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Home 75 years over due!!!!! United States Army Sgt. Thomas Joseph O'Brien, missing from the Korean War, is now accounted for and was returned home.
On Sept. 27, 2024, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Sgt. Thomas Joseph O'Brien, missing from the Korean War.
Sergeant Thomas Joseph O’Brien entered the U.S. Army and served in Headquarters Battery, 90th Field Artillery Battalion, 25th Infantry Division. He was born in Ballyvistea, Emly, County Tipperary, Ireland, and resided in New York.
By Late October 1950, United Nations forces had driven North Korean units north of Pyongyang and were steadily advancing northward. On October 26, O'Brien was in a forward observation post on the south side of the Taeryong River when a Korean People’s Army (KPA) infantry and tanks attacked the position while moving through the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). O'Brien was killed by enemy tank fire and his observation post was overrun, preventing the immediate recovery of his body. His remains were unaccounted for following the ceasefire.
After the war, a set of remains was returned to U.S. custody as part of the exchange of war dead known as Operation GLORY. A tentative association was made between the remains and O'Brien, but it could not be confirmed with the techniques available at the time, and the remains were interred as an unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. In March 2018, the DPAA disinterred this set of remains for further study. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available allowed scientists to identify O'Brien.