Korean War vet buried in Arlington, 60 years later

From Detroit News, Sept 2, 2011: Korean War vet buried in Arlington, 60 years later
Arlington, Va. — After six decades of mystery, a Detroiter who died during the Korean War was buried here Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery just south of the nation's capital.

Under warm, sunny skies, a chaplain laid 27-year-old Army Cpl. A.V. Scott to rest and presented a flag from the casket to Scott's half-brother Rudy Caldwell.

The mystery of Scott's remains stretched more than six decades from his capture Feb. 12, 1951.

He was delivering supplies to coalition troops east of the South Korean capital of Seoul when Chinese soldiers attacked and captured him.

Scott was forced to march to a prisoner-of-war camp in North Korea, where fellow prisoners said he died in April of that year.

After decades of refusal, North Korea's notoriously secretive authoritarian government returned remains from that camp and other sites throughout the country to the United States between 1991 and 1994. As part of the Department of Defense's efforts to identify returned remains and bury the dead, forensic experts were able to use DNA and dental matches to confirm Scott's remains.

Scott, a native of Canada who moved to Detroit with his mother, Gladys Caldwell, survived a grueling march after his capture in 1951, defense officials have told his family. But he died of exhaustion and dysentery shortly after arriving in a prisoner of war camp.

His family was told he was missing in 1951, and then two years later that he had died. For nearly six decades afterward, no more information was available.

The Pentagon positively identified Scott's remains in June. At the time, Rudy Caldwell, 70, told The Detroit News that learning Scott's fate would have comforted his mother, who died in 1996 without knowing how the serviceman died.

"She didn't talk about him a lot," said Caldwell. "It really bothered her. It tore her apart."

Scott's remains were among hundreds turned over by the North Koreans. More than 2,000 POWs died during the war; nearly 8,000 servicemen remain missing from the conflict.