Glen H. Jr. Stivison, age 34, from Blairsville, Pennsylvania.
Service era: Afghanistan
Military history: 569th Mobility Augmentation Company, 4th Engineer Battalion, Fort Carson, Colorado.
Date of death: Thursday, October 15, 2009
Death details: Died in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.
Source: Department of Defense, Military Times
William Samuel Waddle, age 39, from Blairsville, Pennsylvania, Indiana county.
Children: Julie Ballard
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Sunday, January 4, 1970
Death details: Hostile, killed in South Vietnam.
Source: National Archives, Blairsville Cemetery, family
Leslie J. Forsha from Blairsville, Pennsylvania, Indiana county.
Service era: World War I
Date of death: Tuesday, July 30, 1918
Death details: Died of wounds
Cemetery: Blairsville
Source: Soldiers of the Great War, findagrave.com
Vernon Ray Rhine from Indiana County Blairsville, Pennsylvania .
Parents: Mildred Rhine
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Unknown
Death details: By mid-November 1950, U.S. and Allied forces had advanced to within approximately sixty miles of the Yalu River, the border between North Korea and China. On November 25, approximately 300,000 Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) “volunteers” suddenly and fiercely counterattacked after crossing the Yalu. The 2nd Infantry Division, located the farthest north of units at the Chongchon River, could not halt the CCF advance and was ordered to withdraw to defensive positions at Sunchon in the South Pyongan province of North Korea. As the division pulled back from Kunu-ri toward Sunchon, it conducted an intense rearguard action while fighting to break through well-defended roadblocks set up by CCF infiltrators. The withdrawal was not complete until December 1, and the 2nd Infantry Division suffered extremely heavy casualties in the process. Corporal Vernon Ray Rhine, who entered the U.S. Army from Pennsylvania, was a member of B Company, 2nd Engineer Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured on December 1, 1950, during his unit’s attempt to fight through a heavily defended enemy roadblock near Kunu-Ri, North Korea. He was moved to the Camp 5 prison facility in Pyoktong, North Korea, where he died in the spring of 1951. His death was reported by repatriated prisoners of war and he was buried north of the camp, across the Yalu River. His remains were not identified among those that have been returned to U.S. custody since the ceasefire, and he is still unaccounted-for. Today, Corporal Rhine is memorialized in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, San Angelo Standard Times (1951), Latrobe Bulletin (1951)