John Saini comes home

One of our ninjas sends the story of Private First Class John Saini, another Marine who fell on Tarawa in the Pacific in November, 1943. Hondo told us last month that his remains had been identified, he made it home Friday according to the San Francisco Gate.

“It’s a relief to have my uncle finally home,” said his nephew, also named John Saini, after being presented with the remains at a brief ceremony at San Francisco International Airport attended by 17 members of the Saini family of Healdsburg. “This is a day my grandparents wanted but never lived to see.”

The private was a 20-year-old soldier and a recent graduate of Healdsburg High School when U.S. forces stormed the Tarawa Atoll, about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii, in November 1943. He was one of more than 1,000 U.S. troops killed as the Americans drove the Japanese from the islands. After the battle was over, however, the military couldn’t find his grave.

There the matter stood until last year, when a team of volunteer searchers from History Flight, a Florida charity that attempts to find the unmarked graves of American warriors, heard a bark from an aging Labrador retriever named Buster, a cadaver dog, during their search of the Tarawa battle zone.

[…]

Mark Noah is founder of History Flight, which has identified the remains of 100 servicemen in Europe and Asia over the past 13 years. He said the group strives to “give the identity and the dignity back” to the families.

“Every time you do it, it’s like putting a little piece of America back in America,” Noah said.

From the San Francisco Examiner;

On Friday, his uncle’s body was flown into San Francisco and led north to Healdsburg by a procession of California Highway Patrol officers from Sonoma County on motorcycles. At one point along the highway, Saini recalled, an elderly man stood on an overpass, saluting the fallen soldier.

“I can’t believe how incredible humanity can be when something like this happened,” Saini said. “It’s been a wonderful experience for our family and our little hometown has come together like you can’t believe.”

His body was taken to Eggen and Lance Chapel in Santa Rosa for the night. Saini will be buried during a 10:30 a.m. ceremony Saturday at Oak Mound Cemetery in Healdsburg.

Category: We Remember