American soldiers

[Brigade Piron]

My apologies if I have already asked this here, but I have tried on several forums without success.

I recently got a North Korean flag (which can be found in my album) which was said to have been the "taken" by an American soldier, Pfc. Gustav "Gus" Brown of the 9th US Infantry Division, some time around 1951-2. He served as an artilleryman before being transferred to the artillery. He survived the war.

Unfortunately I know that the 9th ID never served in Korea, so I would like to find out more about him: even if I could just find his division, I'd be very grateful.

Anyway, is there any way that I could find out about the guy without (a) being a relative and (b) going stateside?

I had abandoned any hope of finding military records of any sort until I unexpectedly managed to find dozens of documents on various Belgian soldiers I was interested in.

Any help would be much appreciated!
BP

[jubilationtcornpone]

Hi BP,

The 9th ID was not active during the Korean War. The 9th infantry regiment was. It was part of the 2nd infantry division. I can come up with the arty bns of the 2 ID if that would help. I hope this helps.

Don

[jubilationtcornpone]

BP,

You might try here. i don't know what information is necessary to get a record or what you might receive. Good luck.

Don

[Brigade Piron]

Hi Don, I really appreciate your help! If you could look at the 9th IR I'd be very grateful.

As for the archives, it's like something Kafka-esque:

In order to request a record, you need the service; service number; Social Security Number; branch of service; dates of service; date and place of birth to secure a record. However, if you are not next of kin, the records you can secure only extend to service number; branch of service and dates of service. After going round this loop for a couple of minutes, I found this

80% of records of army personnel discharged November 1, 1912 to January 1, 1960 were destroyed in the fire of 1973. No duplicate copies of these records were ever maintained, nor were microfilm copies produced. Neither were any indexes created prior to the fire.

[jubilationtcornpone]

Greetings from snowy Nebraska,

I googled the 9th IR and I found after action reports from the Korean War. Interesting but individuals are not listed. Many units had a history published, some listing unit members but I don't know if this is the case here. I'll keep looking. The Second ID was practically destroyed when the Chinese entered the war in late 1950. I don't know if this individual was involved or not. If you know where this person came from, city and state, there may be another way to chase his records. Each county in the US has a veterans office which is supposed to receive a copy of the individuals DD 214 at discharge. Maybe your man can be located this way.

Regards

Don

[Brigade Piron]

Hi Don,

Thank you for your trouble! I've found this link to a person of the right name from NY, allegedly a vet of the Korean conflict (http://www.mcdonaldandson.com/fh/obi...50&fh_id=12206) but without additional info, there doesn't seem to be any way of checking.

Thanks again!
BP