MACON, GA (AP) -
The remains of Sgt. Thomas Jefferson "Sugar Boy" Barksdale have been returned home to Georgia.
The Telegraph of Macon reports that Barksdale was killed in combat while fighting with the Second Infantry in North Korea in 1950.
He was left behind on a hill, about 7,400 miles from his boyhood home in central Georgia.
He was listed as missing in action, but his remains were not among those returned by Communist forces after the war.
In 2000, excavation teams from the U.S. and North Korea explored several old fighting positions about 50 miles above the capital of Pyongyang and discovered a human skeleton.
It took several years, but the remains were eventually identified as Barksdale's using DNA, and a funeral service for him is planned for Friday in Macon.
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