PHOENIX — They never got the chance to meet the man seen in the family photo album they treasure, but they made it their mission to have his remains identified 82 years after he died in World War II.
"It's amazing that you have these letters and are able to not just know him through photos, but kind of understand his personality and the way that he spoke," said 12News reporter Bianca Buono.
"Yeah, it brings him to life for us," said Clark Baldwin, speaking of his uncle, Clifford Strickland.
Now, this Gold Star family has the answers they have been searching for.
"We're bringing him home. And that is so vitally important," Baldwin said.
Strickland enlisted in the Army in 1939 while living in Colorado. By 1942, he was serving in the 803rd Engineers Battalion in the Philippines during the thick of World War II when Japanese forces took over, forcing U.S. troops to surrender, the largest U.S. surrender in history.
Strickland and thousands of other American soldiers were taken as prisoners of war. They were forced to walk 60 miles in the Bataan Death March to a POW camp. Strickland survived the walk but lost his life on July 29, 1942.
Strickland's body, along with the remains of countless others, were left unidentified, making his family's grief even harder to bear.
"There was a hole left in their heart," said Cherryl Greene, speaking of her great uncle.
"They never recovered," said Jacque Bolson, Strickland's niece.
From that moment, every generation of the family has been working to fill that void.
"Even though we didn't know him flesh-to-flesh, we know him through our families, through the stories," Greene said.
The family teamed up with the Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), which works to account for every missing servicemember, identify them and bring them home.
"They may come in as a number, they're leaving as a hero," said Dr. Tim McMahon of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab.
The family provided the DPAA with family reference DNA samples and in December, finally got the call they had been waiting for. They had a match.
Later this summer, Strickland's remains will be flown home to Colorado. His official escort will be his great-nephew— who is now a captain in the Air Force. He will be buried with military honors in the same cemetery as his parents.
According to the DPAA, hundreds of Arizona servicemembers are still missing. The agency urges their loved ones to give family reference DNA samples which can help with identification.
Saturday in Scottsdale, the agency will hold a family member update for hundreds of people to discuss the status of their loved ones. A live stream of the event can be found here.
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