A family that gave all will welcome home a World War II soldier Wednesday, more than 75 years after he left Southeast Missouri for the Philippines.
Pfc. Billy Ball survived the Bataan death march, only to die in a prison camp on Sept. 28, 1942. He was buried in a mass grave with all of the other prisoners who died that day.
Now, because of DNA testing, the soldier who will forever be 20 years old can finally come home, said his grandniece, Tammy Kassinger, of Poplar Bluff.
Kassinger's grandmother and Ball's twin sister, Millie May Harrison of Poplar Bluff, will be there to greet him, along with five generations of his family.
Ball's remains will be flown into a St. Louis airport Wednesday. A funeral service will be held Friday at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, where other members of his family are also buried.
"It's what she's always wanted," said Kassinger, who is director of Northside Nutrition, and has grandchildren of her own now. "She's always talked about him and wanted him to come home."
Millie is 96 and has dementia. She knows her memory isn't the best, but Billy is never far from her thoughts.
She wants to take a portrait of her brother, smiling in his uniform. It's the one that hangs across from her bed, next to a snapshot of the twins when they were 3 years old.
Billy looks so unhappy because he hated the little white sailer suit that matched her dress, Millie recalls with a smile.
They were the middle of six children, and no matter who started the fight, she always took up for Billy, his little sister adds.
She remembers how much he loved to eat, and says she hates knowing how he starved.
American forces were placed on half rations starting Jan. 1, 1942, about a month after the Pearl Harbor attack, according to historical accounts provided to the family about the area and time that Ball served.
Rations continued to decrease during a four-month campaign to hold off advancing Japanese troops, officials said.
Corregidor Island, where Ball was a member of the headquarters detachment, fell May 6, 1942.
Almost 75,000 American and Filipino troops surrendered to the Japanese during this time. Thousands died during marches to rail stations that transported soldiers on to prison camps and work details.
Ball was taken eventually to the Cabanatuan prison camp.
A former prisoner of war estimated one out of every three soldiers captured on Corregidor Island died.
Ball's official cause of death is dysentery, a parasitic infection of the digestive system that causes chronic intestinal distress, according to official paper work.
He contracted the illness in June 1942 and was admitted to the hospital section of the Cabanatuan Prison Camp in September 1942. He died at 1 a.m. Sept. 28, 1942.
It was one year and one day after he had enlisted in the Army, leaving behind his parents and siblings in Matthews, Missouri.
Millie wasn't told of her brother's death until July 1943.
She was pregnant when the family learned Billy had died, and her parents were afraid Millie would miscarry, said Carolyn Duncan. Duncan is the daughter who was born that summer in 1943.
"Mom always talked about how tall he was. He wasn't that big, but he was 5-foot-4, and she was 4-foot-11," recalled Duncan, 74.
Duncan has spent the past 15 years working with military officials to have her uncle's remains identified.
She will travel home to Missouri from Florida for the services next week. About 20 members of the family are expected.
"It's closure for the family," said Duncan, whose son and husband are also buried at Jefferson Barracks. "We hoped that mom would be here until we got him home, that it would be peace of mind for everyone."
There were times, years ago, when Millie wondered if her brother might still be alive on an island in the Philippines, unaware the war had ended, Duncan said.
The family has also received permission for Millie to be buried next her twin brother.
Billie was the second member of his family to die during World War II.
A cousin was on a ship that sank at Pearl Harbor, and is still entombed on that ship, Duncan said.
Billie's brother Virgil was on the USS Tennessee at Pearl Harbor during the bombing, but he came home, as did older brother Cleon, who also served during World War II.
Only Millie and a younger brother, Fred, remain from their siblings. Fred was around 6 years old when Billy died, and went on to serve in the Air Force.
Kassinger's brother, Jason Bell, is also a veteran, serving in the Marines from 1995 to 1999.