit that goes throughout the world looking for the MIA's from just about every war we've ever fought in.

The World Wide team basically was assigned to look for WWII MIAs, although I've done WWI in Germany, helped process the remains of a Sgt Lupo who was killed in France. His remains were stored in some Tupperware containers in the US Military mortuary at Landstuhl, Germany. It was interesting because it was the 1st time a forensic anthropologist taught me how to handle and bag remains.

Also helped in recovery missions, doing the digging and screening for bones. Went to Cambodia for one, Hungary, Germany, and North Korea. North Korea is probably one of the worst countries on earth. You cannot talk to anybody except through your official army translator. We were up in the northwestern part of the country, very desolate. I saw a group of guys pulling a plow because they didn't have an oxen to do it.

I enjoyed Burma. We worked with the Burmese military. My boss, Maj Funck, went to Burma two weeks prior to the mission to make arrangements. They had an overthrow of the government while he was there, he came back and said we ain't going. But the Burmese government went to the US government and asked us to come, so we were sent anyway. They had a platoon of plain cloths soldiers around our hotel to make sure nothing happened to us. They let us go jogging in the morning, but we had to give them our route ahead of time so they could be stationed along the way. So we'd take off on our run and head the other way, ha ha, you should have seen them scrambling on their scooters to reposition themselves.

How I heard about the Marauders: I met a couple of guys here, Spike Nasmyth and Kevin Hamdorf (Spike was an American POW during the Vietnam War). They have a common friend who is a Marauder, Ryan Bach, and they suggested I apply.

About Moore's Marauders...

Moore's Marauders is a non-profit organization that receives no government funding. We rely solely on your contributions to help us locate the 35,000 WWII MIAs the U.S. government maintains are still recoverable.

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