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Pfc. Rarick, 21, a machine gunner with the
Ist Battalion, Ist Regiment, was never Found
and is among 8,100 Korean War soldiers listed
officially as missing in action (MIA). Although
more than half a century has passed since the
close of the Korean War—often referred to as The
Forgotten War—Broward has never forgotten his
fallen friend or stopped searching for him.
“It never leaves your mind,” he says. “My job
isn't finished yet.”
A survivor's search
In 1985, Broward, and his wife, Jennifer,
made their first of nine trips back to Horseshoe
Ridge and began an exhaustive search to find and
identify not just Rarick, but the remains of other
unaccounted-for Korean War soldiers.
"People ask why I do this, but take a look at
all the young faces,” Broward says as he studies
page after page of boyish faces of Korean War
MlAs on his computer screen. 1 feel privileged
to have returned home. These youngsters never
had a chance to live their lives.”
Broward interviewed more than a hundred survi
vors of the Horseshoe Ridge battle to piece together
what happened on April 23-24, 1951. He recon
structed maps of battle positions and talked to
Rarick, of Downey, Calif., never returned from Korea.
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Broward, 73, continues to search for the remains of
his childhood friend and ocher missing U.S. Marines.
Korean farmers who tried co pinpoinc where they
had seen skeletons and GI dog tags when they played
on the hill as children in the late 50s.
Broward s work led to two excavations bv
military search teams from the Joint POW MIA
Accounting Command (JPAC) in Hawaii to try to
locate Rarick and three other missing Marines.
"In this case, a veteran comes to us with an
extensive research file. He had done the ground
work," says Mark Leney, a forensic anthropolo
gist at the U.S. Central Identification Laboratory
at JPAC. In July 1999, the team excavated 91
foxholes and found remains of Chinese soldiers,
along with battle debris and artifacts, including
a Marine Corps emblem from the front of a cap,
uniform buttons, hand grenade pins, and a bayo
net from an Ml rifle
"We probably would have left it at that, but Bro
ward didn t, Leney says. "He came up with enough
information to reopen the site in 2001. We combed
the hill and found lots of Chinese soldiers."
But Rarick has never been found.
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Decades ol devotion
“It's like my brother fell off the face of the
earth," says Billie Jo Wallace, 74, Rarick s sister.
“Daddy never accepted it. He kept saying 'til the
day he died that my brother was coming back.”
Wallace, of Palm Desert, Calif, (pop. 4 1,155),
cries as she talks about Broward 's decades of devo
tion to her brother and other Korean War MIAs.
Ron, bless his heart, has sent me many pic
tures of the place where he thinks my brother
might have been killed.” she says. “It looks like a
very peaceful area.”
Nine years ago, Broward helped arrange a memo
rial service. A headstone for Rarick was set beside his
parents' graves in Downey Cemetery.
"Because of my brother, Ron has gotten into the
work he’s doing,” Wallace says. “This helps me more
than anything.”
Retired Lt. Col. Robert Brockish of Lafayette,
Colo. (pop. 23,197), marvels at Broward's dedi
cation to lost servicemen. "He's put a lot of his
personal fortune into this, going
back and forth to Korea and
Hawaii," says Brockish, a
fellow Korean War veteran
who helped with the 1999
dig. "He's just one tough
Marine who won’t let go."
Broward spends about i
three hours each evening
poring over battle records
and files of MIAs, compar
ing ages, heights and dental
records with grid loca- J
tions where remains
<Continued on
page 10)
The last lime I saw J
Jackson he wa#*
loading his squad
leader onlo a tank.”*
'Q. t
—Ron Broward
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