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Indianapolis Star
a day ago
- Indianapolis Star
Indianapolis World War II soldier's remains returned to family after 1940s recovery mix-up
Family chatter about childhood memories was shared as an escorted vehicle drove to an Indianapolis International Airport gate. Military and public safety officials were preparing for the landing of an American Airlines flight, while the family of late U.S. Army Pvt. LeRoy B. Miller Jr., talked about the lives he couldn't watch grow up. The 31-year-old World War II soldier was reported missing in action in Germany in 1944. On Aug. 15, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency brought Miller's remains home. "The information they gave us explained he died from an explosion," his great-niece, Avila Moore, told IndyStar. "We didn't know what happened back then. Was he captured? Was he tortured? Now we know." The agency is a U.S. Department of Defence branch tasked with providing the fullest possible accounting of missing personnel from past U.S. conflicts. This involves searching for, locating, identifying and returning the remains of missing service members to their families. Moore's family had already buried who they thought was Miller back in the 1940s, when his tag was found in a mass grave site overseas, but after extensive DNA analysis and research, the family finally has the right soldier, and an extraction will need to be made for the original buried remains. "It's just hard to believe that it could happen," Miller's nephew, Lance Hamilton, told IndyStar. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced U.S. Army Pvt. LeRoy B. Miller Jr., 31, was accounted for on Aug. 13, 2024, after his death during World War II. Miller was assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division in November 1944. His battalion captured the town of Kommerscheidt, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest. A series of heavy German counterattacks eventually forced his battalion to withdraw. Miller was reported killed in action on Nov. 8, 1944, while fighting enemy forces at Kommerscheidt. His remains could not be recovered after the attack, according to the agency. Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe. During that effort, a recovery team found a mass grave at Kommerscheidt that contained the remains of several American and German soldiers on Sept. 11, 1947. "Recovery effort was heroic in that it was very difficult to do because the locals didn't really want to help," Hamilton said. "They wanted to bury everybody and just let it go, but with pressing investigations, they're bringing everybody home. So they got his bones, and preserved them to a point where they could find out who he was." The exhumation team found Miller's identification tag on one set of remains. The remains were sent to the United States Military Cemetery in Neuville, Belgium, for processing. Based on the tag, officials identified the remains as Miller's and transferred them to his family for final burial in America. But 73 years later, in 2017, an agency historian analyzed documentation regarding three sets of unidentified remains while studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area. Scientists considered the possibility that Miller's remains may have been commingled in the grave or misprocessed and misidentified in the 1940s. At the time, Miller was identified based on the presence of his identification tags, but an updated investigation determined that the original identification was made in error. So whoever Miller's family buried was not related to them. "I've always had kind of a close relationship with him, which may sound a bit strange," Hamilton, who has never met the soldier, said. "My grandmother always talked so fondly of him. He was a very accomplished musician who loved piano and composing." Hamilton said he's always carried Miller's accomplishments with him. He said Miller will always be remembered for his creativity. His family still has some of his records. Miller was one of the youngest composers to have his music played by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. "He just wanted to create music," Hamilton said. "That's all he ever really wanted to do, but he felt that he had to go to war. It wasn't a choice. He had to do it." He was a classical pianist, and Moore said they're going to be playing some of his music at his memorial. "We live in the home he was raised in, and I found some music in a piano bench," Moore said. Hamilton said identifying Miller's remains has been a long process, and he was skeptical of the findings at first. The family didn't believe anything like this could happen, and they didn't believe the remains that matched up with their DNA was Miller's. "But, out of our skepticism, we kept slowly proceeding to find the truth, and here we are," Hamilton said. An honorable transfer happened with his remains arriving at the Indianapolis International Airport aboard an American Airlines flight on Aug. 15, 2025. The ceremony included military honors, the family being escorted, and the remains being transported to Flanner Funeral Home. A graveside service with full military honors is scheduled for Aug. 22 at Crown Hill Cemetery.
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Wall Street Journal
‘Ring of Fire' Review: World War I, Beyond the Trenches
A young man watches a fellow soldier beat a dog with the butt of a rifle and another soldier shoot the dog's owner—a pregnant woman—in cold blood, and simply calls the scene 'war in all its horror.' Another sets fire to a stranger's home in a town far from his own and admits 'the desire to destroy took over,' adding, 'if war is like this, then it's very ugly.' A third writes with equal detachment of the killings he has taken part in as 'living in a perpetual nightmare.' One of these voices belongs to a member of the French army, one is Austro-Hungarian and the other German. Which uniform each man wears, or in which theater of war he is fighting, is less important than what his experiences have in common with the others. These are but three among the countless troops and civilians whose experiences are viewed with a fresh perspective in 'Ring of Fire: A New History of the World at War, 1914,' by Alexandra Churchill and Nicolai Eberholst. Popular histories of World War I often reduce the worldwide conflict to two narrow fronts—eastern and western—both on a single western continent, with a primary focus on one of those two narrative boxes at the expense of the rest of the world. 'Ring of Fire' widens that lens and recenters the narrative, turning the conventional, top-down approach on its head. It pulls away from the proclamations of men in corridors of power to focus our attention instead on a bottom-up view of how the war impacted everyday men, women and children—lives lost, homes destroyed, jobs taken, food rationed, travel restricted, speech censored—whether they went to war or the war came to them. Ms. Churchill is a historian and battlefield guide who has hosted documentaries on military and royal history; Mr. Eberholst is a historian and archivist. The two skip past the daily volleys of righteous indignation in July 1914 and take us directly to the streets of the nations headed to war. We see young men in St. Petersburg and Berlin and Paris driven by patriotism to enlist, immigrants in Australia viewing service as a free passage back to Europe, and tribesmen in Africa volunteering for the food and regular income the military promised—with perils of combat paling next to recent famine. 'Ring of Fire' employs words with visual force to show us the opening shots of the war, following Germany's invasion of neutral Belgium, France's first offensive through Alsace-Lorraine, Austria-Hungary's attacks on Serbia, and Russia's bloody clashes with Austria-Hungary and Germany. In contrast to the recurring trope of 'lions led by donkeys,' we are shown armies adapting to modern, industrialized war and the replacement of incompetent field commanders with leaders who proved themselves effective during the war's first trials of combat. And we see the war's global reach, as the first British shot of the war is fired by an African soldier, the first British officer is killed in action in Germany's West African colony of Togoland and the first Australian officer is killed in action in German New Guinea.
Newsweek
2 days ago
- Newsweek
Hearts Break As Dog Keeps Sister's Collar Close All Day After Her Death
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. When members of one family were forced to say goodbye to their beloved pocket bully Lucy, they weren't prepared for what their other dog, Reggie, would do next. In a video that has gained viral attention on TikTok, Reggie was captured walking slowly across the backyard patio, quietly carrying Lucy's collar in his mouth—something he did all day after her death. The caption read: "His sister just died and he walked around all morning with her collar." It wasn't long before the moment struck a chord with viewers, receiving more than 145,000 views and thousands of comments and reactions. "That's so sad but so lovely too," wrote one user. "And that's me sobbing while at work. Dogs are too precious for this world," added another. A third viewer commented: "Bless, just wants to feel safe so her collar is his safe thing." Shani77 said, "That's given me goose bumps," while viewer CB shared sympathy with the owners, too: "l hope you are doing good and l know how hard it is to miss a pet." Others offered their condolences. "Animals grieve too. Poor little angel," said one TikToker. Reggie the dog carries the collar in his mouth down the path. Reggie the dog carries the collar in his mouth down the path. @pippa7927/TikTok Do Dogs Feel Grief? While grief is often thought of as a human emotion, there is evidence that canines feel it, too. A 2022 study published in Scientific Reports surveyed 426 Italian dog owners who had lost one pup while another remained. The majority reported significant behavioral changes in the surviving dog, including reduced playfulness, altered sleep and eating habits, and increased clinginess or fearfulness. These shifts were especially pronounced when the canines had shared a close bond, regardless of how long they had lived together. The study also noted an emotional ripple effect: owners' own grief often correlated with shifts in their dogs' behavior, suggesting that emotional changes in their humans impacted canines, too. This isn't the first time a pup's heartbreak has prompted sympathy online. Earlier this year, a dog owner shared how her pet, Archer, still uses his friend Niko's bed months after he died. And a cat grieving for his canine friend was caught on camera looking at the picture of the family's 13-year-old German shepherd after his death. Newsweek reached out to poster @pippa7927 via TikTok for comment. Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@ with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
