Remains Returned

WWII/Korean/Cold War remains returned.

If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
Written in Dak To, Vietnam 1 January 1970
Missing in Action 24 March 1970
Group Identification 06/2001 - DNA Match

AMERICANS IDENTIFIED SINCE 1989
WWII, KOREA, COLD WAR

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IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 0355-08 April 30, 2008 Soldiers Missing from the Korean War are Identified The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of two U.S. servicemen, missing from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors. They are Cpl. Robert L. Mason of Parkersburg, W.Va.; and Pfc. Joseph K. Meyer Jr., of Wahpeton, N.D., both U.S. Army. Both men will be buried Saturday. Mason will be buried in Belpre, Ohio, and Meyer will be buried in Wahpeton. Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men to explain the recovery and identification process, and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army. Mason was assigned to B Company, 32nd Infantry Regiment, and Meyer was assigned to K Company, 31st Infantry Regiment. Both were attached to the 31st Regimental Combat Team (RCT), 7th Infantry Division. The team was engaged against the Chinese People's Volunteer Forces near the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea, from late November to early December, 1950. Both men died as result of intense enemy fire, and their bodies were not recovered at the time. Between 2001 and 2005, joint U.S. and Democratic People's Republic of Korea teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted excavations of several burial sites near the Chosin Reservoir. The sites correlate closely with defensive positions held by the 31st RCT at the time of the Chinese attacks. The teams recovered remains there believed to be those of U.S. servicemen. Analysis of the remains recovered from the sites led to the identification of several individuals, including Mason and Meyer. Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory and JPAC also used mitochondrial DNA and dental comparisons in both Meyer's and Mason's identification. =====================================

The Florida Times-Union April 26, 2008 Crash site links man to his father, missing in WWII By Jessie-Lynne Kerr, The Times-Union Ken Belisle never knew the father who was reported missing in action 64 years ago. -------------------------------------------------- But today the Jacksonville resident has his father's wedding ring, dog tags and identification bracelet found when the remains of 11 U.S. servicemen - including his father, 2nd Lt. Kenneth L. Cassidy of Worcester, Mass. - were recently recovered. The Department of Defense announced the recovery and identification Friday. The remains are being returned to the U.S. for burial with military honors. A group casket will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia and marked by a headstone with all 11 names. Belisle was born about six months after his father was reported missing in action during World War II in the Southwest Pacific. He had been told by his mother that the Army Air Corps believed the B-24D Liberator on which his father was the co-pilot had crashed at sea. There was little hope any remains of the crew would be recovered from the depths of the ocean. The plane had taken off from Dobodura, New Guinea, on Dec. 3, 1943, in an armed-reconnaissance mission over New Hanover Island in the Bismarck Sea. The crew reported dropping its bombs on the target, but the plane failed to return. The aircraft could not be located on subsequent searches. In 2000, three Papua New Guineans were hunting in a forest when they came upon aircraft wreckage near Iwaia village. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command began an investigation and a team traveled to the village in 2002 to interview witnesses. However, they could not relocate the site. Another team located the site 4 miles from the village in 2004. They found an aircraft data plate that correlated with the 1943 crash. Over the next three years, command teams conducted excavations of the site and recovered human remains and some crew-related objects such as ID tags and jewelry. Investigators then used DNA, forensic tools and dental records to identify the remains. Belisle said he was first notified by the POW/Missing Personnel Office in 2004 when the search team found the site. "They included a photograph where you could clearly see the tail of the plane," he said. The crew apparently got lost after the bombing run and crashed into the side of a mountain 80 miles north of the airfield, Belisle said. Heavy jungle growth protected the wreckage from the elements. After his father was declared dead, his mother remarried an Army officer, Maurice Belisle, whom Belisle considers his father. "He is an amazing man at age 95 and lives in Fort Myers," Belisle said. His mother died in 1995. The elder Belisle was a career Army officer who was awarded two Silver Stars. "I changed my name to his, but he decided he shouldn't adopt me so my mother wouldn't lose the Army benefits she received on my behalf," Belisle said. The Army called Belisle again last spring because they intended to do DNA tests on the remains. He directed them to his uncle, Robert Cassidy. In November, an Army casualty assistance officer spent five hours with Belisle giving him information, evidence and photographs so he could sign an agreement acknowledging they were his father's remains. "This was all a surprise to me because I never even knew him," Belisle said. "I've got two brothers and a sister from my stepfather and mother and we have a wonderful family relationship." He also was surprised because he thought his father had crashed at sea. "I never expected to hear anything," he said. Belisle, a 1967 graduate of the Naval Academy, applied to Annapolis as the son of a deceased veteran. After flight school, he served with VP 16 at Jacksonville Naval Air Station. He was a commercial pilot for Eastern and Northwest airlines and continued in the Navy Reserves, serving for eight months as commander of Navy Region Southeast, the first reserve rear admiral to have the command. He retired in 2004. "When I look back, I think I had the extraordinary opportunity given to me by two different men in my life. My father's death in World War II gave me the opportunity to go to the Naval Academy and my stepfather became my role model and provided me with everything I needed," he said. "I was doubly blessed with two men who did things in different ways that really guided the course of my life." jessie-lynne.kerr@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4374 This story can be found on Jacksonville.com at http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/042608/met_272236020.shtml.

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Brother at peace now that missing soldier is buried WWII wreckage found in 2000 BY KORIE WILKINS • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • April 29, 2008 Donald Morgan never thought he'd find out what happened to his brother's plane in the South Pacific 65 years ago. Was he lost at sea? Did the plane crash in a jungle? Now, he knows. The plane his brother was flying in on Dec. 4, 1943, during an armed reconnaissance mission crashed in New Guinea. None of the 11 men on board survived. U.S. Army Air Force Technical Sgt. Robert Morgan was laid to rest Thursday at Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly Township with full military honors. Donald Morgan reserved a plot for himself beside his brother. Donald Morgan received his brother's remains from the military this month. Last year, Robert Morgan's body was identified using his brother's DNA, and the story of his death revealed. Now, Donald Morgan has a wooden box containing wedding and graduation rings and dog tags to remember his brother. "It's hard to say a funeral was nice but it was," said Donald Morgan, 76, of Flushing. "It was nice to find him and give him the burial he deserved." Donald Morgan was 11 when he came home from the movies to find his parents in utter despair in their Flint home after the military informed them his brother, 20, was missing. Two years later, Robert Morgan was declared dead. Donald Morgan said his mother, Clara Morgan, never gave up hope that her son would come home. She kept the porch light on for him every night until she died in 1984 at age 89. "It was wishful thinking," said Donald Morgan, who has no other siblings. Eventually, Donald Morgan joined the U.S. Army. He served in Korea and French Indochina, where he was a prisoner of war for three months. He thought often of his brother, telling his four children with wife Patricia about the smart, easygoing young man who used to kick him out of the bed they shared if he wiggled too much. Robert Morgan worked for three months