The remains of a teenage soldier who vanished in the Korean War 75 years ago, after telling his mother not to cry should he perish, have finally been accounted for, according to military officials.
U.S. Army Sergeant Celestino Chavez Jr. of Gallup, New Mexico, was identified on April 15, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
In a newspaper clipping shared by the agency, the 19-year-old’s mother, Lupita Chavez, said she had last heard from him on November 27 1950, when she received a letter in which he had told her: "If anything happens to me, please mother, no tears.”
Now that his body has been accounted for the DPAA has shared details of his service in the war, which took place from June 1950 to July 1953 between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, now North Korea, and South Korea with allied forces, led by the U.S.
Chavez was assigned to D Battery, 15th Anti-Aircraft Artillery, Automatic Weapons Battalion, 7th Infantry Division in late 1950, and was injured during a battle near the Jangjin Reservoir.
The teenager was "struck and seriously wounded" during the attack but "refused to be evacuated ... because there was no other man available to replace him,” according to a statement that accompanied his posthumous award.
"He stayed at his post voluntarily and, despite his wound, kept the weapon firing,” the statement added. “When the enemy attack had been broken up by the accurate and intense fire, Corporal Chavez, weakened by loss of blood, collapsed unconscious and fell from the M-19 gun carriage to the ground."
Chavez was evacuated to an aid station on November 30 but reported missing in action on December 2 when his convoy was ambushed by enemy forces en route to Hagaru-ri, south of the reservoir.
The U.S. Army did not receive any indication that he was ever held as a prisoner of war and with no evidence of his continued survival, issued a presumptive finding of death on December 31 1953.
He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for continuing to man his position despite his wounds during the November 30 attack. He also honored with a Purple Heart and the Korean Service Medal with two Bronze Service Stars.
More than 60 years later, in the summer of 2018, at a summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un, North Korea turned over 55 boxes reportedly containing the remains of U.S. service members who died in the war.
The remains were taken to a DPAA lab for identification using anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence, the agency stated. Around 7,500 U.S. troops are believed to be unaccounted for from the Korean War, according to the agency. More than 30,000 Americans were killed and over 100,000 wounded.
Chavez received a burial with full military honors in his hometown of Gallup, New Mexico on April 15.
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