Gone but not forgotten

More than six decades after the end of World War II, the families of men like Joe Huba are making a new push to find and bring home the remains of their missing and dead.

In 2006, the recovery unit confirmed the identity of a World War I doughboy, Pvt. Francis Lupo, discovered in a construction site near Soissons, France, matching mitochondrial DNA from his bones with a niece’s saliva swab. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

“Things that weren’t possible for identification of remains 10 years ago are possible now,” said Gary Zaetz, 53, of Cary, N.C., who has been pressing the government for a recovery from a mountainside in northern India, where a World War II B-24 bomber nicknamed “Hot As Hell” was found a year ago by an Arizona mountaineer.

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