His name was Reginald Kestel and while he made it home to America and lived to almost age 80, his path to eternity was one of sacrifice and challenge.
“He served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was taken prisoner during the Korean War,” Kathy Grant, Kestel’s niece, told DC Military.
Kestel, who was from New York, was imprisoned in a camp run by communist troops.
A website hosted by the Korean War Legacy Foundation writes about the hardships sustained by members of the armed forces under the United Nations Command participating in the conflict, which ran from the summer of 1950 until the summer of 1953.
The foundation notes many of the men captured were mostly in their late teens and early 20s.
“Their time in captivity would be more horrific than anything their young minds could have imagined,” the foundation said of the prisoners.
It notes the war prisoners endured atrocities such as prolonged “death marches,” confinement in animal pens, exposure to outdoor temperatures well below zero and attempts by the communists to brainwash them.
“An astonishing 38% of U.S. prisoners died in captivity” during the Korean conflict, the foundation said.
Kestel had been imprisoned for over a year when he and four others were able to escape.
“Not everybody made it out of camp,” Grant said. “He and other Marines were flown back and he returned to his home base. Uncle Reggie didn’t talk about it much. It was terrible what he went through but he didn’t talk about it.”
Kestel was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries sustained during his service in Korea.
When his family found out he was returning stateside and coming home, “They shut down the whole block and had a welcome home celebration,” Grant said.
After his death in 2009 Kestel was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Grant, who resides in Prince George’s County, works at Southern Memorial Garden in Dunkirk. Last December, the cemetery hosted Wreaths Across America, a nearly 20-year-old nonprofit, which has as its mission a focus on remembering, honoring and teaching everyone, especially the youth, the sacrifices members of the armed forces have made.
During the ceremony, Grant placed a wreath on a display tripod to honor all prisoners of war and American armed forces members who remain missing in action and unaccounted for. The wreath display was done in Kestel’s memory.
Wreaths Across America is working to raise awareness for the Cecil Field POW/MIA Memorial, another nonprofit working toward the establishment of a national museum, which will recognize over 81,000 Americans still missing and unaccounted for since the beginning of World War II, according to the Wreaths Across America website. The ultimate goal is to have the memorial and museum established as a historic site.
To find out more about Wreaths Across America go to www.wreathacrossamerica.org.
To learn more about the Cecil Field POW/MIA Memorial, go to powmiamemorial.org.