In Memoriam

[Grace]

29 April 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation New Dawn.

Pfc. Robert M. Friese, 21, of Chesterfield, Mich., died April 29 in Al Qadisiyah province, Iraq, of injuries sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with a rocket propelled grenade. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas.

[Grace]

4 March 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. Adam D. Craig, 23, of Cherokee, Iowa, died March 4 at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., of a non-combat related illness. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, Sioux City, Iowa.

[Grace]

2 May 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Cpl. Kevin W. White, 22, of Westfield, N.Y., died May 2 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

[Grace]

World War II

Soldier Missing in Action from WWII Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Pfc. Robert B. Bayne, of Dundalk, Md., will be buried on May 7 in his hometown. On March 28, 1945, while patrolling the Rhine River in an inflatable raft, Bayne, a lieutenant and two other enlisted men were attacked near Schwegenheim, Germany. Bayne and the officer were wounded, forcing all four men into the swift waters of the river. The lieutenant was rescued but the enlisted men were not found.

Between 1945 and 1946, Army Graves Registration personnel exhumed remains of three men from two different locations when German citizens reported the graves contained remains of American soldiers recovered from the river in March 1945. Among items found with the remains were military identification tags. Two of the men were identified as enlisted men from the raft -- Pvt. Edward Kulback and Pfc. William Gaffney -- but due to limited forensic science of the time, the remains of the other individual could not be identified and were interred at the U.S. Military Cemetery in St. Avold, France as “unknown.”

In 1948, the remains of the unknown soldier were exhumed to compare them to available records for Bayne. After several years of analysis the remains could not be identified and were reinterred as unknown at the Rhone American Cemetery and Memorial in Draguignan, France, in 1951.

More than 60 years later, analysts from DPMO and the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) developed case leads, evaluated records and determined that modern forensic technology could offer methods to identify the remains. In 2010, the remains were exhumed once again for analysis.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC used dental comparisons and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA -- which matched that of Bayne’s brothers -- in the identification of his remains.

At the end of the war, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans. Today, more than 74,000 are unaccounted-for from the conflict.

[Grace]

The last known male British combat veteran of the First World War has died in Australia aged 110.

Ministry of Defence statement.

[Grace]

4 May 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Spc. Riley S. Spaulding, 21, of Sheridan, Texas, died May 4 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained in a non-combat incident. He was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, Vilseck, Germany.

[Grace]

9 May 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. Ken K. Hermogino, 30, of Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., died May 9 in Herat province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained in a non-combat related vehicle accident. He was assigned to the 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.