Among those attending Saturday’s burial ceremony for US Marine Corps Private Glenn White will be representatives of History Flight.
The non-profit group is dedicated to finding, identifying and bringing home missing soldiers, and it spent over a decade on the island where White was interred in a mass grave before he was positively identified. Osteoarchaelolgist Jordan Windish is not part of the team traveling to Emporia, but she was part of the team that helped to set the stage for White’s positive identity. Windish tells KVOE News there was an extensive identification process used by History Flight and the Department of Defense’s Prisoners of War and Missing in Action Accounting Agency.
Not included in the confirmation process: dog tags, which may have been traded among soldiers before they died.
White was part of a force that invaded the Gilbert Islands to dislodge the Japanese. That force encountered intense fighting, and Windish says there is still evidence of that ferocity.
Windish says it’s gratifying to have White coming home, especially with Friday being National POW-MIA Day.
Friday’s processional route from Kansas City International to Emporia will use Interstate 35 to the East Sixth Avenue exit and then use Sixth — Highway 50 — to Roberts-Blue-Barnett. The flag-and-motorcycle escort should arrive in town between 3-4 pm but may arrive as soon as 2:30 pm. Saturday’s procession begins at 10:30 am. It will go from Roberts-Blue-Barnett west on Sixth and north on Prairie to Memorial Law Cemetery. Marine Corps honors will be part of the service, but the missing-man flyover is now no longer part of the ceremony.
Click below for the full interview:
Click below for video of a repatriation ceremony from the Tarawa Atoll. Submitted by History Flight with permission stated by US Department of Defense.
