73 years after he went missing in action during the Korean War, the remains of then 22-year-old U.S. Army Sgt. Lawrence J. Robidoux have been accounted for.
In 1950, Ronidoux was reported as Missing in Action (MIA) after his unit, B Company, 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division withdrew from Ipsok in North Korea. After the conclusion of the war, returning American Prisoners of War stated that they were imprisoned in Ronidoux at Prisoner of War Camp #5, and that he had died there in May of 1951.
In 1954 the remains of Americans were returned to the United Nations from Prisoner of War Camp #5, but among those remains, the US government was unable to identify any belonging to Ronidoux so he was listed as unrecoverable.
This changed in 2018 when the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) made the decision to disinter over 600 unidentified remains from the Korean War and reexamine them using modern anthropological techniques, DNA analysis, and dental records. This led to the remains of unknown soldier X-14646 being positively identified as Sgt. Robidoux.
Robidoux will be laid to rest at Arlington National cemetery at a date yet to be scheduled.
7,507 Americans are still unaccounted from the Korean War according to DPAA statistics.
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Reach Jack Murphy: jack@connectingvets.com or @JackMurphyRGR.
