South Central Reporter

Illinois State Sen. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) paid her respects to Sgt. Howard Malcolm on July 12 when the Korean War vet was laid to rest in Mount Vernon. Malcolm had been reported missing in action during the Korean War.

"Honored to be invited to attend the final interment of a U.S. Army hero. Sgt. Malcolm died in a Korean POW Camp 70 years ago," Bryant said in a July 12 Facebook post. "Today our country continues to identify our fallen and bring them home. RIP Sgt. Malcolm."

Malcolm was among the soldiers captured on Nov. 25, 1950, when “approximately 300,000 Chinese Communist Forces ‘volunteers’ suddenly and fiercely counterattacked after crossing the Yalu," the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said on its website. "The 2nd Infantry Division could not halt the CCF advance and was ordered to withdraw to defensive positions farther south. As the division pulled back from Kunu-ri toward Sunchon, it conducted an intense rearguard action and suffered heavy casualties. Sgt. Malcolm was captured by enemy forces on December 1, 1950.” 

A news report shared by the Defense Visual Information Service (DVIDS) notes that Malcolm was declared missing in action in December 1950, and he died in August 1951 at Prisoner of War Camp 5 in North Korea. He was “deemed nonrecoverable” in 1955. But his story doesn’t end there. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the sergeant’s remains on Oct. 25, 2022.

WSILTV.com reported that the identification was possible after the DPAA disinterred the remains of 652 Korean War Veterans in 2018, and that Malcolm was identified among those remains.

Malcolm was honored with a police escort and procession from Salem, Illinois, to the Bethel Memorial Cemetery, in Mount Vernon, according to a July 7 Facebook post from the Mount Vernon Police Department.

Bryant joined the Illinois Senate in 2020 after six years in the Illinois House of Representatives, according  to her biography. Between 1994 and 2014, Bryant worked at the Illinois Department of Corrections. Over the course of her career, she became the public service administration at the Pinckneyville Correction Center and the DuQuoin Impact Incarceration Program. Her political work included two stints as a delegate to the Illinois Republican Convention in 2008 and 2012, before her election to the Illinois House of Representatives. Bryant lives in Murphysboro with her husband.