One Brick Short

Sometimes, when things are changing and you get a little world warn and weary, it’s easy to forget to take time for a little creative outlet. After all, the idea is to have say something whether you have something to say or not and, to ignore something as international as a blog, is to dance with virtual death, the complete loss of any Web identity that blogging can create.

So, I’m back. So are U.S. Army Cpl. Robert L. Mason of Parkersburg, W.Va.; and Pfc. Joseph K. Meyer Jr., of Wahpeton, N.D. Both men were recently buried after long stays in North Korea at the Chosin Reservoir where they fell in the famous Korean War battle that decimated much of an Army brigade and sent Marines scattering.

Mason was assigned to B Company, 32nd Infantry Regiment, and Meyer was assigned to K Company, 31st Infantry Regiment. Both were attached to the 31st Regimental Combat Team (RCT), 7th Infantry Division. The team was engaged against the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces near the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea, from late November to early December, 1950. Both men died as result of intense enemy fire, and their bodies were not recovered at the time.

Between 2001 and 2005, joint U.S. and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted excavations of several burial sites near the Chosin Reservoir. The sites correlate closely with defensive positions held by the 31st RCT at the time of the Chinese attacks. The teams recovered remains there believed to be those of U.S. servicemen. Analysis of the remains recovered from the sites led to the identification of several individuals, including Mason and Meyer.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory and JPAC also used mitochondrial DNA and dental comparisons in both Meyer’s and Mason’s identification.