It’s been a long time coming, but the remains of Corporal George G. Simmons, born on October 28, 1917, will finally be laid to rest in the Corvallis Cemetery next to his parents, almost three quarters of a century after his death.
Corporal Simmons survived the infamous Bataan Death March, but died a short time later in a prisoner of war camp at Cabanatuan, on the Bataan Peninsula. He was buried in a mass grave with 15 other men who died that day on November 19, 1942. It was only after advancements in DNA analysis that the remains could be analyzed and DNA tests conducted on the bones and living relatives that individuals could finally be identified. It took some time.
Ninety-year-old Alfred Simmons of Corvallis is a younger cousin of George’s. He remembers George and he and his wife Wilma both kept the memory of his cousin alive and worked hard over the years to get his remains identified and returned to the place where he grew up and where his mother and father are buried.
Simmons’ ashes will be laid to rest in a burial service, with military honors, planned for June 18, at 11 a.m. at the Corvallis Cemetery.
Foundation says
Welcome home Soldier! “His lord said to him, Well done, you good and faithful servant…” Matthew 25:21. God Bless you and thank you for your service!
The founder of our private charitable foundation is proud to have worked on this case to provide information about this young hero’s loss and confirmation of his burial location to the Department of Defense over four years ago.
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) was finally disbanded after an avalanche of scandals were exposed by NBC, CBS, Fox News, NPR, the AP, and Stars and Stripes. Multiple government investigations then found gross mismanagement and a total lack of leadership. The American public and families of our lost heroes channeled their anger, frustration, humiliation, and feelings of betrayal to demand the immediate removal of those responsible for what the the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, testified was “Disgraceful”.
Sadly, the government’s idea of the massive reform necessary was a superficial name change of the organization and re-shuffling the same poor executives and laboratory managers to new desks and titles in a brand new $85 million dollar building in Hawaii. Disgraceful!
JPAC had many dedicated men and women in non-management roles who believed in the mission: researchers, military recovery specialists, and field investigators who hack through jungles, climb mountains, and wade rivers only to be sabotaged in their work by a completely dysfunctional command. Those few essential workers that remain at DPAA are dismayed, disillusioned, disheartened, and disgusted at what they experienced at JPAC and what they now see as a lack of action at DPAA in holding those responsible accountable for the abysmal failures of their leadership. Disgraceful!
The same group of serial offenders responsible for this ineptitude remain in the “new” DPAA. The same group that brought us multiple outrageous scandals including phony “arrival home” ceremonies and the fraud, waste and abuse of government funds that produces only five or six dozen identifications a year with an annual budget that exceeds $130 million. Disgraceful!
The JPAC/DPAA Laboratory’s antiquated methods and dysfunctional management take years to accomplish identifications that should take weeks. There is a backlog of over 1,400 sets of remains of American service men and women sitting in cardboard boxes at DPAA awaiting identification right now. The AVERAGE time for identification after remains are received in the DPAA/JPAC laboratory is ELEVEN YEARS! Disgraceful!
The same infectious disease of JPAC arrogance and lies to the families of American heroes took root all over again at DPAA. This incredibly dysfunctional organization continues and has been added to the VA Hospital, Dover Mortuary, Arlington Cemetery, and the Viet Nam Unknown misidentification debacles. Disgraceful!
Thanks to many outside the government this hero is finally home! His family is one of a very fortunate few families who can celebrate their hero’s return. Over 73,000 American service men and women from World War Two remain missing. Poor is the nation that has no heroes…but shameful is the one that, having them, forgets…or does such a disgraceful job in upholding a sacred obligation to find and return them home.