The following was submitted by 82nd District Representative Nick Wilson, and appeared in the Nov. 6, 2024 edition of the News Journal…
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the fighting of World War I came to an end in the name of an armistice. In commemoration of the historic day, President Woodrow Wilson declared November 11 as Armistice Day in 1919. In 1938, an Act of Congress made Armistice Day a legal holiday, which was later amended in 1954 to change the word “Armistice” to “Veterans”.
Since its inception, Veterans Day has served as a time to honor all who served. This Veterans Day, I want to highlight the story of U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Raymond E. Hall of Mountain Ash, Kentucky, who was killed during the Korean War, but whose remains were only accounted for this past spring.
Sgt. 1st Class Hall was a member of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. While fighting in Korea, he was captured by the North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) and held as a prisoner of war. He had previously been held as a prisoner of war in WWII, survived, and reenlisted to serve in the Korean War. Tragically, Hall was killed after being held as a prisoner of war by the NKPA at the age of 40 during the Suncheon Tunnel Massacre, which was a mass execution of American prisoners of war in 1950 and a war crime of the Korean War. After the tragedy, his remains were identified and temporary interred at the United Nations Military Cemetery in Pyongyang. Because of the ongoing war, Pyongyang had to be evacuated and Sgt. 1st Class Hall’s remains were not recovered.
After the Korean War concluded, Operation Glory occurred, which resulted in the exchange of the remains of soldiers killed during the Korean War. Many remains exchanged during the operation were unable to be identified, including a set of remains designated X-17101. As a result, the remains of X-17101, later to be identified as Sgt. 1st Class Hall’s remains, along with the remains of other unidentifiable soldiers were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, also known as the Punchbowl. Interestingly, Hall’s son had visited the Punchbowl, not knowing that his father’s unidentified remains were buried there at the time.
In August of 2017, the remains of X-17101 were exhumed from the Punchbowl by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), an agency dedicated to accounting for unaccounted American personnel from war, and sent to the DPAA’s lab for examination. Previously, Hall’s family reached out to the DPAA’s Korean War Identification Project in search of answers and closure, which they would later get. After a dental and anthropological analysis, a chest radiograph comparison, circumstantial evidence, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis performed by scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Raymond E. Hall’s remains were officially determined to be the remains of X-17101.
On October 21, 2024, he was buried in Calverton, New York, which gave his family answers, comfort, and closure. Additionally, the flags at all state buildings in Kentucky on that day were lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset to honor his memory and sacrifice.
The Korean War, often referred to as the “Forgotten War”, lasted from June 1950 to July 1953 and resulted in around 36,500 American casualties. Many American remains from the Korean War have still yet to be identified. As a result, the DPAA created the Korean War Identification Project, a project designed to account for the remains of Americans killed during the Korean War and give families closure. Thus far, the DPAA has identified and returned the remains of over 450 Americans killed in the Korean War to their families in addition to the 2,000 identified shortly after the war’s conclusion. Today, around 7,500 Americans remain unaccounted for, which the DPAA is actively working towards accounting for.
On this Veterans Day, I want to recognize all our veterans for their dedication and service to our country. It will not be forgotten. Our veterans are true American heroes, willing to make great personal sacrifices to defend the freedoms we, as Americans, take for granted all too often. As we celebrate Veterans Day, let’s thank our veterans and honor the sacrifices they have made for our freedoms. As President Ronald Reagan said, “Veterans know better than anyone else the price of freedom, for they’ve suffered the scars of war. We can offer them no better tribute than to protect what they have won for us. That is our duty.”
As always, I can be reached anytime through the toll-free message line in Frankfort at 1-800-372-7181. You can also contact me via email at nick.wilson@kylegislature.gov and keep track through the Kentucky legislature’s website at legislature.ky.gov.
