Leon Cooper, a WWII, Navy landing craft officer, landed assault troops on six Japanese island strongholds. To this day, Mr. Cooper feels a debt to the thousands of US soldiers who died during battles in Europe and in the Pacific (80,000) who lie where they fell, in unmarked graves, and are listed as “missing-in-action.” (MIA) He recognizes that there are thousands of families who are still affected by the lack of closure that results when a loved one is declared MIA.
Coopers initial battle became the subject of his first documentary, “Return to Tarawa, The Leon Cooper Story”. Coopers’ focus is on spurring increased efforts to recover and identify, the remains of men who died in the battle, and whose remains were never recovered denying closure to the thousands of families who mourn for them. Now, at 94 years old, Mr. Coopers risks his health and safety to go to the Philippines, where 70 years earlier he participated in their liberation in 1942.
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