Their brother left New Kensington to serve in Korea and never returned. 75 years later, they have closure

Marjorie Ann “Marjie” Mahar called her brother, Paul Bowser, one afternoon in March and told him to sit down.

“I just got a call from Fort Knox,” she told him.

On March 24, three hours before she was set to deliver a speech before the Tennessee House of Representatives about her late brother, Roland Lee Bowser, a soldier missing in action and killed in 1951 in the Korean War, she got a call from “Shorty.”

That was her nickname for William Cox — a mortuary affairs specialist for the Army, someone she’s gotten to know over the years.

He had the answer to 75 years worth of prayers.

Using dental, anthropological and chest radiograph testing, and mitochondrial DNA analysis and genome sequencing data, Roland had finally been identified, and accounted for.

“Sometimes you grieve what you didn’t have, and that has been my experience with Roland,” said Mahar, who was 2 years old when Roland left to serve in the Army.

“I’m grieving the loss of someone I don’t know, but should’ve.”

A New Kensington native, U.S. Army Pfc. Roland L. Bowser, 20, was killed during the Korean War. The U.S Department Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency recently announced he has since been accounted for.

“We cried, laughed and rejoiced,” said Paul Bowser, 88, of Dadeville, Ala. “Now, we have closure.”

The eight Bowser children grew up in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of New Kensington. Roland joined the Army during his senior year at Ken High.

Roland was good-looking, energetic and fun; Paul Bowser said, and a skilled trumpeter and track star at Ken High — with skills his younger brothers wanted to emulate. The children were tight-knit, sleeping on bunk beds, Bowser remembered. Four of the five Bowser boys — Roland, Warren, Stanley and Jack — would go on to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces.

“My last memory of (Roland) is the day he left,” Bowser said. “I was 13 years old, I saw him go down the steps of our house, get in a coupe car with his buddy and girlfriend, and off they went.”

In 1950, Roland was assigned to M Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. He would send letters back to the family home on Keystone Drive in New Kensington.

A family scrapbook now holds Roland’s writings.

“I really did not know him, but I have learned to know him from all the letters,” said Mahar, now 77 and of White House, Tenn.

“He was a very good writer. He did a beautiful job in conveying what was going on.”

As the war continued, the family could feel Roland’s thoughts through his writings: his handwriting would become more shaky and nervous, Mahar said.

On Nov. 2, 1950, Roland was reported missing in action after his battalion’s fighting-withdrawal from Unsan, North Korea. After the war, returning prisoners reported that Roland died in captivity at Camp 5 in Pyoktong, North Korea, in June 1951.

In 1954, during Operation Glory, the United Nations Command received and transported unknown remains from Camp 5 to an identification unit at Kokura, Japan, for examination.

Two years later, all unidentified remains from the identification unit were buried as unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific – also known as the Punchbowl — in Honolulu, Hawaii. Because Roland was “unknown,” his family was unaware that he was buried in the Punchbowl all this time, Mahar said.

“All we knew was that his remains were never found,” Mahar said. “…It was unsettling, not knowing where he was.”

As time passed, the Bowser family maintained hope that Roland would be found and identified, but wasn’t sure it would actually happen. His siblings started families and careers states away from the Alle-Kiski Valley.

“I’ve been praying for 75 years that we’d find out what happened to him,” Mahar said. “We didn’t want to give up hope — we knew we’d be OK if we never found out — but there was always that hope that we would find out where he was buried.”

On March 29, 1973, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency established the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Thailand.

More than 8,100 soldiers were considered missing in 1973, according to DPAA. Of those, 734 have since been found and accounted for.

“That’s what we do, is bring these soldiers home,” Cox told TribLive.

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Defense contacted the Bowser family — they wanted to take DNA samples from siblings Paul and Marjie and put it into their database for possible future matches for unknown soldiers’ remains, Marjie said.

Over the years, the family would attend different meetings for updates from DPAA.

As it turned out, Roland likely was the remains of 652 soldiers disinterred from the Punchbowl on Aug. 5, 2019, as part of the Korean War Disinterment Plan.

The same year, Bowser and Mahar traveled to Seoul, South Korea, on invitation from the South Korean government, for a heroes’ remembrance ceremony. The South Korean government deeply appreciated the United States’ service to their country during the Korean War, Mahar said.

“I have never been treated so royally in my life,” she said.

There, she read a poignant, heartfelt letter she wrote to Roland, remembering the time the family found out he was killed, and reflecting on Roland’s sacrifice and the impact it had on the family, the country and the South Korean people. A recording of the speech is available on YouTube.

Mahar read the same letter to the Tennessee House of Representatives March 24 of this year. That was hours after Cox called her and delivered the positive news.

“They’re salts of the Earth,” Cox said of Paul Bowser and Mahar. “They’re so excited. You can just imagine — Roland’s been missing since the Korean War. They’re excited to get him home.”

The technology and forensic science used to positively identify Roland is incredible, Bowser said. Ninety nine percent of Roland’s skeleton is intact, Bowser said.

“There’s no doubt in the forensic mind this is Roland Lee Bowser,” Paul Bowser said. “We are deeply grateful to the forensic scientists, and we are impressed with what they’ve done.”

Roland’s remains will be transferred to Virginia and the family plans a burial ceremony Aug. 7 at Arlington National Cemetery — that date happens to be his mother, Virginia Bowser’s, 122th birthday, Mahar said. Relatives scattered from across the country plan to reconnect there.

Mahar hopes sharing her family’s story can provide hope to the others who have missing or unaccounted for soldiers in their lives.

“I am so grateful to be an American and have a government that cares about finding our missing soldiers,” she said.