MOMMA, I'M HOME

MOMMA, I’M HOME!

With every sweltering summer sunset, Georgia D. Rix thought of “Bunk” - of the old days when Bunk and his friends played in the fields and explored the woods around his south Laurens County home.  As every cold winter’s day dawned,  Georgia thought of Bunk, where he was and what really happened to him in the frozen mountains of Korea on the day he died.

With every visiting car pulling up to the house, every telephone ring, and every trip to the Rural Route mail box, Georgia anxiously awaited the news of her beloved son, Bunk, who was more formerly known as Corporal James Cordie Rix, Co. E, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, United States Army. 

James was born May 10, 1932 in Laurens County to the late John Fletcher Rix and Georgia Alma Davidson Rix.  His maternal grandparents were the late Joel Cordie Davidson and Maude Spoons Davidson.  Rix’s paternal grandparents were the late Samuel T. Rix and Florence Gay Rix.  James grew up in the Cedar Grove community of southern Laurens County on the Alamo, Georgia Rural Route, although the family spent several of the war years in northern Florida.

James enlisted in the United States Army in Georgia on September 14, 1949, five months after his father’s death and ten months before the war, called a police action by timid government officials,  would begin in far off Korea.  A James was only seventeen years old, his mother had to grant her written persmission for her only child to enlist in the Army.  He was stationed at Fort Jackson, S. C., Fort Benning, GA, and Fort Lawton, WA before going overseas.

In November 1950, James was a member of Company E, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division.  The 7th Cavalry saw some of the most vicious fighting of the war in 1950. Corporal Rix was killed in action on November 30, 1950, during heavy fighting between the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces and the 7th Cavalry Regiment in Unsan-ni, North Korea.  His remains were interred at the United Nations Military Cemetery Pyongyang, North Korea on December 2, 1950. 

Georgia remarried. Her new husband, John S. Collins, was a thirty-year veteran of the Coast Guard during World War II and Korea.  

Corporal Rix was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Valor for his heroic acts on September 18, 1950.  Rix volunteered to remain behind at his machine gun post to cover the retreat of his regiment after a Red Army Ambush.  For the mortal artillery shell wound which severed both of his legs, the corporal received the Purple Heart Medal.

Georgia Rix Collins held on to her enduring faith in the Grace of God, knowing that one day, her little boy and only child would come home.  Mrs. Collins and the Army exchanged many letters in hopes that his remains would soon be located.   She never gave up her hope that one day, the news she hoped to receive, but dreaded to read, would come.  Some five or six decades ago, Mrs. Collins had a cenotaph marker placed in a plot next to where she would be buried in the summer of 1984. 

In 1954, the United Nations Command and North Korea, along with the CPVF, reached an agreement regarding the recovery and return of war dead.  The agreement, known as Operation Glory, resulted in the turnover of 4,200 sets of remains to the UNC, including more than 400 sets reportedly disinterred from Pyongyang.  One set of remains, designated X-16680 OPGLORY could not be identified, and were subsequently interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu (known as the Punchbowl), as an unknown.

In June 2017 DPAA disinterred unknown X-16680 OPGLORY for identification.  This unknown was identified as Corporal James Cordie Rix on February 8, 2019.

This past Saturday, May 4, 2019,  the body of Corporal James Cordie Rix, completed its long, long, journey home.  It was a journey which took a little more than 25,000 days from the day the 18-year old soldier was killed in the cold tundra of North Korea until his body came to its final resting place the cemetery of Union Springs Baptist Church on Scotland Road in southern Laurens County, Georgia.  

Rev. Ronnie Powell looked to the scriptures and spoke  of a young country boy and fallen soldier who many of the overflowing crowd had heard of, but few had actually known.   Officers and non-coms came from around the country to honor their fellow Garry Owen 7th Calvary trooper.

For the entire time Rix’s body arrived in Savannah until the completion of the funeral service, nearly a hundred members of the Patriot Guards were escorting his remains to their final resting place.  In support of their fellow soldiers, as they always are, were the members of the American Legion Post No. 17 of Dublin as well as other members of military veterans organizations. Members of the Laurens County Sheriff’s Department also served in the escort process.

Johnny Payne, CEO of the Dublin - Laurens County United Way, spoke emotionally in comparing his life with that of Corporal Rix.  Both men grew up in the same part of the county with similar youth experiences.  Both members of the 7th Cavalry, made famous by its early commander, General George Armstrong Custer, Rix served in the mountains of Korea and Payne in the jungles of Vietnam.  Payne was grateful that his life was spared as he lamented the death of his fellow Laurens Countian and the life opportunities he missed in giving the last full measure of devotion to our country.  

After some 69 winters, Bunk’s earthly body,  in a full military funeral complete with a 21-gun salute, was laid  in its final resting place in the shade of the scuppernong vines on the edge of cemetery of Union Springs Baptist Church.  Joining his momma in his heavenly home for a Saturday night supper of fried chicken, sweet iced tea, and chocolate cake, “Bunk” is now home. And, just in time for his birthday and Mother’s Day.