Revealed: How Pentagon FAKED repatriation of fallen soldiers for years with phony ceremonies, decommissioned planes and bodies that had spent months in labs

The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command has handled the identification and repatriation of soldiers from old battle fields for seven years

Remains were taken off planes in coffins draped with flags while Taps played and then attendees sang the Star-Spangled Banner, suggesting the fallen soldiers had just been returned

The Pentagon now admits that the ceremonies were held on defunct planes after remains had been in a lab for months

The ceremonies in a Hawaii base honored POWs and MIAs from Korea, Vietnam, and World War II



For seven years, the Department of Defense has faked repatriations where military personnel carry honored dead soldiers off of planes as part of their ceremonial return to the U.S.



While the Pentagon insists the coffins indeed contain the remains of MIA soldiers returned to America from foreign wars, it now admits that the Hawaii arrival ceremonies often attended by a tearful audience aren’t actually arrivals at all.



In fact, the coffins are toted out of planes that can no longer even fly, but must be towed onto the runway for the phony ceremonies and the remains have sometimes been back in the country for months.

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Revealed: Repatriation ceremonies at a Hawaii base have been faked for seven years. The Pentagon admits that most remains in the 'arrival ceremonies' had been back in the U.S. for a long time

The ceremonies are handled by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, an agency charged with recovering some 83,000 missing service men and women from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.



Until now, agency has allowed the public to believe that flag-draped boxes pulled from C-17 military planes contained the rediscovered dead from those countries.



But the Pentagon acknowledged to NBC News Wednesday that, in fact, the remains had only just been removed from a lab at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu.



Now, the events will be known as ‘honor ceremonies.’

‘The name changed because they've already arrived, technically,’ Army Staff Sergeant Andrew Smith told NBC .

Sham: Ceremonies like the one pictured ahve been revealed as having taken place as long as months after remains were recovered from Korea, Vietnam, and World War II battlefields

JPAC identifies around 80 soldiers per year. After their ceremonies — during which buglers play Taps and audience members sing the Star Spangled Banner following a chaplain’s prayer — the remains are returned to the lab.



A military official thanks attendees for ‘welcoming them home’ before they ‘begin the identification process.’

On average, it takes about 11 years and a $1million to identify each of them.



Helping further dupe attendees is the use of an airplane that many believed had actually just flown the remains home.



A plane is towed to where the ceremony will take place prior to doors opening to the public. It is often a plane that can no longer even fly.

Duped? While attendees watched believing the remains had just arrived, they were carted off planes that don't even fly and back to the same labs they were carted out of prior to the ceremony

‘Many times, static aircraft are used for the ceremonies, as operational requirements dictate flight schedules and aircraft availability,’ Department of Defense spokesperson, Navy Commander Amy Derrick-Frost told NBC.



Though they defended the practice, military officials took the blame for any misconceptions that have come of the so-called arrival ceremonies.



‘Based on how media announcements and ceremony remarks are currently written, it is understandable how these “arrival” ceremonies might be misinterpreted, leading one to believe the ceremonies are “dignified transfer ceremonies,” which they are not,’ Derrick-Frost.



One ceremony bagpiper told NBC that even he believed the remains were just delivered from abroad.