Corporal Vester Hicks Jr. was 17 years old when he vanished during a brutal fighting withdrawal near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea, and for 76 years, nobody knew what became of him. His unidentified remains actually came home to American soil decades ago, buried without a name in Honolulu. It took modern DNA science, and the patience of a family that mostly did not live to see it, to finally bring him back to Wyandotte, Michigan, for a proper burial.
Hicks enlisted in the U.S. Army on March 21, 1950, at just 17 years old, so young that his mother, Mary Flippo, had to sign his enlistment paperwork because he was legally too young to do it himself, according to Czopek Funeral Directors. He was born on December 20, 1932, meaning he was just 18 days short of his 18th birthday when he disappeared in Korea. Within months of enlisting, he was serving with Company C, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, defending positions east of the Chosin Reservoir near Sinhung-ni.
A Fighting Withdrawal Cut Off by the Enemy
Hicks went missing on or about December 2, 1950, alongside 68 other soldiers from Company C alone during a fighting withdrawal under heavy enemy fire, as detailed by DVIDS. The withdrawal route toward Hagaru-ri had been cut by Chinese roadblocks and constant fire from surrounding high ground, leaving little chance for American forces to recover the fallen. The Army issued a presumptive finding of death for Hicks on December 31, 1953, and officially declared his remains nonrecoverable in January 1956, because American Graves Registration personnel were barred from searching enemy-controlled territory in North Korea.
United Nations forces were never able to re-enter the battlefield ground where Hicks fell, leaving his family with decades of legal uncertainty and no remains to bury. Yet Hicks had, in a sense, already come home. During Operation GLORY in 1954, a post-armistice exchange of military war dead, North Korea returned unidentified remains recovered from the eastern Chosin Reservoir. Those remains were designated Unknown X-15894 and interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
DNA and Decades Finally Provide an Answer
Unknown X-15894 sat in Hawaii for 67 years before scientists from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency disinterred the remains on March 8, 2021, as part of Phase Four of the agency's Korean War Disinterment Project. After forensic analysis and DNA testing, DPAA scientists officially identified the remains as Hicks on September 4, 2025, per the same DVIDS account of the case.
The identification depended on family reference DNA samples provided years earlier by Hicks' father, William, and his sister, Ruby Hammack. Ruby passed away in May 2026, just four months before her brother's funeral, making her the only family member who lived long enough to learn the DNA match had been confirmed. Hicks left behind 12 full, half-, and step-siblings, and none of them survived to attend his final burial, according to Czopek Funeral Directors.
Hicks' honors included the Purple Heart, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Korean Service Medal with one bronze service star, Combat Infantryman Badge, and United Nations Service Medal, honoring the corporal who went missing as a teenager.
A Homecoming Decades in the Making
Hicks' flag-draped casket arrived at Detroit Metro Airport at 5:27 a.m. on Wednesday aboard a commercial Delta Air Lines flight, where surviving nieces, nephews, military officers, and local veterans assembled on the tarmac to receive his remains. His niece, Sherry Dragone, recalled watching the casket being unloaded at the airport.
Two days later, Michigan State Police and motorcycle riders from the VFW, American Legion, and Patriot Guard Riders escorted Hicks' procession along Fort Street and I-75 North from Wyandotte to Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly, Michigan, where he was interred with a 21-gun salute. Crowds gathered along Oak Street as the procession passed. ClickOnDetroit reported that photojournalist Jacob Nagel covered the soldier's return to Wyandotte more than 75 years after his death.
An Ongoing Search for Missing Service Members
Hicks' identification is one small piece of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's ongoing effort to account for missing service members.
