How long would the US government look for a man who was MIA?

Question

I'm thinking more along the lines of a marine going missing in Vietnam...

Answer 1

It depends on how badly they want to find him.  If he's done something like, oh, say, murder a pregnant servicemember, they might keep an eye out for him for a long time.  If he's just missing, (hasn't committed a crime) the search might go on for weeks or months, depending on how much evidence there is leading them to believe he's either dead or alive, or leading to him at all.  Most that aren't found in the first few weeks are found because their remains are inadvertently discovered or because they find their way back to safety and turn themselves in.  Without evidence to help them find him, though, the search would die about as quickly as any other missing persons case.  It stays "open" but without clues, there is just too much to do to be randomly searching for someone who may or may not want to be found.

The U.S. government has (officially) concluded that all living prisoners have returned from vietnam.  Whether that is true or not is known only by their captors and the captives themselves.  If evidence was found that someone was still alive, or leading investigators to their remains, the government would make every attempt to retrieve them.  Aside from that, unfortunately, those of us who loved and lost and are missing them are left to wonder.