Generations of the Patton family gathered at the Southwest Virginia Veterans Cemetery on March 9 for a burial that was more than seven decades in the making. The man at the center of it all, Army Cpl. Marvin Silvester Patton had been missing since the earliest stages of the Korean War.
Patton was 20 years old when he disappeared. He came home more than 75 years later to full military honors rendered by soldiers from Fort Lee, Virginia, and the grief of relatives who said they had grown up knowing only his name.
"We finally get closure. We've got happy tears and we got sad tears, but mostly happy because we get to bring him home," his niece, Susan Bartlett, told WDBJ7.
A Ceremony Decades Overdue
Patton's remains were escorted from Grubb Funeral Home to his final resting place with a procession and full honors rendered by the Military Funeral Honors Guard from Fort Lee, Virginia. Among those present were family members who said they had known him only through stories and memorials.
"My mom has been, for the last 20 years or more, I mean she's grown up not really knowing who he was other than her first eight years with him, but she doesn't recollect all of that," niece Julie Remines told WDBJ7. "Knowing that she is able to fulfill something for her mom and dad to bring him home."
John Maxwell, commissioner of the Virginia Department of Veterans Services, said the burial carried meaning beyond the family.
"We are so honored to be welcoming home this Korean War Hero, and so grateful for the extraordinary sacrifice of the Patton family," Maxwell said. "Bringing Corporal Patton back to Virginia 75 years after his death demonstrates our nation's commitment to never leaving a service person behind."
The Korean War
Patton grew up in Tazewell, Virginia, attended Cedar Bluff Elementary School and Cottage Hill High School, and enlisted in the Army on Jan. 4, 1949. He was assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. The unit would soon find itself thrust into one of the most desperate engagements in American military history.
On July 5, 1950, just days after North Korea's invasion of the South, soldiers from the 24th Infantry Division clashed with North Korean forces near Osan in the war's first major ground engagement between American and communist troops. The Americans were badly outnumbered and outgunned, tasked with buying time for more forces to arrive while facing armored columns they had almost no means to stop. Patton went missing that same day.
On Jan. 16, 1956, the military issued a presumptive finding of death. For decades, his name appeared on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., and on the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond.
The Patton Family's Sacrifice
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, formally accounted for Patton's remains on Aug. 1, 2025, more than 75 years after his death. The DPAA works to identify the remains of the more than 7,300 Americans still unaccounted for from the Korean War, using forensic science, historical records and family DNA to make positive identifications.
Patton's decorations included the Purple Heart, Combat Infantryman Badge, Korean Service Medal, Republic of Korea Presidential Citation and the Army Presidential Unit Citation, among others.
The Patton family's sacrifice in the Korean War did not end with Marvin. His parents, Dillard Whitten Patton and Edna Mae Davis Patton, had three sons go to Korea. Marvin went missing at Osan. His brother, Pfc. Johnny Lee Patton was captured as a prisoner of war and died in 1950. His remains have not been accounted for.
A third brother, Carl Roger Patton, was serving in Korea when the Army, recognizing the magnitude of loss the family had already endured, gave him orders to return home.
Remines told WDBJ7 she hopes Johnny will one day come home as well.
"As soon as we follow suit with Marvin, they are going to work very tediously to work to see if they can bring [Johnny] home to identify him," she said.
Patton is survived by his sisters Mary Martha Patton Remines of Rural Retreat and Edith Pearl Patton Kinder of Bluefield, along with sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, and multiple younger generations of family who witnessed the homecoming.
