Steven Ernest Lucas, age 21, from North Vernon, Indiana, Jennings county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Saturday, October 3, 1970
Death details: Non-hostile in South Vietnam
Source: National Archives, Associated Press (1970)
Charles Hobart McDaniel from Indiana, Jennings county.
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Thursday, November 2, 1950
Death details: On September 12, 2018, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Master Sergeant Charles Hobert McDaniel, missing from the Korean War.
Master Sergeant McDaniel, who entered the U.S. Army from Indiana, was a member of the Medical Company, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Battalion. In 1950, his unit was positioned near Unsan, North Korea, when they came under attack from Chinese Communist Forces (CCF). MSG McDaniel was initially reported missing following this action but was never seen alive in enemy hands. On July 27, 2018, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea returned fifty-five boxes reportedly containing the remains of U.S. service members killed during the Korean War. These remains were accessioned into the DPAA laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, and MSG McDaniel was individually identified from among them.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Kenneth L. Cozad, age 21, from Butlerville, Indiana, Jennings county.
Parents: Francis Cozad
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Sunday, July 30, 1950
Death details: On July 30, 1950, the 24th Infantry Division’s undermanned and ill-equipped 19th Infantry Regiment, which had been rushed to Korea from garrison duty in Japan, established defensive lines around the South Korean city of Chinju. The soldiers of the 19th Infantry faced the North Korean People’s Army (NKPA), which was moving inexorably south down the Korean peninsula. The unit lacked heavy artillery and anti-tank weaponry, and the Americans were ultimately unable to stop the NKPA and were forced to withdraw further south to prevent being surrounded. Sergeant Kenneth Lee Cozad, who joined the U.S. Army from Indiana, served with G Company, 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was reported missing near Chinju on July 30, though specific details regarding his loss are unknown. His name was later discovered on a school house used by the North Koreans as a temporary holding point for prisoners of war (POWs), however, he was never officially reported to be a POW, and after the war, none of the returned POWs remembered seeing SGT Cozad alive in enemy hands. It is believed he may have been held only briefly before he died of wounds or was killed by his captors. His remains were not identified among those returned to U.S. custody after the ceasefire, and he is still unaccounted for. Today, Sergeant Cozad is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency , Columbus Republic (1953)