Family prepares to bury remains of
Korean War
POW
Posted: Monday, June 16, 2014 11:47
am
DRY RIDGE, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky
family is preparing to bury the remains of a Korean War
soldier, which were recently
identified through DNA testing.
The Lexington Herald-Leader
(http://bit.ly/T14FSP) reports the remains of Sgt. Paul M. Gordon will
return to the U.S. on Tuesday and
will be interred Friday at the Kentucky Veterans Cemetery North in
Williamstown.
Gordon joined the Army in 1949,
shortly after graduating from Crittenden High School. He was sent
to Korea, where he died in a
prisoner of war camp in 1951 at the age of 20.
Family members say they wondered
about his fate for decades.
"None of us really knew what
happened to him," said nephew Tony Gayhart of Burlington.
Military officials said scientists
from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed
Forces DNA Identification
Laboratory used DNA from Gordon's sister and brother, as well as other
evidence, to make the
identification.
Gayhart, who was born two years
after his uncle disappeared, said he remembers as a young child
looking through a scrapbook his
grandmother kept. The story of his lost uncle "just tugged at my heart
ever since I was a little bitty
kid," he said.
According to a statement from the
Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel
Office, Gordon was deployed in the
vicinity of Wonju, South Korea, and was assigned to Company H,
2nd Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment,
2nd Infantry Division. He was listed as missing in action after a
January 1951 battle.
According to other soldiers, Gordon
was captured by the Chinese during the battle and taken to a
POW camp, where he died in June.
In the early 1990s, North Korea handed
over 208 boxes of human remains, some of which were
thought to have been from near the
camp where Gordon was held, according to the military statement.
Gayhart said many of Gordon's
family members, including two brothers and a sister — died without
knowing his remains had been
located.
He said his mother, Dorothy Gordon
Gayhart, was "happy and sad."
"She's happy that her brother
is finally coming home," he said, "but she's sad that it's happening
this6/17/2014 Family prepares to bury remains of Korean War POW- Bowling Green
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