WASHINGTON — When North Korea turned over 55 boxes of remains believed to be American servicemembers last month, the McDaniel family wondered if their late father could be among them.
On Aug. 2, a phone call to the Indianapolis home of retired Army Chaplain (Col.) Charles McDaniel Jr. answered that question.
“We found one dog tag, it’s your father’s,” an Army official told McDaniel Jr., 71. “I sat there and cried for a while. It took a while to compose myself.”
Army Master Sgt. Charles Horbert McDaniel, a medic who also fought in World War II, went missing in the Korean War nearly 70 years ago and hardly got to know his two sons. McDaniel Jr. went on to serve a long career in the military, while his younger brother Larry McDaniel, 70, gravitated towards a career in athletics.
