One day in 1950, in a foxhole some distance north of Pyongyang, North Korea, a US Army soldier died. He was with the 503rd Field Artillery, 2nd Infantry division.<\/p>\n
While tragic, such an occurrence was regrettably common. For the last half of 1950, the US was fighting a war in Korea \u2013 a war that would last 3 years, 1 month, and 3 days and would claim (including MIAs), nearly 42,700 American lives.<\/p>\n
The young soldier was one of those MIAs. His body was not returned at the end of hostilities.<\/p>\n
His remains lay buried approximately 50 miles north of Pyongyang. His remains were isolated \u2013 that is, they were not buried in any military cemetery or mass grave.<\/p>\n
In 2000, a joint US-North Korean team was investigating old Korean War fighting positions. While doing so, they discovered the skeleton of a 5\u2019 10\u201d tall male, apparently of African-American ancestry. These remains were returned to the US.<\/p>\n
After roughly 50 years in the earth, the remains were predictably in poor shape. In past years these remains would likely never have been positively identified.<\/p>\n
However, modern technology sometimes works wonders. Through DNA matching with living relatives, the remains were finally positively identified.<\/p>\n