PORT GAMBLE, Wash. — Seaman First Class Ralph Henry Keil was laid to rest on Wednesday, 83 years after his death.
Keil was killed aboard the USS Oklahoma Dec. 7, 1941, during Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, drawing America into World War II.
Keil grew up in Tacoma and moved to Port Gamble on the Olympic Peninsula where he graduated from Chimacum High School.
He loved his high school sweetheart, Ginny, and by the age of 20 he had already gotten a pilot's license.
But Keil would never see his 21st birthday.
"He had some real plans and goals for the future and obviously he didn't fulfill them," said Kathie Keil Crozier. "His death had a ripple effect through the family. Certainly his parents weren't the same after that."
Keil's remains went unidentified for 78 years.
His parents died never knowing what ultimately became of their son.
Two agonizing months after Pearl Harbor, Keil's father wrote a letter to the Navy asking about his son's condition.
"I would like to know if he has been located and safe, or if he has been wounded," the letter read. "I would sure like to know."
"They were going to go to Hawaii and they were going to find him and bring him home," said Crozier, Keil's cousin and last remaining next of kin. "Their attitude was, 'We're bringing him home.'"
For nearly 80 years, there were no answers.
Crozier had been working for nearly two decades to fulfill Keil's parents wishes to bring their son home, when out of nowhere she was notified that her loved one had finally been identified.
DNA testing confirmed remains recovered from the Oklahoma were Keil's.
When asked if she ever thought she'd see the day her cousin was identified, Keil said: "I hoped I would, but I never had any assurance that we would. I didn't know."
On Monday Keil's remains arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in a flag draped coffin.
"When he came down off that ramp and they lifted the casket and placed it in the hearse, I thought, 'Ok. You're home,'" said Crozier.
83 years after his death, Ralph Henry Keil was memorialized at Tahoma National Cemetery.
Crozier said she chose Sept. 11 to connect two of the darkest days in American history, and to honor all of the "everyday guys" who paid the ultimate price in service to this country.
Crozier called her cousin an "every man."
"If you look at the military and you look at who our enlisted men are, that's who they are," Crozier said. "I want to honor him and I want to honor what he represents."
83 years later, a lost loved one finally found his way home.
Said Crozier, "I want to honor his mother and father, tell the story and lay him to rest in a place where he will always be."