Gail Embery was about three years old when her father, US Army Sgt. Coleman Edwards, joined the war and was declared missing within a few months.

Her mother remarried soon after and did not talk about him, so she grew up not knowing she had another father. She found out when she was 10 years old and since then has been trying to find him.

“It’s because I feel him,” Ms Embery says. “He was only 18 when he went to fight for his country and he lost his life. It’s important to me that he knows that somebody loved him, that what he did to sacrifice his life was not in vain.”

Later, she attended meetings in Washington DC for the families of soldiers taken prisoner in war or classified as MIA.

“What I know is his company was captured in North Korea and they had to march to a prison camp. My father helped a lot of men who were not strong enough to make the march. They said he died of malnutrition. He was buried in a mound, outside the camp near a lake,” she says.

She later served on the board of directors for a group in Washington DC that lobbies for the search and identification of war remains.

“It’s been very difficult and very frustrating.”