MARINE CORPS AIR STATION, IWAKUNI -- "I was digging with a little spoon and a little brush and I could tell I hit bone. I used the paintbrush and started moving away the dirt. I told the anthropologist, 'I think I found a skull?!"
- Staff Sgt. Crawford Quick
Deep within North Korea, there lies a place commonly referred to as the "Frozen Chosin." Americans last stepped foot in that unforgiving battleground more than 50 years ago during one of the most infamous operations of the Korean War.
On Sept. 1, a team of 12 Americans departed on a mission that would put them far north of the 38th parallel, and into the heart of North Korea, making them the first American service members to return to the Chosin Reservoir since the withdrawal in December 1950.
The 30-day mission, conducted by the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, was to find Americans missing in action from the ambush at the Chosin Reservoir, and bring them home.
Until a year and a half ago Americans were not allowed into North Korea to perform recovery operations. Access to the Chosin remained restricted until September.
Because of the nature and remote location of the operation, each member of the group was specially qualified to perform their own mission in support of the recovery efforts.
For Staff Sgt. Crawford Quick, Marine Wing Support Squadron 171 assistant utilities noncommissioned officer-in-charge, his expertise was in the area of base camp construction, which made him a valuable asset to the mission.
"Korea is the only place they had my military occupational specialty go," Quick said. "The Marines do a good job of supporting base camps. That's why the Army tasks us to support them with those particular missions where they are going to be out in the field for an extended period of time."
Quick, the only Marine on the mission, was tasked with supplying water, electrical, toilet and shower facilities at the Chosin. The rest of the team consisted of soldiers from the CILHI and one Air Force medic, each with a specific job.
Although all the members of the team were service members, once inside North Korea, they had to act as if they were civilians.
"On this particular mission we were not allowed to carry in any military gear whatsoever, so everything I had was basically generic," Quick said. "We were also not allowed to call each other by rank."
It took Quick, with the assistance of a few helping hands, four days to construct the base camp.
Once the camp was completed, the process of searching for the remains of American service members began. The team went out and asked villagers if they had ever seen bones or remains, or if they had heard any stories about soldiers buried nearby. They also asked the older members of the village if they saw anyone buried during the war.
"They talked to one villager who said, 'I think I remember seeing a bone in my garden,'" Quick said. "So they started digging."
For three straight days, the team dug in the garden with no results. Everyone was hoping for something, but there was nothing there, Quick noted.
"Thirty minutes from closing the site they found a dog tag," Quick said. "That was basically the jackpot."
Once remains were located, Quick volunteered to assist the soldiers with their mission, as they had assisted him building the camp.
Over the following three days, 10 sets of remains were unearthed. Four more sets were also recovered at an alternate site. Although 14 may seem like a lot, it is a small percentage of those still missing. During the battle, the Army lost approximately one thousand men, Quick noted.
"There were a lot of lost souls up there," he said. "The Chosin Reservoir is like the mother load of missing in action, never recovered, never returned. That"s why getting up to the Chosin was a big step for us."
Although Quick's mission was to construct the base camp, which he did with success, he proudly volunteered to help the Army with their mission of finding remains.
"I was really humbled when I was digging through the graves," Quick said. "It's hard to look at the remains of somebody who was living and breathing 50 years ago. It was a very emotional. One good thing, I guess, is that they were buried beside their brothers."
At The Korean War Memorial, located in Washington, D.C., many names are inscribed followed by three simple letters - MIA. For Quick, helping to locate Americans MIA was the highlight of his 15 years of service to Corps and country.
"I was able to bring somebody home from a country where they may not have wanted to be," Quick noted solemnly. "They may not have volunteered to go over there, but they went, they fought and they died for their country, and for the past 50 years they have been buried there. Now we can bring them home and lay them to rest."
Although the team did not have all the time or freedom needed to search other areas of the Chosin, what they did in those 30 days sent a clear message.
"You're going to come home one day," Quick said to service members past and present. "We don't leave our people behind."