A Ringgold soldier who went missing decades ago was finally laid to rest Saturday, May 22, in Ringgold.

U.S. Army Corporal Henry Lewis Helms, after being missing in action for seven decades and presumed killed in action while fighting in the Korean War, received full honors with funeral rites and burial.

Funeral services for Helms were held the Wilson Funeral Home. Burial followed at Anderson Memorial Gardens in Ringgold.

Born Sept. 19, 1926, in DeKalb County, Alabama, Cpl. Helms and his family moved to Ringgold during the 1940s. Helms enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in the last year of World War II. Helms reenlisted in the U.S. Army on Aug. 12, 1948. During the Korean War Helms served with Dog Company (D Co), 1st Battalion (Bn), 32nd Infantry (1/32INF), 7th Infantry Division (ID).

On Dec. 2, 1950, Helms, then 24 years old, was reported missing in action near the Chosin Reservoir in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The Battle of Chosin Reservoir was a brutal, 17-day fight in frigid weather conditions that claimed the lives of 3,163 U.S. Army personnel, 4,385 U.S. Marines and 2,812 South Koreans. Almost 30,000 Chinese personnel perished.

During a June 2018 meeting, North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un promised then-President Donald Trump he would repatriate American remains collected from the Korean War. In August 2018, the United States received 55 boxes of remains for scientific analysis.

Regina Worley, Helm’s niece, said her family was contacted to provide DNA samples to help confirm his identity. Helms remains were positively identified in box number 39.

Helms is memorialized at the Ringgold City Hall MIA/POW monument and in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.