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REMAINS OF KOREAN WAR MIA FINALLY COMING HOME --
"He was a good kid. He was my kid brother. It's
closure.
After all these years, now we know."
Alice Pausch and her husband, Virgil,
sit at their kitchen table near Hankinson, N.D., on Friday. On the
table is a picture of Alice's brother, Joseph Meyer Jr., whose
remains were found in North Korea after 57 years. (AP photo) |
For more about Korean War veterans, use the VA
Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=korean+war&op=ph
Story here...
http://www.jamestowns
un.com/articles/index.cfm?id=62548§ion=news
Story below:
-------------------------
Remains of N.D. soldier finally coming home
Dave Kolpack
The Associated Press
WAHPETON N.D. — Fifty-seven years after Pvt. Joseph Meyer Jr. disappeared
while fighting in the Korean War, the U.S. Army has told his family his
remains will be coming home.
Meyer was 17 when he left Wahpeton to enlist in the Army. He was declared
missing in action in 1950, with few clues offered to his family.
His sisters remember their red-haired, freckle-faced brother as
straight-laced and well-liked. He liked to play football, but decided to
enlist in the Army rather than stay in school.
About 10 years ago, two of his sisters submitted DNA samples to the Army.
Article continues below:
(use left/right arrows in screen to view more videos)
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“I didn’t think it would do any good,” said one
of the sisters, Alice Pausch. “At that point, I had lost hope already.”
They heard little, until Alice and her husband, Virgil, received a phone
message at their farm home southwest of Wahpeton last week saying the Army
had information for them.
They learned Meyer’s remains were found with no identification in a mass
grave in North Korea.
The Pausches were told that 87 percent of Meyer’s skeletal remains were
recovered, including his skull and some of his teeth. “A miracle,” Virgil
Pausch said.
“That’s unreal. That’s just amazing,” Alice Pausch said. “It’s a positive
match. He had no dog tags or nothing. If we hadn’t given the blood sample,
we would have never known.”
Meyer’s family was not told how he died. The Army is releasing few
details, saying paperwork has not been completed.
“It’s a pending identification,” Army spokeswoman Shari Lawrence said.
Army representatives plan to visit Meyer’s oldest sister, Emma Wolfe, next
week, Alice Pausch said.
“It’s not that often that we bring anyone home from Korea,” Lawrence said.
Meyer’s family got the news Feb. 29, a few days after another Wahpeton
native, Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble, received the Medal of Honor
from President Bush for his bravery in Korea. Keeble died in 1982.
“He was a great guy,” Virgil Pausch said of Keeble. “I would always see
him running the streets of Wahpeton.”
Meyer was the only boy in a family of four. Besides, Alice, 79, the other
sisters are Rose Moore, 77, of Doran, Minn., and Wolfe, 80, of St. Maries,
Idaho. Their father, Joseph K. Meyer, died in 1962, and their mother,
Clara, died in 1971.
Moore said she was shocked to find out her brother’s remains had been
found.
“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” she said.
Alice Pausch still has the last letter her brother wrote from combat on
Oct. 9, 1950, saying he hoped to see his young nieces and nephews when he
came home.
Pausch believes it was her mother who signed off on the enlistment form,
allowing her brother to join the Army at age 17. “I don’t know if both my
parents had to (sign the form), but I know my mother did,” she said.
In his last letter to Moore, Meyer asked if she would bake him a birthday
cake.
“He was a good kid. He was my kid brother,” she said.
The remains are scheduled to be flown home from Hawaii a few days before
Meyer’s funeral, scheduled for May 3. He will be buried with full military
honors in a 2008 Army uniform.
Alice Pausch said she is planning the ceremony with pride.
“It’s closure,” she said. “After all these years, now we know.”
-------------------------
posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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