Family of missing Korean War veteran receives military service medals, is desperate for more
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- David Robison shakes hands with U.S. Army Master Sgt. Skyler Obannon with the 625th Military Police Battalion in Springville on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, during a ceremony to receive medals on behalf of his uncle, Glen Shupe, who disappeared in 1950 while serving in the Korean War.
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- This photo shows a handwritten note by Diann Shupe to the Department of the Army asking for help finding her brother, Pfc. Glen Shupe, who was reported missing in action on Nov. 2, 1950, in North Korea.
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- The approximate vicinity in North Korea where Pfc. Glen Shupe was declared missing in action during the Korean War.
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- David Robison, nephew of Pfc. Glen Shupe, who was declared missing in action during the Korean War, is pictured Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022.
RIVERDALE — Seventy-two years after United States Army Pfc. Glen L. Shupe was declared missing in action during the Korean War, his family received a smidge of recognition in his presumed death. In a backyard ceremony last Saturday, Army Master Sgt. Skyler Obannon with the 625th Military Police Battalion in Springville, met with Shupe’s extended family and presented them with three medals including a Purple Heart in Shupe’s absence.
Shupe was officially reported missing on Nov. 2, 1950, in the vicinity of Unsan, North Korea, according to Army documents obtained by his nephew, David Robison.
Robison began searching for his uncle, who went missing before he was born, in an attempt to give his aging mother answers.
Shupe’s sister Diann and their parents, Junius and Laura Shupe, have all passed away without knowing what happened to Glen or where he is.
“She spent her entire life looking for her brother,” Machele McFee said of her mother, Diann Shupe.
In the midst of Robison’s quest to find his uncle, he and McFee, his sister, were asked to attend a series of meetings in Washington, D.C., at the Korean War Veterans Memorial on the National Mall.
According to the siblings, they were joined by roughly 400 families who were all under the impression they were going to receive news about loved ones. It turned, however, they were there to commemorate a Wall of Remembrance featuring 36,634 American armed forces.
“We were told not to ask about our loved ones (because) they don’t know anything,” McFee said.
Glen L. Shupe is listed on the wall with 29,856 of his fallen Army comrades. Numerous recovery efforts have been made since 1954 to bring unaccounted-for service members from the Korean War back to the United States.
Over 7,600 Americans from the Korean War are still unaccounted for, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense whose mission is to recover American military personnel listed as prisoners of war or missing in action from designated past conflicts from countries around the world.
While it is unknown if Shupe is among the hundreds of unaccounted personnel deemed to be in a “non-recoverable” category set by DPAA, Robison said his family will not stop searching, even if their efforts continue into a third generation.
Robison’s son Jacob Cox and his cousin Justin Daniels, McFee’s son, made a pact to bring Shupe home if Robison did not succeed. Cox said his dad has been relentlessly dedicated to the effort.
Glen Robison, who was named after Shupe and was born two years before he went missing, said his younger brother, David, is the right person to bring their uncle home because of his passion.
Sadness over Shupe’s death, his missing remains and the stories of his life, his character and his love reached beyond those who met him, family members say.
“I watched my mom cry many tears over her brother,” McFee said.
A presumptive finding of death for Shupe was issued by the Army on Dec. 31, 1953.
On Saturday, McFee spoke of Korean War veteran Cpl. David Milano, who was brought to Utah earlier this year and buried next to family members at Evergreen Memorial Park.
Milano was declared missing in action by the U.S. Army on Dec. 2, 1950, exactly one month after Shupe.
While happy for the Milano family to have closure, McFee said the news was bittersweet as they have yet to succeed in the red tape battle of finding their uncle.
“I just need this much of him,” said Robison, placing his thumb and pointer finger an inch apart.