Memorial

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Pfc Alexander Reinerio Jr. graduated from Lew Wallace High School.

He enlisted in Indianapolis, Indiana on 21 December 1942 and was sent overseas 27 August 1944.

Alexander’s mother, Edith Reinerio told the story that Janet remarried and took their son with her. She also explained that Janet failed to respond to the US government’s inquiry about what she wanted done with her husband’s body. It took the government some time to give up on hearing from Janet and then officially asking Edith. Edith, clearly being a deeply Christian person, was concerned that if her son was buried far from home that people would not remember her son and pray by his grave site.

His mother went so far as to suggest that if the governemnt saved the money it would spend to ship his remains and spend it instead on sending an orphaned child from the Netherlands to the States, they would raise that child as their own because they would be helping someone with a great loss. He was initially buried in a temporary grave at Margraten on 31 March 1945.

On 27 April 1948, Alexander Reinerio Sr wrote the government asking them to “leave the remains of my beloved son in the cemetery he is in Margraten, Holland”

On 25 February 1949 the US Government wrote back to Alexander’s father to say that their son had been permanently interred.

In one document there are details of the condition of his remains it wasn’t very good. His head and jaw were crushed and his arms were severely broken. This might suggest a crash of some kind which is also consistent with the fact that he was paratrooper. There are no other details of his death.