Cotton recognizes ’50s MIA Arkansan

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., paid tribute to the late U.S. Army Cpl. Jerry Garrison during a speech last week on the Senate floor.

Nearly seven decades after Garrison went missing in action in North Korea, his remains were returned to Arkansas and buried in Lamar, his hometown.

Garrison was reported missing on Dec. 2, 1950. He perished during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a brutal and bitterly cold campaign that pitted U.S. forces against Chinese troops.

With temperatures plunging well below zero at times, American servicemen were imperiled by frostbite, as well as bullets.

Cotton, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, honored Garrison, saying he “fought on that frozen ground to protect his fellow soldiers and the independence of the Korean people against the communist hordes.”

Garrison was just 21 years old when he died.

His remains and the remains of other soldiers were located by North Korean officials, who turned them over to U.S. officials last year after President Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un, the country’s communist dictator.

In August, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced that Garrison’s remains had been identified with the help of DNA analysis and “anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence.”

Garrison’s funeral, the lawmaker from Dardanelle said, was a “long-overdue moment of honor for a brave soldier, and a long-anticipated moment of mourning and remembrance for his loved ones.”

As of August, there were still 7,609 Korean War veterans who remain unaccounted for, military officials said.