Members of the Marine Corps Honor Guard carry the casket of Emmett Kines for burial Monday, at the West Virginia National Cemetery, in Pruntytown.
GRAFTON, W.Va. — Seventy-three years after Emmett Kines was cut down in the fighting in Japan in World War II, he finally got to come home.
Kines was among 1,000 Marines who died in the fighting at Tarawa Atoll in 1943.
An organization that uses airplane searches and DNA analysis to bring fallen soldiers back to families, recovered his remains recently.
A full military funeral was held Sept. 19, at the West Virginia National Cemetery, near his Grafton hometown.
Betty Huffman, 90, who is the last of their immediate family, said her big brother was a fun-loving prankster.
“He was my buddy,” she said.
“I’ve spent my whole life missing him, and now he’s back home.”
To see more from The Dominion Post website, TheDPost.com, click here.
