The remains of a soldier missing in action for 61 years will be buried in West Tennessee this weekend. A flag-draped casket arrived at the Nashville airport Wednesday.
The skeletal remains of PFC Frank Jennings arrived at Nashville International Airport Wednesday morning.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol escorted the skeletal remains back to Parsons where Private First Class Frank Jennings graduated high school. He was 19 when he went missing in South Korea in April of 1951.
He’s survived by a brother and sister who say Korean authorities found the remains in 1986. Tracy Pevahouse is a niece who says Jennings’ identity was finally confirmed through DNA tests in December.
“I think it just gives closure, that he’s actually home. He’s going to be buried in the graveyard where his mother is.”
PFC Frank Jennings
Pevahouse says Jennings’ mother always said her son would come home.
Two years after he went missing in action, he was declared dead by the military, according to Pevahouse.
“They did a prisoner exchange with Korea, and none of the prisoners who were there had any recollection of Frank.”
Jennings was posthumously awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart.
The U.S. military says more than 8,000 servicemen from the Korean War have not yet been accounted for.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM