thedrifter
05-28-07, 08:21 AM
HONORED AND REMEMBERED
Never left behind: Pfc. Warren Rarick went missing on a Korean hill in '51. His buddy won't give up the search for him.
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, May 28, 2007
Ron Broward is a successful businessman who owns the Sudwerk brewery in the college town of Davis. Earlier this month he went to Korea, up on the eastern side of the country, up a river valley not far from the city of Chunchon.
He had been there before, in a war long ago. Memory and friendship drew him back.
He goes to Korea often, but every time he goes back, he is surprised. Everything is different, the country is booming, the cities are larger, the people are more hardworking and ambitious than ever.
But the mountains he remembered are still there, and his practiced eye could still see faint marks of the past, Broward said, "little indentations in the ground." They are the remnants of foxholes from the Korean War, still there after all those years.
And Warren Rarick is there, too. His bones are deep in the soil of Korea on a hillside near a river.
In his mind's eye, Broward remembers the last time he saw Rarick, a terrible day in the spring of 1951.
They were both Marines. Rarick, a big, burly guy they all called "Jackson," was a machine gunner. He was 21 that April; Broward had just turned 18. They were both from the same Southern California town, Downey. Broward's older brother was Rarick's best friend.
The Marines had been fighting in Korea for almost a year, and in April, they were attacked by Chinese troops, part of the enemy's spring offensive. "We held them for 17 hours," Broward said. "But then we were overrun."
Both Broward and Rarick were wounded.
They scrambled down a brushy slope to where a tank was taking wounded men to the rear. Rarick was trying to put his squad leader, another young guy, on the back of the tank when he got hit in the back. Broward thinks his friend died instantly, but in the sweep of battle, his body was never found. Pfc. Warren Rarick, USMC, is still listed as missing in action from a battle 56 years ago.
There was always still hope: Until his dying day, Rarick's father thought his son might come back from the war.
Marines don't leave their dead behind. Broward wants to find and identify Rarick's remains and bring him home.
"I think about all those youngsters who never made it home," he said. "I think of those youngsters who stayed in their foxholes and fought. It takes a lot to stay, and many of them were killed.
"They were all kids, too," Broward said. "Seventy-five percent of all the missing men were under 21.
"All those youngsters who never made it home," Broward says, softly. "Somebody needs to think about them."
This is Broward's mission. Every day is Memorial Day to him.
Broward works closely with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, known by its military acronym, JPAC, headquartered in Hawaii.
They have a complex mission and a simple motto. The mission is to identify as many of America's unknown war dead as possible. "We have a motto that we live by," said JPAC spokeswoman Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Feeney of the Air Force: "Until they are home."
Their job is part science, part detective work, and part of the patriotic culture that drives the military. JPAC has the largest forensic anthropology laboratory in the world. It is able to use old-fashioned methods, like dental charts and new breakthroughs in science, including the use of mitochondrial
DNA.
The task is daunting. Though the Korean War ended in 1953, more than 8,100 Americans are still missing from that conflict.
Occasionally, all the pieces of the puzzle come together and a missing man is identified. One such was Army corporal Pastor Balanon Jr., who was killed in 1950 in Korea. His family, which lived on the San Francisco Peninsula, was present when his remains were buried this month at Arlington National Cemetery. He had been officially missing in action for 56 years.
There are 860 sets of unidentified remains in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific -- a site in an extinct volcano called the Punchbowl. In the JPAC lab, there are 500 bodies they are unable to identify. These are the country's honored dead, known only to God.
Matching the remains -- mostly bones now, including some complete skeletons -- is a slow, careful task.
This is where Broward comes in. He is 73 now, and he hears the ticking of the clock, the slow turning of the years. The families of these lost men are older, and many of them have died. For him, bringing closure is a passion, an obsession and a duty.
He uses the skills he developed in his long business career: He is an advocate, a lobbyist, and an active searcher for answers. He has gone to Korea 11 times, sometimes with military search teams, sometimes not.
He has campaigned successfully to get the military to hire historians to help identify the missing. The historians pore through command chronologies, a record of actions required for every unit in battle to keep track of where the unit was, men killed, wounded, missing.
When he is not in the field in Korea, he pores over the old military records at his home office in Davis. He has become an expert on the battles and skirmishes big and small that marked the three years of the Korean War. He goes over the records of the graves registration units, looking for possible errors. He wants to find out where the bodies are buried.
In Hawaii, he keeps up the pressure to connect the families of the missing service members with the remains of the unknown dead.
One of his main focuses now is identifying the lost servicemen with DNA. To make the match, JPAC needs what is called a family reference sample of a missing person's DNA.
All people inherit mitochondrial DNA from their mother, and DNA from a close relative can help identify a person long dead. Broward researches family histories to find a family reference donor.
One of Broward's proudest successes is finding the next of kin of John Ward, a Marine private first class, killed in Korea in 1950 and buried in Hawaii as a set of remains identified only as X-13082. Using dental charts, DNA and persistence, Broward helped the military identify X-13082 as John Ward. When he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in 2006 with full military honor, Ward was the first Marine from the Korean War to be buried in Arlington in 50 years.
It was Broward's work, his expertise, that made the difference.
"It's amazing, what he's done,'' said retired Maj. Gen. J. Michael Myatt, who commanded Marines in combat in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War. "He's made a tremendous difference."
Myatt is CEO of the Marines Memorial Club in San Francisco, where Broward is a member, and the two have worked together to try to find ways to identify the lost dead.
The motivation goes deep into the unwritten code that binds military people together. "It is all part of being a Marine or a soldier,'' Myatt said. "It is why people fight. They don't fight for the flag or country; they fight for each other.
"There is always a promise and a pledge, from the day someone enters boot camp. We will never leave you behind."
Broward has given the military the family reference samples that would identify his friend, Warren Rarick. Now the mission is to search that Korean valley to find Rarick's bones -- Rarick and other men who never came home. "I'm certain we can find these guys," Broward said last week. "I am absolutely positive.
"I never forgot my buddy. It is our responsibility to bring him home."
Ellie
Never left behind: Pfc. Warren Rarick went missing on a Korean hill in '51. His buddy won't give up the search for him.
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, May 28, 2007
Ron Broward is a successful businessman who owns the Sudwerk brewery in the college town of Davis. Earlier this month he went to Korea, up on the eastern side of the country, up a river valley not far from the city of Chunchon.
He had been there before, in a war long ago. Memory and friendship drew him back.
He goes to Korea often, but every time he goes back, he is surprised. Everything is different, the country is booming, the cities are larger, the people are more hardworking and ambitious than ever.
But the mountains he remembered are still there, and his practiced eye could still see faint marks of the past, Broward said, "little indentations in the ground." They are the remnants of foxholes from the Korean War, still there after all those years.
And Warren Rarick is there, too. His bones are deep in the soil of Korea on a hillside near a river.
In his mind's eye, Broward remembers the last time he saw Rarick, a terrible day in the spring of 1951.
They were both Marines. Rarick, a big, burly guy they all called "Jackson," was a machine gunner. He was 21 that April; Broward had just turned 18. They were both from the same Southern California town, Downey. Broward's older brother was Rarick's best friend.
The Marines had been fighting in Korea for almost a year, and in April, they were attacked by Chinese troops, part of the enemy's spring offensive. "We held them for 17 hours," Broward said. "But then we were overrun."
Both Broward and Rarick were wounded.
They scrambled down a brushy slope to where a tank was taking wounded men to the rear. Rarick was trying to put his squad leader, another young guy, on the back of the tank when he got hit in the back. Broward thinks his friend died instantly, but in the sweep of battle, his body was never found. Pfc. Warren Rarick, USMC, is still listed as missing in action from a battle 56 years ago.
There was always still hope: Until his dying day, Rarick's father thought his son might come back from the war.
Marines don't leave their dead behind. Broward wants to find and identify Rarick's remains and bring him home.
"I think about all those youngsters who never made it home," he said. "I think of those youngsters who stayed in their foxholes and fought. It takes a lot to stay, and many of them were killed.
"They were all kids, too," Broward said. "Seventy-five percent of all the missing men were under 21.
"All those youngsters who never made it home," Broward says, softly. "Somebody needs to think about them."
This is Broward's mission. Every day is Memorial Day to him.
Broward works closely with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, known by its military acronym, JPAC, headquartered in Hawaii.
They have a complex mission and a simple motto. The mission is to identify as many of America's unknown war dead as possible. "We have a motto that we live by," said JPAC spokeswoman Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Feeney of the Air Force: "Until they are home."
Their job is part science, part detective work, and part of the patriotic culture that drives the military. JPAC has the largest forensic anthropology laboratory in the world. It is able to use old-fashioned methods, like dental charts and new breakthroughs in science, including the use of mitochondrial
DNA.
The task is daunting. Though the Korean War ended in 1953, more than 8,100 Americans are still missing from that conflict.
Occasionally, all the pieces of the puzzle come together and a missing man is identified. One such was Army corporal Pastor Balanon Jr., who was killed in 1950 in Korea. His family, which lived on the San Francisco Peninsula, was present when his remains were buried this month at Arlington National Cemetery. He had been officially missing in action for 56 years.
There are 860 sets of unidentified remains in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific -- a site in an extinct volcano called the Punchbowl. In the JPAC lab, there are 500 bodies they are unable to identify. These are the country's honored dead, known only to God.
Matching the remains -- mostly bones now, including some complete skeletons -- is a slow, careful task.
This is where Broward comes in. He is 73 now, and he hears the ticking of the clock, the slow turning of the years. The families of these lost men are older, and many of them have died. For him, bringing closure is a passion, an obsession and a duty.
He uses the skills he developed in his long business career: He is an advocate, a lobbyist, and an active searcher for answers. He has gone to Korea 11 times, sometimes with military search teams, sometimes not.
He has campaigned successfully to get the military to hire historians to help identify the missing. The historians pore through command chronologies, a record of actions required for every unit in battle to keep track of where the unit was, men killed, wounded, missing.
When he is not in the field in Korea, he pores over the old military records at his home office in Davis. He has become an expert on the battles and skirmishes big and small that marked the three years of the Korean War. He goes over the records of the graves registration units, looking for possible errors. He wants to find out where the bodies are buried.
In Hawaii, he keeps up the pressure to connect the families of the missing service members with the remains of the unknown dead.
One of his main focuses now is identifying the lost servicemen with DNA. To make the match, JPAC needs what is called a family reference sample of a missing person's DNA.
All people inherit mitochondrial DNA from their mother, and DNA from a close relative can help identify a person long dead. Broward researches family histories to find a family reference donor.
One of Broward's proudest successes is finding the next of kin of John Ward, a Marine private first class, killed in Korea in 1950 and buried in Hawaii as a set of remains identified only as X-13082. Using dental charts, DNA and persistence, Broward helped the military identify X-13082 as John Ward. When he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in 2006 with full military honor, Ward was the first Marine from the Korean War to be buried in Arlington in 50 years.
It was Broward's work, his expertise, that made the difference.
"It's amazing, what he's done,'' said retired Maj. Gen. J. Michael Myatt, who commanded Marines in combat in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War. "He's made a tremendous difference."
Myatt is CEO of the Marines Memorial Club in San Francisco, where Broward is a member, and the two have worked together to try to find ways to identify the lost dead.
The motivation goes deep into the unwritten code that binds military people together. "It is all part of being a Marine or a soldier,'' Myatt said. "It is why people fight. They don't fight for the flag or country; they fight for each other.
"There is always a promise and a pledge, from the day someone enters boot camp. We will never leave you behind."
Broward has given the military the family reference samples that would identify his friend, Warren Rarick. Now the mission is to search that Korean valley to find Rarick's bones -- Rarick and other men who never came home. "I'm certain we can find these guys," Broward said last week. "I am absolutely positive.
"I never forgot my buddy. It is our responsibility to bring him home."
Ellie