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700th missing Korean War hero identified

700th missing Korean War hero identified

Korean War veterans in Palm Beach County react as the Department of Defense counts the 700th missing U.S. soldier from the Korean War.

The veterans I spoke with are from the Richard Cronan Chapter of the Korean War Veterans Association, based in Delray Beach.

“Does it give you hope that they are still trying to identify themselves? Does this mean anything to you?” I asked the group of five veterans.

The entire group responded with a loud “Yes, of course.”

Getting to this point took years of ongoing work by historians, anthropologists and volunteers from the Department of Defense’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Mike Trim Korean War Veterans.jpg
Mike Trim Korean War Veterans.jpg

For this reason, US relations with North Korea have not been active since 2018.

The Korean War lasted from 1950 to 1953 and is still referred to as “the forgotten war” by those who served during that time.

There are currently 7,400 US soldiers missing from the Korean War.

These Americans may have died or been captured in Korea and never heard from again.

“We lost some of them. Where did they go, what did they do, were they prisoners or not? We didn’t know,” said Korean War veteran Phil Brazerman.

I spoke with Kristen Grow, the head of the Department of Defense’s Korean War POW and MIA Accountant Identification Project.

Korea Veteran .jpg
Korea Veteran .jpg

She said her staff has hundreds of potential remains to sift through, but advances in technology promise to find more answers for military families.

“Although a case may get stuck at a certain point, we keep coming back with new advances and technologies to try to make these identifications,” Grow said. “And we will never stop until we identify everyone we are involved in the lab.”

The remains that her teammates examine and make positive matches with come primarily from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii and also from boxes of remains handed over by North Korea.

“We have been processing these continuously since the early 1990s,” Grow said.

Another Defense Department lab is comparing DNA taken from the remains with DNA volunteered by families of missing soldiers.

WPTV's Mike Trim speaks with Korean War veterans about identifying the 700th.
WPTV’s Mike Trim speaks with Korean War veterans about the agency’s identification of the 700th missing Korean War hero.

All of this work combined led to the milestone of the 700th identification of an Army corporal from Dallas, Texas.

“I’m so glad that at least her family has closure,” Korean War veteran Herb Dareff told me. “When I think back, I have tears in my eyes.”

“It means more than anything to see our soldiers, our heroes, go home and be able to give answers to the families who have waited so long,” Grow said.

The veterans I spoke with hope there will be more identifications soon.

“We fought for our country, but we all fought for each other,” said Korean War veteran Salvatore D’Angelo.

“We were proud and it was an honor to serve our country,” said Korean War veteran George Pearlman. “So we stick together.”

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