COMING HOME
55 Americans finally back from North Korea
Sixty-five years after hostilities ended in the Korean War, the caskets bearing the purported remains of 55 American GIs arrive at Pearl Harbor yesterday.
THEY are “forgotten” no more.
After 65 years, the remains of Americans killed or declared missing during the 1950-53 Korean War are back on US soil.
Vice President Mike Pence joined families and friends in welcoming the fallen heroes on Wednesday at a ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu.
Video posted online by the White House shows US Marines carrying 55 American-flag-draped caskets into a hangar.
Pence noted that the identities of the soldiers won’t be known for a long time, but that won’t stop the nation from honoring them.
“Today, they are known but to God,” Pence said, “but soon, we will know their names and we will tell their stories of courage.”
And in a nod to the families who thought this day might never come, he added, “They were soldiers, yes, but they were also husbands, fathers, brothers and neighbors — long gone but never lost to the memory of their loved ones. For generations, their families had only a black-and-white photograph to cling to, a faded letter or the precious memory of an embrace on the day they left.”
In closing, Pence said President Trump’s recent relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had paved the way for the soldiers’ return.
“Brothers and sisters in arms . . . we hope that in this ceremony, in this promise kept, you see once more the deep gratitude that every American feels for your service, and that you lead with the absolute assurance that the Korean War is forgotten no more,” Pence said.
“We don’t know who will come off these planes today, but we do know they are heroes all.”
A few hours after the ceremony, Trump put out a tweet hailing Kim.
“Thank you to Chairman Kim Jong Un for keeping your word & starting the process of sending home the remains of our great and beloved missing fallen!” Trump wrote.
“I am not at all surprised that you took this kind action. Also, thank you for your nice letter - l look forward to seeing you soon!”
The vice president had flown to
Hawaii on Wednesday with two family members of Korean War MIAs: Diana Brown Sanfilippo, 69, and Rick Downes, 68.
Sanfilippo was 4 when she last saw her father, 1st Lt. Frank Salazar, whose P-51 was shot down on a reconnaissance mission over North Korea on Dec. 31, 1952.
“All this stuff goes through my mind even as a child,” she told Nevada’s KOLO-TV. “Was my dad tortured? Was he still alive? Did he live through the plane crash? All I have is questions, and no one wants to answer or even talk about him.”
She hopes her dad’s remains will be among those identified, saying, “To have him home would be closure for me — but I know that may never happen.”
Downes was 3 when his father, Lt. Harold Downes, was shot down over North Korea in 1952.
“I call it the wound that never heals,” Downes — president of the Coalition of Families of Korean and Cold War POWs — told CBS News. “After a while. you get used to having it and it finds a place within you, and you go on, you live life.” T HE repatriation of the remains is the first tangible sign of progress after June’s Trump-Kim summit in Singapore, where Kim agreed to denuclearize his nation.
In the deal with Trump, Kim vowed to return the remains of American soldiers who never made it out.
The war between North and South Korea effectively ceased with an armistice that ended hostilities between North Korea/China and South Korea/USled forces.
More than 7,700 US troops remain unaccounted for from the war, including some 5,300 whose remains are still believed to be in North Korea.
The 65th anniversary of the armistice occurred last Friday — the same day small boxes of remains were picked up in Wonsan, North Korea, and flown to the Osan Air Base in South Korea.
The boxes were initially draped in blue-and-white United Nations flags — under which the United States and 16 other allied countries fought in the war.
The remains were then trans- ferred to full-size caskets that were eventually draped with the Stars and Stripes
On Wednesday, ahead of the remains’ arrival in Hawaii, hundreds of US and South Korean troops held a solemn repatriation ceremony at Osan that lasted two hours and included a rifle salute and the playing of the national anthems of the two nations.
“For the warrior, this is a cherished duty, a commitment made to one another before going into battle and passed on from one generation of warriors to the next,” said Gen. Vincent Brooks, commander of US and UN forces in South Korea.
“And for all in attendance, this is a solemn reminder that our work is not complete until all have been accounted for, no matter how long it takes to do so.”
Four F-16s flew in formation over the ceremony before the caskets were transported by a van and loaded aboard two C-17 military cargo planes by the UN Command color guard.
The last one was put on a plane as bagpipers played “Amazing Grace.” D URING their stopover in South Korea, the remains were underwent a forensic review, which determined they’re most likely those of Americans.
“There is no reason to doubt that they do relate to Korean War losses,” John Byrd, director of analysis for the US Defense POW/ MIA Accounting Agency, told reporters at Osan.
“The remains are consistent with remains that we have recovered in North Korea through our own recovery efforts in the past.”
He said the North Koreans gave enough information about where each set of remains was found that US officials were able to match them to specific battles fought between 1950 and 1951.
Other items were also returned, including military hardware, uniforms, helmets, water bottles, boots — and one serviceman’s dog tag.
The family of that serviceman had been notified, Byrd said, but he cautioned that the tag is not necessarily associated with the remains in the boxes.
The bones and fragments will undergo further forensic testing in Hawaii at the Defense POW/ MIA Accounting Agency’s lab.
Experts said it could take days or even years to positively identify the decades-old remains.
MIA families have provided DNA samples to the lab.
North Korea has in the past handed over remains to the US. Between 1990 and 1994, it provided 208 caskets that turned out to contain the remains of more than 208 individuals — although forensic experts have been able to establish 181 identities.
A series of US-North Korean recovery efforts, termed “joint field activities,” between 1996 and 2005 turned up 229 sets of remains, of which 153 have been identified, according to the Pentagon.
The searches were halted in 2005. The Pentagon said it was “absolutely” considering the possibility of sending personnel to the country for that purpose.
More than 33,000 died in battle during the Korean War.
The remains returned on Wednesday will eventually be laid to rest in American soil.
“Some in Arlington National Cemetery,” Pence said, and “some in national cemeteries across the land.”