Korean War vet's remains return home

The memory is grainy, like the photos of Maximo Troche that he grew up with, but Robert Arce remembers saying goodbye.

From the fire escape of their apartment on 103rd Street in Manhattan, Arce, then 3 years old, waved as Troche got on the subway and headed off to serve in the Korean War.

Arce never saw his second cousin again.

But today, Troche is coming home. After 60 years, his remains have been identified and are being returned.

"He finally gets to be back with his family," said Arce, 63, of Brentwood. "He's the only family member missing from the cemetery."

Troche's remains will arrive this morning at Kennedy Airport and will be taken to Michael J. Grant Funeral Home in Brentwood, where a funeral service will be held Saturday. He will be buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale. The Army will present his family with a Purple Heart.

Troche was born and raised in Manhattan and decided to enlist even before he was of age, said his sister-in-law, Angie Mario, 84, of Brentwood.

Mario said Troche, called Maxi by family and friends, was sent to the Pacific to fight the Japanese in 1944. When he came back, he showed family members a sword stained by the blood of an enemy soldier he had killed, she said.

Troche went back to school and started working as a private detective, she said. A true patriot who would do anything for his country, Troche was also fun-loving, family oriented and a churchgoer, she said.

Troche and her husband would go deer hunting upstate every year, but they didn't come back with anything except squirrels and rabbits, she said with a laugh.

At the age of 24, Troche decided to re-enlist, joining the Korean War effort. After landing in Korea, she said, he sent his aunt some Japanese statues, which arrived broken.

"When she saw that, she knew something bad was going to happen," Mario said, crying at the memory.

Then one day, the family received a letter from Troche where he spoke of becoming separated from his outfit and being cold and hungry. The family never heard from him again.

Pfc. Troche was assigned to Company I, 3rd Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, said Army Sgt. 1st Class Jose Salazar. He said Troche was taken captive by the Chinese and marched to the Suan Bean POW camp, where he died of dysentery on April 1, 1951, at age 24.

His remains were discovered in 1993 and shipped to the United States. But with no advanced DNA testing available at the time, the remains couldn't be identified.

By 2005, the Army had located family and began asking for DNA samples. Last month, the family got the call that the remains were Troche.

"After so many years, we believed it, but we didn't believe it at the same time," Mario said.

Mario and other relatives said their only regret is that older family members who knew Troche well died before they could get closure on his death.

Getting the news may have been bittersweet, Arce said, but the family has found peace of mind now that Troche's remains are being returned. "Now he's finally coming home."