Soldier's remains find their way home
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | November 22, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachus...their_way_home/

When Agostino Di Rienzo returned from World War II to his family's triple-decker on Maverick Street in East Boston, his big sister, Jean, threw him a huge welcome-home party. Someone snapped a picture of her 6-year-old son, Richard Faiella, sitting on his handsome uncle's lap, both of them smiling joyfully.

But the reunion would not last long. A few years later, Di Rienzo reenlisted in the US Army, and went to fight in Korea. Sergeant Di Rienzo's final homecoming came almost 60 years later: A couple of weeks ago, the US Army returned his remains to his family, five years after they were excavated in rural North Korea.

Today, Faiella plans to visit the grave of his mother, who died a year and a half ago.

"It sounds crazy," he said, "But I will say, 'Ma, they brought him home.' "

Di Rienzo went missing on Nov. 2, 1950, during a fierce battle near Unsan, North Korea. His unit, Company L, Third Battalion, Eighth Cavalry Regiment, First Cavalry Division, was occupying a defensive position near the confluence of the Nammyon and Kuryong rivers when Chinese Communist forces struck, according to a US Department of Defense report presented to Faiella's family. The unit was demolished, and more than 350 servicemen went missing.

In 2002, a team of US Army and North Korean officials excavated a grave near the battle site discovered by a worker who hit bone while trying to install a utility pole, according to the military's report. The grave contained the remains of multiple soldiers. After five years of forensic research that matched the remains with Di Rienzo's dental records, DNA samples from his family, and other circumstantial evidence, the military identified some of the remains as Di Rienzo's.

Among the items the military discovered in the grave was a tiny Holy Name Society medal, encrusted with rust-colored stains. Faiella said it probably belonged to his uncle.

Faiella still lives in the same house where both he and his uncle were raised. He remembers Di Rienzo as a tall, handsome man who, for a couple of years between the wars, became a father figure to him. He remembers Di Rienzo taking him on a trip to New York City, where they went to the top of the Empire State Building, and promising to take him to California one day.

"He was very, very generous," he said.

Di Rienzo, who joined the Army just before World War II, was stationed in Hawaii when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, his nephew said. He served for five years, until the war's end, Faiella said, fighting in major battles, including Guadalcanal, and enduring a serious bout with malaria.

After he returned home, he worked at a candy factory and did odd jobs, Faiella said. But he decided to return to the Army, even though he was still haunted by nightmares from the war.

Faiella still remembers the day the telegram came informing his grandmother her 32-year-old son was missing in action.

"People just kept coming in as the news kept spreading," he said.

They hoped his name would show up on the prisoners-of-war lists, but it never did. Until the end of her life, he said, his mother held out hope he would come home.

"She went to her grave with her prayers," he said.

There were few people to tell when the Army representatives came to Maverick Street, bearing a folded flag and his medals and ribbons. All but two of Di Rienzo's seven siblings - his sisters Edith and Sue - have died. Sue, who lives in a nursing home, was not available for an interview yesterday; Edith, who lives in the family's triple-decker with Faiella, declined to speak about her brother at length.

"He was the nicest boy living," she said in a brief interview.

Faiella said there was only one man left in the neighborhood to tell about his uncle's return, an elderly fellow who knew his uncle as a child.

"When I told him, he cried," Faiella said. "He said, 'He's home?' I said, 'He's home.' "



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