Samuel Edbert Kelsey, age 24, from Troup, Texas, Cherokee county.
Service era: Iraq
Military history: Company E, 3D Battalion, 7Th Infantry, 4 Bct, Fort Stewart, Ga
Date of death: Thursday, December 13, 2007
Death details: Hostile; Tunnis, Iraq
Source: Department of Defense, Military Times
Francis Wayne Townsend, age 24, from Rusk, Texas, Cherokee county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Sunday, August 13, 1972
Death details: On June 13, 2002, Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JTF-FA) identified the remains of Captain Francis Wayne Townsend, missing from the Vietnam War.
Captain Townsend entered the U.S. Air Force from Texas and was a member of the 14th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron. On August 13, 1972, he was the navigator aboard an RF-4C Phantom II (tail number unknown) on a photo reconnaissance mission against enemy targets over North Vietnam. His aircraft was shot down in Quang Binh Province, killing Capt Townsend, and his remains could not be recovered at the time. In 1997, an investigation team traveled to Quang Binh Province to interview local residents and survey a heavily scavenged crash site located in a bomb crater; in 1998, artifacts and human remains previously removed from the site were turned over to investigators, and in 2002, Capt Townsend was identified from these remains.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Ronald S. Athanasiou, age 21, from Jacksonville, Texas, Cherokee county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Wednesday, January 21, 1970
Source: National Archives, Galveston Daily News (1970)
Dewey W. Burns from Texas, Cherokee county.
Service era: World War II
Date of death: Wednesday, October 7, 1942
Death details: Following the Allied surrender on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, the Japanese began the forcible transfer of American and Filipino prisoners of war to various prison camps in central Luzon, at the northern end of the Philippines. The largest of these camps was the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp. At its peak, Cabanatuan held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war that were captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Camp overcrowding worsened with the arrival of Allied prisoners who had surrendered from Corregidor on May 6, 1942. Conditions at the camp were poor, with food and water extremely limited, leading to widespread malnutrition and outbreaks of malaria and dysentery. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, approximately 2,800 Americans had died at Cabanatuan. Prisoners were forced to bury the dead in makeshift communal graves, often completed without records or markers. As a result, identifying and recovering remains interred at Cabanatuan was difficult in the years after the war. Private Dewey W. Burns joined the U.S. Army in Texas and served with the 803rd Engineers Battalion in the Philippines during World War II. He was captured in Bataan following the American surrender and died of dysentery on October 7, 1942, at the Cabanatuan Prison Camp in Nueva Ecija Province. He was buried in a communal grave in the camp cemetery along with other deceased American POWs; however, his remains could not be associated with any remains recovered from Cabanatuan after the war. Today, Private Burns is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Cemetery: Manila American Cemetery
Source: National Archives, American Battle Monuments Commission, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Earl Fuller from Jacksonville, Texas, Cherokee county.
Service era: World War I
Date of death: Monday, October 28, 1918
Death details: Died of Disease
Cemetery: Suresnes American
Source: Soldiers of the Great War, findagrave.com
Tom Findley from Alto, Texas, Cherokee county.
Service era: World War I
Date of death: Unknown
Death details: Killed in action
Source: Soldiers of the Great War, findagrave.com, findagrave.com