[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 24 (Thursday, February 12, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S980]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                    REMEMBERING CORPORAL C.G. BOLDEN

 Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, on February 21, 2015, the city of 
Clinton, AR will gather for a memorial service for Corporal C.G. Bolden 
who was killed in action in Korea in 1951.
  The service will coincide with the return of his remains for proper 
burial, over 60 years after he left Clinton to fight in the Korean war.
  As a member of the Army Reserve, Corporal Bolden was called upon to 
serve shortly after the Korean war started. He had been in theater for 
only a few months when his family back in Clinton received a telegram 
with terrible news; Corporal Bolden was missing in action.
  For the next 64 years, his wife, Geraldean Johnson, would await his 
return. In the days and months following that telegram, Geraldean would 
check the paper for news and sneak off to a quiet place to pray for her 
husband's return.
  Corporal Bolden--a light weapons infantryman in Company C, 1st 
Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division--was taken 
prisoner by the enemy on January 5, 1951 and died as a prisoner of war 
on April 30, 1951.
  Last month, upon learning his remains had been positively identified, 
Geraldean recounted to KARK news in Little Rock how her husband would 
often appear in her dreams over the six decades. ``Those dreams would 
say he is coming home this time, this is really it,'' she told the 
reporter.
  Corporal Bolden was just 22 years old when he was captured while 
fighting the enemy in South Korea. He was marched to a prison camp just 
south of Pyongyang in what his wife told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 
she heard was ``the coldest weather there ever was.''
  About 15 years ago, the military asked for and obtained DNA from 
Corporal Bolden's remaining siblings to aid in efforts to identify his 
remains. Last December, the Army contacted Geraldean to notify her of a 
DNA match. Corporal Bolden became the fifth Arkansan who had 
disappeared during the Korean war to be identified.
  Corporal Bolden was posthumously awarded the Prisoner of War Medal, 
National Defense Service Medal, Korean Service Medal, Combat 
Infantryman Badge, United Nations Service Medal, Republic of Korea War 
Service Medal, and Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation.
  I am grateful that after all these years Corporal Bolden will finally 
be reunited with his wife, son, and other family members. I appreciate 
the work of those at the Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action 
Accounting Command who helped identify Corporal Bolden. Most of all, we 
are grateful for Corporal Bolden's service.

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