BY DUANE A. VACHON, PH.D. It was almost a year ago to the day that I first wrote about Lt. Col. Donald Carlos Faith, Jr. in the Hawaii Reporter. An “R” for recovered will now be placed beside his name on the Wall in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
Faith’s remains were returned to his relatives more than 62 years after his death. Army Lt. Col. Don C. Faith Jr., of Washington, Indiana., was buried on April 17, 2013, in Arlington National Cemetery.
Faith, who had served in World War II, continued to serve in the Army during the Korean War. On December 1,1950, he received severe shrapnel wounds and died the following day. His body was not recovered by U.S. forces at that time.
On August 2, 1951, Faith was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, America’s highest military honor recognizing personal acts of exceptional valor during battle.
Barbara “Bobbie” Broyles, Faith’s only child, told FoxNews.com on Wednesday “What’s so amazing is that our country doesn’t give up They keep looking for the missing and the prisoners of war and people who are unaccounted for in battles.”
Broyles, her husband and the couple’s three children travelled to Washington this month for her father’s burial. “And with the current political climate in North Korea,” she said, “it’s ‘particularly important’ to remember veterans of the Korean War.”
“It’s now just becoming apparent how critical the Battle of Chosin was,” Broyles told FoxNews.com in reference to conflict along the eastern side of the Chosin Reservoir from Nov. 27 to Dec. 1, 1950. “We sacrificed a lot to help Korea.”
At the time of his death, Faith and his unit — 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment — were attached to the 31st Regimental Combat Team as it advanced along the eastern side of the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea.
During attacks by the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces, Faith assumed command with his supervisor missing, and he continuously rallied his troops, personally leading an assault on an enemy position, defense officials said.
In 2004, a joint team from the U.S. and North Korea surveyed the area where Faith was last seen and located his remains. To confirm the find, scientists used circumstantial evidence, forensic identification tools and mitochondrial DNA, using samples from Faith’s brother for comparison.
“I’m incredulous,” Broyles, a 66-year-old psychotherapist, said when reached at her home in Baton Rouge, La. She praised Department of Defense scientists and researchers for their relentless work. “He’s been missing for 62 years and it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing that he’s been found.”
More than 7,900 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War, U.S. defense officials said.
| Faith’s remains were recovered and identified through DNA testing. He was buried with his parents at Arlington National Cemetery on April 17, 2013, Section 4, Lot 3016 with full military honors.
The information in this article was sourced from a variety of sources both internal and external. Every effort was made to ensure that the information is current and correct. These articles are presented to honor the heroes they are written about. |