Lost for Decades, a Marine World War II Hero Finally Comes Home
LOS ANGELES -- The word came in the morning, as Grace Cruz and her children gathered at the family home in Boyle Heights on Christmas Eve, 1943.
Her oldest son, Jacob, was dead.
A telegram from the United States Marines said the 18-year-old private was killed in action but divulged little else. The ongoing Pacific campaign meant Jacob would be buried in a temporary grave in the Tarawa Atoll, where he and more than 1,000 other Marines and sailors died fighting the Imperial Japanese Army.
Weeks turned into months and into years. The military finally admitted it couldn't find Jacob's burial place. His name was etched at the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
Jacob's family tried to honor him for the rest of their lives. Grace opened a diner named after him in Boyle Heights and kept his letters, newspaper clippings of his death and his medals -- a Purple Heart and Silver Star, among others -- in a cosmetics case. His four siblings shared stories of their brother with their own children, some of whom joined the military. Nephews who never knew their tío tattooed their arms and legs with his name and face and years of life.
Grace died in 1974, and Jacob's siblings followed until only two, Isaac Cruz Jr. and Ruth Soto, were left. Tears eventually dried, replaced by a longing for closure the family assumed would never come.
Then, in April of last year, Ruth's daughter, Ruthie, received a phone call at work: Jacob was coming home.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/04/19/lost-decades-marine-world-war-ii-hero-finally-comes-home.html