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Defense POW/MIA Accounting AgencyFulfilling Our Nation's Promise

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## News Release

# Soldier Missing From Korean War Ideentified (Thibodeaux)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced todaythat the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing from the Korean War, were recently identified andwill be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Army Sgt. Clement Thibodeaux Jr., 18, of Baton Rouge, La., will be buried Sept. 10, inChurch Point, La. In late Nov. 1950 elements of the 25th Infantry Division (ID) and 35th InfantryRegiment (IR) were fighting with units of the Chinese army north of the Ch’ongch’on River inNorth Korea. In the course of the fighting, and the subsequent withdrawal by U.S. forces, the25th ID suffered extensive casualties, with numerous men being taken captive by the Chinese. Itwas during this withdrawal, Thibodeaux was captured by enemy forces.

In 1953, returning U. S. personnel told debriefers that Thibodeaux had been captured andtaken by enemy forces to a POW camp known as “Death Valley.” Soldiers also stated that in Jan.1951 Thibodeaux died from malnutrition and pneumonia. His remains were not among thosereturned by communist forces in 1954.

In 2005, a joint U.S. and Democratic People's Republic Korea (D.P.R.K.) team excavateda site in Unsan County in North Korea and found multiple remains. The remains subsequentlywere repatriated to the U.S. and were sent for scientific identification.

In the identification of Thibodeaux, scientists from the Joint POW/MIA AccountingCommand (JPAC) and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) usedcircumstantial evidence, and forensic identification tools such as dental comparisons andmitochondrial DNA – which matched Thibodeaux’s brother.

Today, more than 7,900 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Korean War.Identifications continue to be made from the remains that were returned to the United States,using forensic and DNA technology.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missingAmericans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.

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