Corporal Engstrom was a member of Headquarters Battery, 11th Marines, 1st Marine Division. He was listed as Missing in Action while fighting the enemy in Korea on December 10, 1950. He was presumed dead on February 18, 1954. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.

This is for my father, the late Cpl. Ralph M. Engstrom, USMC, POW/MIA, 12/10/50 - CHOISIN RESERVOIR, Korea- "The Forgotten War". He was killed 3 mos. before I was born. We have Myocondrical DNA on file to ID'd his remains. I want to lay him to rest on AMERICAN soil, the country he loved, fought and died to protect. I had the opportunity to speak with the last Marine to see him alive. They were given summer issue clothing for sub-zero temperatures and frozen Tootsie Rolls* to eat! He told me that not knowing what had happened had "haunted" him all these years. He told me since we had connected that "this tired old Marine has finally been given some peace", and that "Once a Marine, Always a Marine"! SEMPER FIDELIS!

*Tootsie Rolls was used as radio code for needing 60mm mortar rounds, but as somehow supply clerks didn't get the word, so actual Tootsies Rolls were air dropped for the Marines. In the National Marine Corps Museum you can view the diorama and at feet of tired, dirty Marines lie Tootsies Roll wrappers.

Engstrom, Ralph Merle, Cpl