Soldier laid to rest 58 years after he disappeared in war
Thursday 3 July 2008 at 09:48
by POW/MIA Chairman
Pioneer Press - St. Paul, MN, USASoldier laid to rest 58 years after he disappeared in war
Decades of uncertainty are over at last.
By Nick Ferraro
nferraro@pioneerpress.com
Article Last Updated: 07/03/2008 07:09:08 AM CDT
For more than a half century, family and friends of Army Sgt. Edward "Jim" O'Brien never knew what happened to the South St. Paul soldier — only that he went missing in action while fighting in the Korean War.
That changed in April, when nearly three years of research by family members and a DNA test confirmed O'Brien's remains had been at an identification lab in Hawaii since 1998.
On Wednesday, the World War II and Korean War veteran was laid to rest with full military honors at Fort Snelling National Cemetery — nearly 58 years after his death.
For about 30 family and friends who attended the service, it was a time of closure.
"This is a relief. It means everything," said Carolyn Herring, O'Brien's niece. "We've been wanting this for so long."
As O'Brien's casket was pulled to the committal shelter where services were held, 50 members of the Patriot Guard Riders stood along the roadsides, holding U.S. flags against the stiff wind. Members of the local Korean War Veterans Association saluted their fallen comrade.
O'Brien was 29 years old when he went missing during fighting with Chinese forces in North Korea in 1950.
His parents, Edward and Caroline, and sister, Olive Cook, died without knowing what happened to him.
Herring said last week that not knowing has gnawed at her father — Edward's brother, Wally.
"It was always a sore subject for my dad," she said. "He didn't know where he was."
At the end of Wednesday's burial service, an Army Reserve honor guard member handed Wally O'Brien, 81, the folded flag that had been draped across the casket. O'Brien, who attended the funeral with his wife, June, sat in the front row, flanked by his family.
In November 1950, O'Brien was assigned to E Company, 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, then deployed north of the Chongchon River in North Korea, according to the Defense Department.
On Nov. 26, the Chinese army struck U.S. and Army Korean forces during the Battle of the Chongchon River.
The allied forces, including the 35th Regiment, were forced to withdraw to the south. O'Brien was last seen when Chinese troops overran his company's position about 10 miles southwest of Unsan.
In 1998, a joint U.S.-Korean team excavated a site containing the remains of a U.S. soldier who died in the area where O'Brien was last seen. The team found human remains and two military identification tags with O'Brien's name on them.
Also found was a signed, laminated card O'Brien had been given while serving in the Navy, his nephew Patrick O'Brien said.
"After 60 years, it was hard to read," he said, "but you could make it out."
A North Korean man told the team he first uncovered O'Brien's remains while building a house and that he buried them at the site that was excavated.
The recovery effort started in late 2005 after David O'Brien, the soldier's great-nephew, did an Internet search on the soldier. What he found was that the Army had listed O'Brien's home state as Nebraska, where he had lived for a short time after serving in World War II.
"That piqued our interest," Herring said, "and that's when we started really digging."
Herring and older brother, Patrick O'Brien, both of South St. Paul, sought advice from members of the Korean War vets group, which pointed them to the U.S. Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va.
Through telephone calls and letters, they requested O'Brien's files under the Freedom of Information Act. "We tried to get anything on him that we could," Herring said. "We weren't picky."
It was an often-frustrating effort, O'Brien said.
"It was hard," he said, "because government bureaucracy is very, very slow."
But their work started paying off. They were sent his military file and MIA case file, as well as declassified documents that included names of soldiers who fought with him and maps of where they fought.
"We even got a lot of personal stuff, like dental records," Herring said.
In January, Herring and her brother explained the DNA identification process to their father, who agreed to give it a try. After swabbing his cheeks, they sent the saliva sample to the lab.
"We had faith and were hoping, but in the back of our minds we weren't sure," Herring said. "It had been a long time."
On April 5, through a telephone call to his home in South St. Paul, Wally O'Brien learned the lab had made a positive ID.
"It was a really emotional day for us," Herring said. "We had sad emotions, but we were also happy."
Nick Ferraro can be reached at 651-228-2173.
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