Soldier is home and finally at rest
Killed in Korea, he's buried in Akron
By Jim Carney
Beacon Journal staff writer
All his life, 38-year-old Army Staff Sgt. Robert Jenkins was inspired by his great-uncle, Army Pfc. Francis Crater Jr.
Pfc. Crater's service and sacrifice for his country are what led Jenkins to a career in the Army, where he has served two tours of duty in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and a year in South Korea, and expects to go to Iraq on a third tour next year.
On Saturday, he stood next to the burial site of his great-uncle under a brilliant October sun and smiled.
``It's the happiest funeral I've ever been to,'' said Jenkins, a Cuyahoga Falls High School graduate.
The 20-year-old Pfc. Crater, known both as ``Junior'' and ``Shorty,'' has finally come home. He was buried with full military honors Saturday at Akron's Greenlawn Memorial Park on Romig Road.
The remains of the Barberton man, who was killed in North Korea in the Korean War on Nov. 28, 1950, were discovered in September and October 2003, in a 4-foot-deep grave.
He was identified in April from dog tags found in the grave, confirmed by Army scientists using DNA testing.
Pfc. Crater was welcomed home Saturday by scores of people -- including dozens from area veterans and MIA/POW support groups such as Rolling Thunder and Patriot Guard -- who held flags along the road in the cemetery leading to where the fallen soldier was to be buried.
One of those holding a flag to honor Pfc. Crater was Korean War Army veteran Jack Holliday, 76, of Barberton.
``God bless him and his family for giving his service in time of need for his country,'' said Holliday, an Ohio Brass retiree.
Kevin Ivey, 40, of Akron, an Army veteran of Panama and the Persian Gulf War, was part of the Rolling Thunder group at the funeral home and church.
``It's phenomenal,'' he said, that a fallen soldier has finally come home after 56 years.
Unfortunately, he said, ``there are a lot more out there,'' a reference to the number of service members still unaccounted for -- those MIA, or missing in action.
According to the Department of Defense's American Information Service, 88,000 service members are missing from the nation's most recent wars: 78,000 from World War II, 8,100 from the Korean War, 1,801 from the Vietnam War, 125 from the Persian Gulf War, and Army Reserve Sgt. Keith ``Matt'' Maupin of Ohio, the only soldier missing from the Iraq War.
Letter at funeral home
At the Hennessy-Bagnoli Funeral Home on North Main Street in Akron, an Army uniform with the Crater name tag was displayed in the soldier's flag-draped casket. Along with the uniform was an envelope holding a letter that the soldier had written to his parents, Frank and Bea Crater, from Korea in the summer of 1950.
There were black and white photos of him in another display area, along with the Western Union telegram informing his parents that their son had been killed.
Pfc. Crater's only surviving immediate family member, brother Glenn D. Crater, 79, of Akron, thanked the Army for its work in recovering, identifying and bringing his brother home.
Glenn Crater also praised the community for its support of his family. ``I am really thrilled so many people remembered my brother,'' he said.
He said he had feared that his brother's remains would never be found.
The homecoming and funeral service and burial were very emotional for him, he said. ``I don't know how anybody can help from crying when you hear taps and the bugle,'' he said.
How soldier died
Staff Sgt. Jenkins of the 101st Airborne Division stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky., said witnesses told his family decades ago that his great-uncle was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Chinese soldiers in his machine gun nest when he was killed.
``He was in that nest to save his friends, his comrades,'' Jenkins said, adding that Pfc. Crater was only 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed only 125 pounds. ``That is courage,'' he said.
In 2000, Jenkins spent a year in South Korea, and on a trip to the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas, he wrote a poem about his great uncle. ``Way up there, that bad land, our sleeping son, entombed in the Siberian cold'' was one of the lines he wrote of his long-lost relative.
His great-uncle, he said, continues to inspire him because ``he never gave up.''
In his emotional eulogy for his great-uncle, Jenkins challenged those in the audience to live like Junior Crater.
``Maybe we can all be like that,'' he said. ``Make your moments count. You never know what tomorrow brings.''