Korean War soldier's remains identified and returned to family. Here's his story

Corrections & Clarifications: The spelling of Tammi Shreeve's first name and the difference in age between her mother and her uncle were incorrect in a previous version of this article.

The remains of a 19-year-old soldier from Douglas, Arizona, who was killed in action during the Korean War in 1950 arrived in Tucson on Tuesday, according to the soldier’s family.

Pvt. Felix M. Yanez served as a member of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He died on July 16, 1950, while fighting to keep the North Korean Army from advancing. He died along the Kum River, north of Taejon in South Korea.

His remains were transported from Hawaii to Tucson, where they were escorted by Patriot Guard Riders — an organization whose members attend the funerals of U.S. military service members and first responders — to the South Lawn Cemetery in preparation for burial on Sept. 3.

According to a summary provided by the military describing the timeline leading up to Yanez’s death, the young man was sent with others from the 19th Infantry Regiment to fight the war in its early days.

The regiment was deployed to South Korea from Japan on July 4, and the war was not going well. The regiment was “badly understrength,” lacking heavy artillery and anti-tank weapons, the document stated.

Just 10 days after Yanez arrived in Korea, the situation was dire. At one point, the 19th Infantry Regiment held defensive positions along the Kum River, and covered an extremely large area of operations that stretched almost 30 miles. The North Korean Army beat back the enemy by small arms and artillery fire.

However, “because of the large front, significant gaps existed between individual units,” and the enemy was able to cross the river, according to the summary.

The day Yanez was killed, his regiment had been trying to break through a 3-mile roadblock set up by the North Korean Army, after a "fearsome volume of artillery and small arms fire." The U.S. military units were unable to break through and the regiment was told to withdraw to Taejon.

However, the only way to withdraw was right through enemy lines. Yanez and hundreds of others were reported to have been killed in action that day. Yanez was reportedly killed during this retreat by an enemy mortar blast.

“Of approximately 900 soldiers in the 19th Infantry Regiment on the Kum River on the morning of 16 July 1950, only 434 were present for duty 24 hours later,” stated the military’s summary, adding that a total of 103 soldiers from this battle, including Yanez, had been unaccounted for.

Finally, at least one of those soldiers’ families can get closure. Yanez’s remains will finally arrive in Arizona after decades of waiting.

Arizona war dead: Nearly 3,000 have died in service to their country

One woman’s search for her missing uncle

For Tammi Shreeve’s entire life, she has heard about her uncle Felix Yanez. She heard stories about how he was fun, adventurous and young at heart; and how he was protective over her mother, who was eight years younger than him.

For the past 10 years, Shreeve attended meetings for families of soldiers missing in action in the hope of getting answers about what happened to her uncle. These meetings are hosted by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Shreeve, who now lives in Utah but whose family still lives in Arizona, began attending the meetings after her mother found one hosted in Phoenix. After her first meeting, she continued to dedicate much of her life to keeping his memory alive.

“I became invested in it. In my heart, it really just sparked something that I wanted to be involved in,” Shreeve said about the meetings. “I wanted to carry this torch for my uncle to keep his spirit alive.”

And after years of talking to other veterans, friends of her uncle and DPAA officials, without any trace of Yanez, Shreeve said her mother began to lose hope.

Shreeve even started preparing her children to continue to attend these meetings if he was never found in her own lifetime.

That preparation turned out to be unnecessary. Shreeve received the fateful call about her uncle on July 13. She cried tears of happiness.

“I was sobbing,” she said.

Shreeve called her mom, who also started crying.

Just a few days after the call, she attended a two-day seminar in Washington, D.C., hosted by the DPAA that she had already planned to attend.

While she typically stands in front of hundreds of people at these meetings and tells the story of her uncle, this time she could finally tell them that his remains were found. In response, she received a standing ovation from the large crowd of attendees.

“There will be 600 people in the room, and everybody is connected,” Shreeve said about the bond with other attendees. “You can walk up to every person in the room and just talk to them. ‘What is your loved one’s story?'”

Who was Yanez?

Through speaking to veterans at the meetings, Shreeve was able to piece together situations her uncle might have been living through before he died.

“One man was telling me … that some of the soldiers that went in (to battle) went in with a .45, an extra clip and a rifle with whatever bullets it held. And that’s what they had to fight tanks with,” Shreeve said. “And that’s what my uncle was facing and unfortunately he was killed trying to do that.”

Shreeve said knowing how her uncle’s actions helped keep the enemy at bay, giving American troops more time to arrive, means that his death was not in vain.

While attending DPAA meetings, Shreeve said she has been approached by people who knew her uncle from Douglas.

One woman said she remembered when Yanez was in her backyard with her brother and they dared each other to enlist in the military, even though they were 17 and too young to join.

“They ran down, lied about their age and joined the military," Shreeve said. “At the time they were 17 they had to lie about their age, but obviously it came out because they had to show proof of their age."

'Emotions for a man I never met': After 65 years, a Korean War veteran returns

To this day, that story is the only clue as to why he joined the military — because of a dare.

“We are all incredibly happy and honored that he served, and for everything that he has sacrificed for us,” she said.

7.5K Korean War soldiers' still unaccounted for

According to a summary of Continuing Efforts to Resolve Korean War Loss Cases released by the military, the U.S. Army had recovered over 25,000 dead casualties between 1951 and 1956. The Army searched in June and July of 1952, in the area where Yanez was lost, but failed to find him.

Following up on work from the 1950s, the DPAA has been conducting investigative and recovery operations in South Korea every year since the beginning of the last decade.

According to the DPAA, there are approximately 7,544 service members from the Korean War who are still unaccounted for. Of that total, it is estimated that a majority, 5,200, are in North Korea.

Shreeve urges anyone with family members who have gone missing to attend DPAA meetings. The DPAA hosts briefings focused on missing soldiers in different conflicts such as the Vietnam War, the Korean War and the Cold War. The agency also hosts family update meetings that focus on losses from all conflicts.

The story history forgot: He may have been the first death of the Korean War. This is the life he left behind

Shreeve said many of the attendees at these meetings are getting older and dying, leaving their lost soldiers forgotten by younger family members. She urged the younger generations to get involved and continue the search for lost soldiers.

Coverage of southern Arizona on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is funded by the nonprofit Report for America in association with The Republic.

Reach the reporter at sarah.lapidus@gannett.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Korean War soldier Felix Yanez's remains return to Ariz. for burial