The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced this month that U.S. Army Pfc. Vincent A. Vega, 18, of Chicago, Illinois, killed during the Korean War, was accounted for May 6, 2025.
Vega's family recently received their full briefing on his identification, therefore, additional details on his identification can be shared.
In the summer of 1950, Vega was assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was reported missing in action July 5, near Osan, Republic of Korea (South Korea) after his unit encountered enemy combatants. He was never reported as a prisoner of war and subsequent searches of the battlefield failed to recover his remains. Lacking evidence of continued survival, the U.S. Army issued a presumptive finding of death of Dec. 31, 1953. He was declared nonrecoverable on Jan. 16, 1956.
In 1966, a member of the U.S. Army 2nd Infantry Division, serving in South Korea at the time, discovered a set of remains, later designated X-6380, from an old bunker. An American Graves Registration Team was sent to recover the remains, and they were transferred to the U.S. Army Mortuary in Yokohama, Japan for review. The remains were unable to be positively identified at the time and were sent to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, where they were interred as a Korean War Unknown.
In July 2018, DPAA proposed a plan to disinter 652 Korean War Unknowns from the Punchbowl. In August 2021, DPAA personnel disinterred Unknown X-6380 as part of Phase Three of the Korean War Disinterment Plan and sent those remains to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.
To identify Vega, DPAA scientists used dental, anthropological, and isotope analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis.
Vega’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.
Vega will be buried in Elwood, Illinois in October 2025