Missing Soldier to Be Buried With Honors, Decades Later

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — The remains of a 21-year-old U.S. Army sergeant who went missing from the Korean War have been identified and will be buried in Kent.

The Department of Defense says Sgt. Harold Sparks will be buried Thursday with full military honors at the Tahoma National Cemetery.

The News Tribune reports the Seattle soldier will be buried nearly 66 years after he was taken prisoner by Chinese forces north of Pyongyang early in the Korean War.

The Defense Department Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency identified his remains earlier this year, after finding them among 208 boxes of commingled human remains that North Korea gave to the Defense Department in the early 1990s.

Only recently, the Defense Department matched DNA in the boxes with genetic material submitted by four of Sparks' relatives and descendants.