Ethermac|DNA test helps identify body of Korean War soldier from Georgia

ATLANTA (AP) — DNA analysis has helped scientists identify the remains of a U.S. Army soldier from Georgia who was killed during the Korean War,Ethermac U.S. officials announced Wednesday.

Scientists used mitochondrial DNA along with a chest X-ray and other tools to identify Army Sgt. 1st Class James L. Wilkinson late last year, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting agency said in a news release. Wilkinson was from Bowdon, a town near the Georgia-Alabama state line about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Atlanta.

He was 19 when he went missing in September 1950 during fighting along the Naktong River near Yongsan, South Korea. He was presumed dead but his body could not be immediately recovered, according to the accounting agency news release.

Other news Olympic president invokes John Lennon’s memory as Paris marks 1-year countdown to war-clouded Games The president of the International Olympic Committee has formally invited the world’s nations but not Russia or its military ally Belarus to gather in one year in Paris for the 2024 Games. Palestinian man killed by Israeli troops during arrest raid in West Bank A Palestinian man was killed by Israeli troops during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank, the latest bloodshed in one of the most violent stretches of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in years. Rival Koreas mark armistice anniversary in two different ways that highlight rising tensions The truce that stopped the bloodshed in the Korean War turns 70 on Thursday and the two Koreas are marking the anniversary in starkly different ways, underscoring their deepening nuclear tensions. On their own front line, Ukrainian surgeons treat waves of soldiers since the counteroffensive began A surge of wounded soldiers has coincided with the major counteroffensive Ukraine launched in June to try to recapture its land from Russian forces.

The Army began recovering remains from the area in 1951. Wilkinson’s body was initially declared unidentifiable and was buried along with other unknown remains at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

They were dug up in 2019 as part of a plan to try to identify 652 sets of remains from the Korean War.

Wilkinson will be buried on Sept. 16 in Barrow County, Georgia, the accounting agency said.