Veterans stood tall and held American flags as family and friends walked inside Shepherd Funeral Chapel on May 16, just hours before a deadly tornado hit the area, to celebrate the repatriation service of Army Cpl. Frederick Carrino, who went missing during the Korean War nearly 75 years ago.
Inside the chapel were about 40 family members, friends and veterans hugging, remembering old family stories and paying their respects to Carrino. His remains were front and center and inside a brown casket draped in a flag.
“It's just amazing,” said Dennis Carrino, Frederick’s eldest nephew. “Seventy years and nobody knew anything, and we get a phone call out of the blue, ‘Hey, we found your uncle.’”
Most of the Carrino family did not have many memories of Frederick because he died years before many of them were born and before they became curious about his life.
“My dad and his brothers and sisters talked about him, but I was a little guy, [so I] didn't really pay that much attention then, but, boy, I'm paying attention now,” Dennis Carrino said at the funeral service.
Last year, he received a call from someone at Fort Knox military base in Kentucky. They told him that his uncle was no longer an unknown soldier, and that they could provide proof of his remains from laboratory analyses completed by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The nephew was overjoyed that his loved ones would finally get answers to their family mystery.
Frederick Carrino was born in Berkeley, Missouri, on May 17, 1932. He was one of seven children, who are all deceased. When he was a child, his family suffered a major loss when his mother died while birthing one of his siblings. His father took care of some of the children, but Frederick and other siblings were sent to a Catholic orphanage and foster homes in St. Louis. On June 3, 1949, he enlisted in the Army.
He was assigned to B Battery, 57th Field Artillery Battalion, 7th Infantry Division during the Korean War and fought in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. After the battle, the military could not account for him and 48 other soldiers. On Dec. 6, 1950, he was reported missing in action in the vicinity of Hagaru-ri, North Korea. The Army could not verify if he was a prisoner of war, so he was declared dead on Dec. 31, 1953. The Army soon declared his remains unrecoverable and, in late 1956, shipped them from North Korea to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Frederick Carrino was officially an unknown soldier in a grave marked X-15880. He was 18 when he died.
One thing Dennis does remember is how his dad and Frederick’s other siblings desperately hoped the military would someday find his remains. They were unable to witness it, but if it was not for his siblings’ DNA, the repatriation service may not have happened.
“Thank goodness my dad and my aunt had given DNA to the Army years and years ago,” Dennis Carrino said. “When he came up missing, they went to give the blood samples to get DNA, and thank God they did that because that's how they recovered him.”
Identifying remains
In July 2018, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency planned to disinter the remains of 652 unknown soldiers who disappeared during the Korean War. Two years later, the agency disinterred Frederick’s remains and sent them to its laboratory for testing.
According to the forensic anthropology report, the remains included a partial skeleton that was listed in good condition. It was missing a few ribs, his hands and feet, the coccyx, a small portion of his vertebrae, the hyoid and mandible bones and his right radius and ulna. Scientists used dental remains, bones and mitochondrial DNA to identify the remains.
Dennis said his uncle likely died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Phillip Carrino, Dennis’ son, flipped through the detailed report after the funeral service. He was fascinated by the photos of the remains, the injuries and how he was identified.
“To think that after this long they could find [his remains] and then piece it together by using the mitochondrial DNA and trace it back to the genealogy, it's amazing,” Phillip said.
He wants other families to have the same opportunity to welcome home their loved ones who went missing during the Korean War someday.
“Hopefully they start finding some more — I know they still have a backlog to go through — but with AI it's really speeding things along,” Phillip Carrino said.
U.S. forces suffered about 36,500 casualties during the Korean War. More than 7,400 personnel are still missing, and the agency believes that about 5,300 of them are located in North Korea.
Veterans proud to have served
Jeff Hastings and a few others placed flags around Shepard Funeral Chapel prior to the repatriation service. His nonprofit, the Flagman’s Mission Continues, pays respects to active-duty military, reserve members and first responders by setting up flags around funeral homes or along the funeral route.
“This is a celebration and closure on a piece of history that's been open for 75 years,” said Hastings, a 20-year Air Force veteran.
He said the work that the agency is doing is crucial to people who have been hoping to close this chapter in their family history. He hopes that with the recent cuts to federal agencies that the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency will not be affected.
Navy veteran John Vestraete came to the funeral with members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars' Florissant post. Carrino's service reminded him of his cousin, who was killed at 19 in the Korean War. He said being around other veterans at funeral services is like a military reunion. He and some of his chapter members and other veterans at the service talked about what they did in various wars, where they served and how they have been doing over the years.
Knowing that the government located Carrino’s remains and connected them back to his family gives veterans a sense of pride, Vestraete said.
“Pride that we have served,” he said.
Carrino’s remains are located in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. During the short interment service, Army Chaplain Jordan Ballard, who is from Ballwin and is stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, offered a few words of encouragement to the family, read Psalm 23 from the Bible and said a prayer. Dennis Carrino accepted military honors for his uncle, including the Purple Heart.
Ballard expressed that he was proud to participate in the service because it was his first time honoring an unknown soldier.
“Even though it’s much later, it’s never too late to render honors and to remember the fallen and the sacrifice they made and then to support the families,” Ballard said.
