Christian Peterson
Reporter@riverbendnews.org
On July 28, 2022, United States Army Corporal Alton Christie’s remains were identified by the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency (DPAA).
Christie was a Jasper resident who, at 18- years-old, was killed serving the United States during the Korean War. It all started in July of 1950. At that time, Christie was a member of Company B, 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. His unit had been engaged by the Korean People’s Army near Osan, South Korea, and Christie was reported missing in action. The DPAA found no evidence his body had been recovered after the battle, nor had they found any record of him being a prisoner of war. The army was forced to issue a presumptive finding of death on Dec. 31, 1953, and, in January of 1956, Christie’s remains were determined as nonrecoverable.
However, in October of 1950, the same year that Christie lost his life, 20 sets of remains were recovered near Osan, the same place where Christie’s unit had engaged in battle. Seven of the bodies were deemed “Unknowns.” One body, identified as X-214 Taejon, was initially thought to be Christie. However, investigators at the Central Identification Unit-Kokura in Japan were unable to positively identify the body as such. X-214 was transported with all unidentified Korean War bodies to be buried as “Unknown” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, otherwise known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
However, on Dec. 14, 2014, Christie’s next of kin contacted the army, requesting they disinter the body labeled X-214, their justification being that this person was potentially associated with Christie. On March 7, 2016, the body was disinterred and taken to the DPAA laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor in Hickam, Hawaii, for analysis.
The army proceeded to use dental, anthropological and circumstantial evidence to prove the body was Christie’s. On top of that, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis to further determine the identity of X-214. Eventually, they came to the conclusion it was, in fact, Christie’s body. Now, Christie’s name, recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, will have a rosette next to it, letting the world know he has been recovered. On Saturday, June 10, Christie’s body will be laid to rest at Evergreen Cemetery in Jasper.