Brother searches on for twin missing from Korean War

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Vincent Krepps went to fight in the Korean War in August 1950 with his twin brother, Richard, but he came home alone.While Krepps was in a Japanese hospital recovering from a leg wound, his brother's Army division was attacked by the Chinese. Krepps learned his twin was missing in action when he rejoined his unit just before Thanksgiving.Two months later, Krepps was sent home as his family's sole surviving son.He and Richard had never spent more than a day apart before enlisting in the Army, but almost 60 years later, Krepps, 77, from Towson, Md., is still trying to find his brother's remains. He said he dreams of seeing his twin laid to rest before he dies.At first, Krepps said he did not talk about the war with his family. His dad never asked, he said, and he wanted to spare his mom the details."I wouldn't tell them anything since my mother and dad had such high hopes that he would come home," Krepps said.After the war, Krepps returned to Essex, Md., where his parents lived. His father died in 1974, and his mother, in 1984, five years before the first Korean War memorial was constructed in Maryland, Krepps said.The Chinese and American governments reported that Richard, who was held by the Chinese as a prisoner of war, died on different days in the summer of 1951. Krepps did not believe either, so he set out to find veterans who knew his brother."I wanted to know that he had a friend, someone who cared about him and tried to look out for him while he was suffering," Krepps said.In October 1998, he said he heard from Ron Lovejoy, a former U.S. soldier who had been a POW with Richard. and still had a photo Richard had given him while they were in the Chinese prison camp.Lovejoy told him about how they marched through one of the coldest winters without proper coats and how Richard stopped eating the millet their captors gave them when he grew weak, Krepps said.Eventually, Krepps said, Richard became so sick that he believed life was no longer worth living. Lovejoy, who was freed from the camp in 1953, was with Richard when he died.Gary Sydow, director of research and analysis for the Pentagon's Defense Prisoners of War/ Missing Personnel Office, said details that veterans such as Lovejoy remember about those who died help researchers pinpoint where to look for remains.American excavation teams have not been allowed in North Korea since 2005, but Sydow said they are ready to return with the new information from veterans."When we get the opportunity, we stand ready to bring your loved ones home," Sydow told family members at a yearly briefing held earlier this fall.Krepps has gone South Korea twice with excavation teams looking for missing service members, and he attends the briefings, hoping for new facts.He said he stays positive, but it is hard."I've heard nothing these three days that's new," Krepps said at the October briefing. "I don't know what the next step is."Amanda Peterson is a reporter for the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire in Washington.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)