Distant family to give veteran a proper burial

Distant family to give veteran a proper burial
John Koopman, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, June 22, 2008


He might have been forgotten.

Milton Dinerboiler grew up in Elkhart, Ind., during the Depression. He lived alone with his father, who was killed in a car accident when the young man was just 16. Dinerboiler joined the Army shortly thereafter and went to fight in the Korean War. He was captured by the Chinese and died a couple of months later, only to be buried in an unmarked grave and listed as missing in action.

Now, almost 60 years later, a family he barely knew is making plans for his funeral and shedding tears over his loss.

"I'm mourning for a man I didn't know," said Diane Dimperio, a 49-year-old piano teacher from Walnut Creek. "It's a horrific, horrendous thing that he had to go through."

In late November 1950, Dinerboiler was assigned to a mortar company with the 32nd Infantry Regiment. That unit was attached to the 1st Marine Division, which at that time engaged Chinese forces at the Chosin Reservoir. The American forces were surrounded and outnumbered. It was winter, and both the fighting and cold took a heavy toll. Out of a force of 30,000 men, more than 2,500 died and 5,000 were wounded. The battle is famous among Marines, who refer to it as the "Frozen Chosin," and those who survived call themselves the "Chosin Few."

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