Another Comes Home
Per DPAA’s “Recently Accounted For” webpage, the following formerly-missing US personnel were publicly announced as having been accounted for during the past week.
From World War II
None
From Korea
CPL Paul W. Wilkins, US Army, assigned to B Company, 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, was lost at Choch’iwon, South Korea, on 11 July 1950. His accounting was announced on 3 November 2020.
From Southeast Asia
None
Welcome back, elder brother-in-arms. Our apologies that your return took so long.
You’re home now. Rest easy.
. . .
Over 72,000 US personnel remain unaccounted for from World War II; over 7,500 US personnel remain unaccounted for from the Korean War; over 1,500 remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (SEA); 126 remain unaccounted for from the Cold War; 5 remain unaccounted for from the Gulf Wars; and 1 individual remains unaccounted for from Operation Eldorado Canyon. Comparison of DNA from recovered remains against DNA from some (but not all) blood relatives can assist in making a positive ID for unidentified remains that have already been recovered, or which may be recovered in the future.
On their web site’s Contact Us page DPAA now has FAQs. One of those FAQs describes who can and cannot submit DNA samples useful in identifying recovered remains. The chart giving the answer can be viewed here. The text associated with the chart is short and is found in one of the FAQs.
If your family lost someone in one of these conflicts and you qualify to submit a DNA sample, please arrange to submit one. By doing that you just might help identify the remains of a US service member who’s been repatriated but not yet been identified – as well as a relative of yours, however distant. Or you may help to identify remains to be recovered in the future.
Everybody deserves a proper burial. That’s especially true for those who gave their all while serving this nation.
—–
A personal note: Chochi’won is about 20 mines NNW of Taejon, South Korea. It’s on the older South Korean rail line that runs south from Seoul through Suwon, Taejon, Kimchon/Gumi, Taegu, and which terminates in Pusan.
About 35 years ago, I traveled through the town a number of times by train. But I never debarked there, so I can’t comment on the town or its surroundings from personal experience.
As I recall the trip between Taegu and Seoul then took somewhere around 5 hours (it wasn’t a high-speed train); Seoul to/from Pusan took an hour and a half or so longer. Today, a high speed rail line exists that makes the trip from Seoul to Pusan in about 2 hr 40 min.
Again: welcome home, elder brother-in-arms. Rest easy.
Category: No Longer Missing
Welcome Home CPL Paul W. Wilkins. We Salute your Service and Pay Honors to your Sacrifice.
Never Forget!
Welcome home.
A bit of additional information about Cpl Paul Walter WILKINS:
Born: February 15, 1931
Home Or Place Of Enlistment: Bellwood, Pennsylvania
https://www.koreanwar.org/html/32413/korean-war-project-pennsylvania-ra13286714-cpl-paul-walter-wilkins
Welcome home Brother. Rest in peace Sir.
Welcome home, CPL Wilkins. Rest In Peace.
Welcome home CPL Wilkins.
Rest well.
*Slow Salute*
I have to wonder if that slimy fuck Truman felt any complicity in all those untrained, untested, unqualified amateur soldiers deaths.
From WW2 to the start of the Korean war, military training was nil, military spending for equipment, tanks, planes, ships, etc, was nil, and the Army decided to treat its soldiers nicer and gentler. Better barracks and such. So while they were out of condition, undisciplined, and untrained, they were at least having a good time, up to that part where they DIED.
All that was on the American people wanting their “peace dividend”, and Truman not doing what was necessary, then getting us in a war that we had nothing to fight with. Fortunately, when the army was tossing everything away at the end of WW@, the Marines were going along behind them and scooping it all up.