It's been almost 60 years since his death and the body of a South Dakota soldier is finally coming home.  Sergeant First Class Arthur Francis Jewett of Whitehorse went missing during the Korean War. He was killed in battle, but his body wasn't identified until this year.

A plot is still empty at the St. Theresa cemetery in Whitehorse, one that could have been filled 59 years ago.

"Well, all you’ve got to do is take a look at that picture and just about guess what he was," Arthur’s brother, Louis Jewett, said.

Louis remembers when his brother left their family's rural Dewey County home. It was 1948. The 19 year old had joined the Army and was on his was to Fort Riley, Kansas.

"I figured he's going and he'll be back. You know, I mean that's what everybody had in mind," Louis said.

He did come back for a visit that October and left again five days later.

"Well, that was the last time I ever seen him," Louis said.

The Army sent Arthur overseas where he fought in Korea. He was assigned to the 31st Regimental Combat Team.

"He wrote a letter to Mom on the 23rd of November and he said, 'Well, it looks like we're going to have our turkey on the run," Louis said.

That was in 1950. On November 27, Chinese communist forces struck the combat team.

That January an officer visited the Jewett family home to tell them Arthur was missing. Louis can't put into words how his family reacted. Their dad retreated to a hill where his father is buried.

"And that was the most saddest thing I ever heard in my life, my dad crying,” Louis said. “He cried for his son."

And then the wait began. Their grandmother would line the family up along the bed and have everyone pray for her grandson's return.

"She was always looking up the road and saying, 'He should be coming pretty soon,'" Louis said.

But he never did. And 59 years later, after excavators found a mass grave in Korea and DNA tests identified Arthur's remains, his family knows why.

While it's an answer, it also brings mixed emotions for Louis.

"Well it was like anybody else, you know, I lost a brother," Louis said.

But he gained some closure.

So many of his family members have already died. The plot is still open next to Arthur's twin brother. That's where family will finally lay him to rest too.

"Happy that he could come home and join the family right here at his own grounds," Louis said.

Louis Jewett says the Army told him his brother had a bullet wound in the jaw that went back to his spine.