DIA Memorial Wall facts for kids
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The Defense Intelligence Agency Memorial Wall, commonly known as the Patriots Memorial, is a memorial at DIA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., dedicated to those agency employees who lost their lives in the line of their intelligence work and whose deaths are not classified.
History and description
The wall was first dedicated on 14 December 1988 by Director Leonard Perroots at the DIA Headquarters, honoring those DIA personnel "who died in the service of the United States". It "commemorates the profound individual sacrifices made on behalf of the United States by DIA members and acts as a reminder of the selflessness, dedication, and courage required to confront national challenges..."
Criteria for inclusion
The DIA does not provide detailed criteria on who is eligible for inclusion on the memorial. The wall is presumably not exhaustive due to omission of DIA personnel with links to classified missions, such as DIA officer Charles Dennis McKee, who died as a result of the Lockerbie bombing. McKee is notably absent on the DIA wall, whereas his CIA partner Matthew Gannon is honored on the CIA Memorial Wall. The majority of the disclosed DIA fatalities are either a result of terrorist attacks or accidents and acts of violence directed against overt employees. While CIA has a practice of marking the deaths of its private contractors on its memorial wall, the number of DIA contractor losses, if any, is unknown.
