JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A family from Valdosta, Georgia, is celebrating after the remains of their loved one, World War II soldier Mack Homer, landed at the Jacksonville International Airport on Friday.<\/p>\n
Homer died on July 7, 1944, just a month after D-Day in Normandy, France. The U.S. Department of Defense says it happened after an explosion caved in on the roof of an enemy bunker they were clearing out.<\/p>\n
Barbara Foulkes, Homer\u2019s niece, is his oldest living relative.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was seven years old at the time that he went into service during the year of 1943,\u201d Foulkes said. \u201cFrom that year on, I never had any contact with my uncle because he was killed in 1944.\u201d<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Homer was just 20 years old when he died.<\/p>\n \u201cI just recall that my dad, when he was told the news, he was embittered by it, and I can understand because it\u2019s his younger brother,\u201d Foulkes said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to speak of, especially with my grandmother. I can only imagine what she and her other children felt about him being lost.\u201d<\/p>\n For more than eight decades, Homer\u2019s remains went unidentified. In fact, his remains were declared \u201cnon-recoverable\u201d in 1951 after officers with the Association of Governance, Risk & Compliance reviewed his case.<\/p>\n That is, until Foulkes says she was contacted by a military organization in 2017. She says it took the DNA of three of her cousins and her late brother to finally positively identify one of eight human remains found in the bunker.<\/p>\n Now, after 83 years, Homer was finally able to return home to the States.<\/p>\n \u201cTo hear the fact that he has finally been identified is just overwhelming for the whole family, and we\u2019ve been just speechless, but delighted that he\u2019s been found, identified, and is being brought home shows that the country hasn\u2019t forgotten him.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n Antonio Harrington, the owner of Harrington Funeral Home and long-time friend of the family, says he was there to witness the moment Homer\u2019s remains touched down at JIA.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s just a great honor because he\u2019s done something great for our country,\u201d Harrington said. \u201cI take my hats off to the United States of America for never giving up.\u201d<\/p>\n Foulkes\u2019 daughter, Robin, wants to remind people that generational wealth is about family, not money.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s built on family contacts, your association, your history, and your willingness to pass that on to the next generation or the generation that will listen,\u201d Robin said. \u201cRemember, that\u2019s generational wealth \u2014 that\u2019s what makes you rich. It\u2019s the ties that you have that bind you together as a family. The money, that\u2019s secondary.\u201d<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Varmira Landfair, the executive director at the Military Museum of North Florida, says she\u2019s looking forward to displaying his photo in the museum.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was helping us obtain our freedom, even though there was segregation there,\u201d Landfair said. \u201cHe still did his job honorably and proudly, so I\u2019m so happy for his family, and they can finally bring him home and lay him down to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n Homer\u2019s funeral service will be held by Harrington Funeral Home in Tallahassee at noon on Friday.<\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A family from Valdosta, Georgia, is celebrating after the remains of their loved one, World…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":944706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[380409,12189,5229,380413,62949,380410,276581,51694,2385,3188,723,380414,8333,11561,7310,425,380411,380408,137009,36573,67,586,258811,132,5230,68,325982,380412,2969,290654],"class_list":["post-946053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-_france","tag-action_news","tag-america","tag-antonio_harrington","tag-barbara","tag-barbara_fulkes","tag-casey_stone","tag-d","tag-day","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-harrington_funeral_home","tag-homer","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-local","tag-mac_homer","tag-matt_homer","tag-normandy","tag-tallahassee","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-united_states_of_america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us_army","tag-us_department_of_defense","tag-usa","tag-world_war_ii"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116948565138535312","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}