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Home and Away: Remembering the fallen
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Korean War MIA Comes Home
March 27, 2012
U.S. SOLDIER MISSING FROM KOREAN WAR IDENTIFIED
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Army Sgt. William E. Brashear, 24, of Owensboro, Ky., will be buried March 31, in his hometown. In November 1950, Brashear of Company B, 70th Tank Battalion, along with almost 600 other 8th Cavalry Regiment soldiers, was killed during a battle south of Unsan, North Korea. Their bodies were not able to be recovered at the time and were likely buried on the battlefield by Chinese or North Korean forces.
In 2000, a joint U.S./Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) team led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated a mass grave that had been discovered in Unsan. Human remains, of at least five individuals, and U.S. military uniforms were recovered but they were unable to be identified given the technology of the time. In 2007, because of advances in DNA technology, scientists from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) reanalyzed the remains.
Among forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the JPAC and AFDIL used dental records and mitochondrial DNA – which matched that of Brashear’s sister and cousin – in the identification of his remains.
Today, more than 7,900 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Korean War. Identifications continue to be made from the remains that were returned to the United States, using forensic and DNA technology.
U.S. SOLDIER MISSING FROM KOREAN WAR IDENTIFIED
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Army Sgt. William E. Brashear, 24, of Owensboro, Ky., will be buried March 31, in his hometown. In November 1950, Brashear of Company B, 70th Tank Battalion, along with almost 600 other 8th Cavalry Regiment soldiers, was killed during a battle south of Unsan, North Korea. Their bodies were not able to be recovered at the time and were likely buried on the battlefield by Chinese or North Korean forces.
In 2000, a joint U.S./Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) team led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated a mass grave that had been discovered in Unsan. Human remains, of at least five individuals, and U.S. military uniforms were recovered but they were unable to be identified given the technology of the time. In 2007, because of advances in DNA technology, scientists from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) reanalyzed the remains.
Among forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the JPAC and AFDIL used dental records and mitochondrial DNA – which matched that of Brashear’s sister and cousin – in the identification of his remains.
Today, more than 7,900 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Korean War. Identifications continue to be made from the remains that were returned to the United States, using forensic and DNA technology.
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