Fallen Servicemember Finally Laid to Rest in Central Valley Hometown

Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, October 6, 2026

• A fallen servicemember recently received a funeral with full military honors in the Tulare County community of Exeter.  It was a bittersweet homecoming that many, including his family, never believed would happen. 
• The Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security is continuing to buy up ICE detention facilities in California and, as of this week, now has full ownership over the Adelanto ICE Processing Center near Victorville. 

On a recent Friday morning, the American flag swayed over the Exeter Cemetery as the Exeter Union High School band played wartime songs like America the Beautiful.

Hundreds of local residents, military service members and veterans were gathered to say goodbye to a fallen airman. Sgt. Adolph Aguirre had a funeral with full military honors that included a motorcycle escort, gun salute and airplane flyover. Sgt. Aguirre wasn’t lost in a recent war. He died in 1943. But his remains had been missing for over 80 years – until now.

“It’s basically the end of this chapter that we know he’s no longer missing,” Juan Aguirre, a cousin of the sergeant, said. Sgt. Aguirre was known by his family by his nickname “Chicho.” He was a World War II U.S. Army Air Force pilot. He grew up in Exeter, the son of Mexican immigrants from Guanajuato. His parents wanted to keep him safe from the war by sending him to live in Mexico, but in 1942 Sgt. Aguirre enlisted in the Air Force after graduating high school. He made the announcement that he was enlisting while working in the orange groves around Exeter.

Just a year later, Sgt. Aguirre’s plane was shot down during a mission over Italy. His body was never recovered. He was only 21. “Maria, his mother, suffered because she just never got that closure,” Juan Aguirre said.

The only thing left after all this time was a black and white photo of Sgt Aguirre wearing his aviator gear. “My father [Sgt. Aguirre’s first cousin] carried that with him wherever he went,” Juan Aguirre said.

Stories from Juan Aguirre’s father pushed him to seek out information that eventually led to the funeral service in Exeter. It started 20 years ago, when Juan Aguirre got in touch with the Department of Defense. “My father became very ill, and I guess subconsciously I was afraid that his stories were going to vanish,” he said.

In 2019 the Department of Defense reopened Sgt. Aguirre’s case and in 2022 exhumed WWII remains from an American cemetery in Italy. But the agency needed help identifying the remains. Officials asked Juan Aguirre to provide samples from living family members to start their search. Carrie Brown, supervisory forensic anthropologist with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, worked on Sgt. Aguirre’s case. She explained that her office often encounters human remains in various conditions. “It can be anything from a single tooth or a single bone fragment all the way up to remains that still have soft tissue,” Brown said. “The degree of fragmentation really depends on what type of case we’re looking at. So in this case, it’s an aircraft crash. So there’s a lot more smaller pieces of bone in aircraft and tank incidents.”

When there is a match, especially through a family member, Brown says those are her favorite moments. “I get really excited at that initial match,” she said. And in May, Sgt. Aguirre’s remains were officially matched. He was flown to Fresno on Sept. 11 with a homecoming procession.

Sgt. Aguirre is now buried in the same cemetery as his parents. He was buried with his mother. A few steps away, a sign staked above his father’s grave says, “welcome home son.”

The Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security is continuing to buy up ICE detention facilities in California. It now has full ownership over the Adelanto ICE Processing Center near Victorville.

Private prison operator the GEO Group announced the sale on Monday for $950 million. George C. Zoley, GEO’s Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, said in a statement, “We are pleased with the completion of these important asset sales to the U.S. federal government, and we look forward to continuing to provide high-quality secure support services under our existing long-term contracts with ICE. We are proud of our 40-year public-private partnership with ICE, and we stand ready to continue to assist the federal government in meeting its immigration enforcement priorities.”

The purchase is part of a larger pattern. Earlier this summer, DHS bought detention centers in Otay Mesa and California City from another private prison contractor, CoreCivic. Combined, the feds have spent more than $2 billion on these facilities. DHS said in a statement that ICE has $45 billion to expand detention space under President Trump’s budget bill.