LOOGOOTEE, Ind. (AP) — Remains of a soldier killed in the Korean War and listed as missing in action for decades were buried with full military honors.

More than 200 people attended services Friday for Army Sgt. Virgil Phillips at Goodwill Cemetery in his hometown of Loogootee.

"This day has been a long time coming. I couldn't help getting a little teary-eyed," said the soldier's 31-year-old grandson, Chad Phillips, as he held a folded U.S. flag that had been draped over his grandfather's casket. Chad Phillips is the only surviving direct descendant of Virgil Phillips.

A team of specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command found the soldier's bones near North Korea's border with China in May 2005, but they were not positively identified until January. The identification was confirmed by comparing DNA from the remains and a sample provided by a relative of Phillips from Vincennes.

Virgil Phillips was born in 1925 in Loogootee, and his family moved to Columbus in the late 1930s but eventually moved back. He enlisted in the Army in 1944 and served two tours of duty.

Phillips and hundreds of other American soldiers were part of a force that had advanced just short of the Chinese border in 1950. On Nov. 2, one of the pivotal moments of the war, more than a million Chinese soldiers shocked Allied commanders by pouring over the border into North Korea and launching a full-scale assault. They overran the undermanned Americans, including Phillips' unit.

The attack was so unexpected and far-reaching that Allied Forces could not go back to retrieve bodies. The area under North Korean control would remain off-limits to inspections until 1996.

From 1996 to 2005, teams recovered more than 220 remains. Now access has been banned.

Phillips' niece, 46-year-old Cathy Jo Bryant of Columbus, learned about the effort to ID remains through her genealogy research and located Delbert Rapp of Vincennes, Phillips' 75-year-old cousin whose DNA helped identify the remains.

"It took years to get to today, so it's definitely a relief," Bryant said. "There is something positive that can come from what's happening today. Other families can realize they can submit their DNA and maybe get good about their loved one like we did."

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Information from: Evansville Courier & Press, http://www.courierpress.com