World War I Vet Is Home At Last

More famous in death than in life, Pvt. Francis Lupo was finally laid to rest Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery — 88 years after he was killed in World War I.

As CBS News correspondent David Martin reports, Lupo was the only one of 4,800 American soldiers listed as missing in action from the so-called Great War to be accounted for.

Until today, the only visible mark Lupo left on the world in his 23 years was the name inscribed on a monument in France knows as the Tablets of the Missing.

"We looked in our books, our history books, to see if we had any information on him and we didn't. He was, like, lost," says Bob Callahan, vice president of the 18th Infantry Regiment Association, the unit to which Lupo belonged. Of the regiment's 3,191 men, 368 were killed in five days of fighting — the last great slaughter of the war that was supposed to end all wars.

"The soldiers that buried him later on got killed themselves. And nobody knew where he was buried," Callahan says.

Not until some skeletal remains and a tattered wallet with the name "Francis Lupo" were unearthed in France. Forensics experts helped to identify Pvt. Lupo — and on Tuesday, two young soldiers from today's 18th Infantry Regiment, now fighting in Iraq, were sent to honor him.

"He's a soldier, a fallen comrade. We never leave ours behind," says Staff Sgt. Matthew Colleary, one of the soldiers assigned to the detail. "It took 88 years, but we got him, didn't we? We got him and we got him home."

Lupo was brought home to Arlington Cemetery and his closest surviving relative — home from a war which, for many Americans, began as a glorious adventure.

"Bands played and you had songs that they sung," Callahan says. "I think it was 'Over There.' I think if Private Lupo was able to communicate to us, I think he would tell us that it's 'over, over there,' and that he came home now."

And if his soul could sing, it would surely be singing "Amazing Grace" — "I once was lost, but now I'm found."