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Korean War Missing in Action Serviceman Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced
today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War,
have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial in Fergus
Falls, Minn. on Wednesday.

He is Cpl. John O. Strom of Fergus Falls, Minn.

On the night of Nov. 1, 1950, Strom's unit, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry
Regiment, came under attack by Chinese communist forces near the village of Unsan
in North Korea. His battalion sought to escape the larger Chinese unit, and
evacuated along a route well documented in U.S. records.

The fighting raged on for several days, and by Nov. 4, those men able
to escape withdrew to friendly lines south of the Kuryong River, though more than
380 soldiers of the 8th Cavalry Regiment were unaccounted for.

In July and August 2002, a joint team of U.S. and North Korean
specialists investigated a site near Unsan where a villager had reportedly reburied
remains believed to be those of a U.S. serviceman from another location. The team,
led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated both sites and found
human remains as well as a few pieces of non-biological evidence. The team was
also given Strom's military identification tag found by the villager.

Laboratory analysis of the remains by forensic scientists at JPAC led
to Strom's identification. Comparisons of mitochondrial DNA results were key
factors in their finding.

Of the 88,000 Americans who are missing from all conflicts,
approximately 8,100 are from the Korean War. More than 1,800 remain unaccounted
for from the Vietnam War, 126 from the Cold War, and 78,000 from World War II.
Remains believed to be those of more than 220 American servicemen have been
recovered in joint operations in North Korea.