Military pallbearers from the United States and South Korea transfer cases bearing the remains of two Korean War service members to hearses at Yongsan Army Garrison in Seoul. The remains were brought back from North Korea. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

They died on the battlefields of the Chosin Reservoir and Unsan County during the 1950-53 Korean War, their remains now little more than skeletons and bits of uniform that specialists at the POW/MIA group's lab in Hawai'i will try to identify.

The 8th U.S. Army band played yesterday at the outdoor ceremony, a multinational force saluted the blue United Nations flag-draped metal caskets and two black hearses slowly circled away from Knight Field in a show of respect for the two fallen soldiers.

The recoveries struck close to home for many of the Hawai'i-based command's team members — despite the passage of more than 50 years.

"You realize that could be you," said Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class David McGarry, 31, an explosive ordnance disposal technician from Boynton Beach, Fla. "You could be in that same guy's shoes, maybe killed in a battle and lost and family wondering where you are at."

U.S. forces have been in South Korea since a cease-fire was declared with the North in 1953, and Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Kane, deputy chief of staff for the United Nations Command and U.S. Forces Korea, linked that past with the present.

Sixteen nations contributed military forces to the United Nations Command at the war's start.

The POW/MIA teams made the recoveries on the 34th joint recovery mission to North Korea since 1996 and the third to the country since the spring.

Another group of 28 civilians and military members from the joint services command is heading into the North from Beijing on the 35th recovery.

Starting with this season's recoveries, the teams for the first time were able to return across the demilitarized zone that separates the Koreas with remains and move supplies into the country. Previously, entry and exit was made by air via China or Japan.

The teams have recovered more than 200 sets of remains believed to be Americans from four areas of North Korea: Unsan County, Kujang County, Kaechon City, and from the battlefield near the Chosin Reservoir — areas where elements of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, the 2nd Infantry Division, the 7th Infantry Division, the 25th Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division fought fierce battles with Chinese forces.

More than 8,100 U.S. servicemen remain missing from the Korean War.

The remains at Chosin Reservoir were found in a marshy area, along with bits of uniform, buttons and a belt buckle, .38-caliber bullets and a tent pole. In both cases, nearly complete skeletons were found.

Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command team members attended the repatriation ceremonies in Seoul. The team members are, from left, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer John Dela Cruz, Air Force Staff Sgt. Joshua Singleton, Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Kang (partially obscured), Chief Warrant Officer Keith Davis, Air Force Tech Sgt. Matt Hopper and Marine Corps Master Sgt. Fredric Coburn. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

The recovery group included anthropologists, mortuary affairs specialists, medics, linguists, mechanics and explosive disposal technicians such as McGarry, who cordoned off two intact Chinese grenades that were found near the dig site.

The team crossed through the Joint Security Area of the demilitarized zone in Panmunjom on Tuesday.

Army Spc. Kelly Yi, 22, served as a linguist for the Chosin team. The Los Angeles man's parents were born in South Korea and his father served as a South Korean marine.

"To have my heritage and actually go to North Korea is a good feeling because you get to see both sides of the table," Yi said.

Yi said he experienced culture shock in a land where the people are no different than in the South and are patriotic, but who have a radically different government and way of life and who blame the United States for their problems.

"I asked some of them, 'Don't you want the comforts of life?' " Yi said. "But they have a saying, 'We don't need candy, just bullets.' "

The two teams, hampered by wind and rain, were able to recover just a single set of remains apiece.

"I think it's great that through all the years even though the war happened in the 1950s, we haven't left people behind," McGarry said. "This is a great example of something no other country would do."

Since the 1996 joint recoveries with the North Koreans began, about 15 identifications have been made for return to families.

Some 208 boxes of remains were received from the North, many of them commingled, from unilateral operations conducted by North Korea from 1990 to 1994. Ten of those remains have been identified.

Johnie Webb, senior adviser for the POW/MIA command, said remains coming out of North Korea are relatively intact because the soldiers and Marines who died there were largely foot soldiers, as compared with pilots in Southeast Asia whose bodies suffered severe trauma in airplane and helicopter crashes.

The jungle foliage of Southeast Asia also creates acidic conditions that decompose remains faster than in North Korea, where the winter cold helps preserve remains.