Posted 2:21 am Tuesday, September 13, 2011
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Remains Of Korean War Vet Returning To East Texas
By TIM MONZINGO
Staff Writer
Members of a Tyler family will make the drive to Dallas on Thursday to reconnect with a long-lost brother.
Staff Writer
Members of a Tyler family will make the drive to Dallas on Thursday to reconnect with a long-lost brother.
Irajean Henry, along with other family members, will be at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as the remains of their brother, Army Sgt. Lee Henry, Jr., return to Texas after more than half a century away from home.
“I never thought or dreamed that this would ever come to this point,” said Mrs. Henry, whose DNA was the final piece of the puzzle identifying the missing soldier. “He's been away from the family for over 60 years.”
From South Korea, the body, along with the remains of three other men, were taken to Kokura, Japan.
From South Korea, the body, along with the remains of three other men, were taken to Kokura, Japan.
Military personnel suspected that one of bodies recovered from the same grave might belong to the missing sergeant, but the technology did not exist at the time to make the identification.
The bodies were buried in National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, until investigators contacted Mrs. Henry to get a DNA sample, according to a news release issued by the Department of Defense Monday.
Then, in March, after investigators with the Defense Prisoner of War, Missing Personnel Office contacted
Mrs. Henry to collect a DNA sample, they were able to link her with a body recovered in Korea, Mrs. Henry said.
Then, in March, after investigators with the Defense Prisoner of War, Missing Personnel Office contacted
Mrs. Henry to collect a DNA sample, they were able to link her with a body recovered in Korea, Mrs. Henry said.
When the Army contacted Mrs. Henry for DNA, she said she did not have much confidence that it would help locate her brother.
The notification came in the form of two bound books that chronicled the investigation that led to the identification and the trip, across two countries and an ocean, which would bring him home.
To know that her brother is coming home and that he will be buried in Evergreen Memorial Park Cemetery,
where the remains of other family members are, including their father, is surreal, she said.
“It sounds like a dream or something, like something out of a novel,” she said.
The sergeant will arrive in Dallas at 11 a.m. Thursday, where Korean veterans and family members will greet him to transport the remains back to Tyler for a service on Saturday.
The service is scheduled for 11 a.m. at the Saint James Church, located at 408 N. Border St., in Tyler, Mrs. Henry said.
For Mrs. Henry and her family, the homecoming is long awaited.
“Sixty-one years,” she said. “You never think anything would come to this point.”
For more information on the organization that worked to identify Henry’s remains and return them to his family, visit www.dtic.mil/dpmo.
The notification came in the form of two bound books that chronicled the investigation that led to the identification and the trip, across two countries and an ocean, which would bring him home.
To know that her brother is coming home and that he will be buried in Evergreen Memorial Park Cemetery,
where the remains of other family members are, including their father, is surreal, she said.
“It sounds like a dream or something, like something out of a novel,” she said.
The sergeant will arrive in Dallas at 11 a.m. Thursday, where Korean veterans and family members will greet him to transport the remains back to Tyler for a service on Saturday.
The service is scheduled for 11 a.m. at the Saint James Church, located at 408 N. Border St., in Tyler, Mrs. Henry said.
For Mrs. Henry and her family, the homecoming is long awaited.
“Sixty-one years,” she said. “You never think anything would come to this point.”
For more information on the organization that worked to identify Henry’s remains and return them to his family, visit www.dtic.mil/dpmo.
