A 97-year-old icon in the study and treatment of Repatriated Prisoners of War (RPW) passed Aug. 5 in his home in Pensacola, Florida.

Retired Navy Capt. Robert E. Mitchell, Medical Corps, died of natural causes.

Mitchell was best known for his namesake, the Robert E. Mitchell Center for POW Studies, located at the Navy Medicine Operational Training Center (NMOTC) at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola. The "Mitchell Center" provides follow-up evaluations of RPWs from Vietnam, Desert Storm, Somalia, Bosnia and Iraqi Freedom to study the mental and physical effects of captivity and to address how the findings apply to current military operations.

The Mitchell Center holds the world's only existing longitudinal study of the long-term effects of the POW experience, a study Dr. Mitchell began in 1973. He retired in 1990 and remained with the program emeritus until his passing.

Known as a family man, Dr. Mitchell was a respected and unassuming physician who deeply loved his family, cherished caring for RPWs, and had an undying dedication to serving others.

"He was the most humble man I ever met," said Dr. Jeffrey L. Moore, PhD, executive director of the Mitchell Center. "Above all Dr. Mitchell was a loving family man who was also unwaveringly devoted to the long-term care of the repatriate."

The Mitchell Center's beginnings date to 1971 when Dr. Mitchell and the Navy, along with the Army and Air Force, established separate programs for their RPWs in anticipation of hostilities ending in Vietnam. The three services provided for the unique medical needs of the RPWs and their families.

The Army and Air Force discontinued their original charter in 1978, and the Navy moved its operation from Point Loma, California, to NAS Pensacola where the Navy programs were consolidated. In the 1990s Air Force and Army repatriates from Vietnam were inducted into the Navy's program, making the center the only DoD-sanctioned RPW studies program.

"Dr. Mitchell's love and dedication to the men who came home from Vietnam in 1973 following years of tortuous captivity kept the Navy's program open when the Army and Air Force programs closed in 1978," Moore said. "When it was time to repatriate the 21 POWs from Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Dr. Mitchell again became an active participant and ensured that each could be followed in Pensacola, regardless of their service."

In January 1998 the center was formerly dedicated and named after Mitchell and continues to manage many of the POW-related health care needs of former POWs and their families at no cost to the patients. The Mitchell center has evaluated more than 500 of the 660 former Vietnam repatriates since its inception and now evaluates more than 300 former POWs and their spouses annually. The patients represent all branches of the military, and participation is voluntary.

Dr. Mitchell's legacy will no doubt continue through the work being done at his namesake Mitchell Center, and through other people and organizations he has influenced. One such organization is the Society of U.S. Navy Flight Surgeons, a private organization of current and retired flight surgeons dedicated to advancing the aerospace medicine practice. The society selects an emeritus Navy flight surgeon to receive the annual Robert E. Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award.

Moore said the 2016 selection, much like work at the Mitchell Center, won't be the same.

"Each year Dr. Mitchell would call me to learn the awardee's name," Moore said, "and to ask if I thought the awardee would mind if he sent a congratulatory letter. I will miss Dr. Mitchell's 'adult supervision,' and I will be forever grateful to him for what he has done for me, the repatriates, Navy Medicine and the nation."

NMOTC is an echelon 4 command and the recognized global leader in operational medicine, reporting directly to Navy Medicine Education and Training Command (NMETC). NMETC maintains oversight of Navy Medicine education and training.

For more news from Navy Medicine Education and Training Command, visit www.navy.mil/.