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ID Announcements

Press Release | Sept. 10, 2024

Soldier Accounted for from Korean War (Ramos, I.)

Washington  –  

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Israel Ramos, 18, of Calverton, New York, killed during the Korean War, was accounted for May 2, 2024.

In August 1950, Ramos was a member of D Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. He went missing in action after his unit engaged in combat actions with the enemy along the Naktong River in the vicinity of Yongsan, South Korea, on Aug. 31. Due to intense fighting in the area, his body could not be recovered at that time. The exact circumstances of his death were unknown, and the U.S. Army determined him to be nonrecoverable on Jan. 16, 1956.

In December 1950, members from the 565th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company located and recovered six sets of remains from the east side of Hill 311, roughly one mile northwest of Chilhyeon-ri village. Of the six remains, two soldiers were identified, while the remaining designated X-326 thru X-329 were interred in the Miryang United Nations Memorial Cemetery. The remains were reexamined in 1955 and all but X-328 were identified. The remains were subsequently buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

In June 2021, DPAA personnel disinterred Unknown X-328 and sent the remains to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.

To identify Ramos’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as chest radiograph and other circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Ramos’s name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others who are still missing from the Korean War. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Ramos will be buried in Calverton, New York, on Oct. 11, 2024.

For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.

To see the most up-to-date statistics on DPAA recovery efforts for those unaccounted for from the Korean War, go to the Korean War Accounting page on the DPAA website at: https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaFamWebKorean.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, find us on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa or https://www.linkedin.com/company/defense-pow-mia-accounting-agency.

Ramos’s personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt00000004lipEAA.