Harry Wilder was 21 years old when he graduated from Regis College in the summer of 1943. Immediately after graduation, like many of his generation, he went to war.

Wilder never returned to Regis, nor to Colorado. He never again saw the sunset over the Rockies, walked the corridors of Main Hall or celebrated with friends. After he proudly wore his graduation cap and gown, Wilder enlisted in the Army to serve in World War II. He was killed in action in November of 1944.  It took more than 75 years to bring his body home.  Initially, Wilder was declared missing in action in November 1944. A year later, the Army notified Chester and Edith Wilder that their only son had been declared dead.

Wilder’s body was not found. His parents and younger sister, Leonor “Jane” Wilder, were not able to bury him, or to learn what had happened to their son and brother. In time, Jane Wilder grew up and had a family of her own. She often told her children the story of her older brother.
His family didn’t know that three years after his death, Harry Wilder’s remains were discovered near the Hürtgen Forest where he was killed. They could not have foreseen that nearly 76 years later, the son and brother they lost would receive a hero’s burial in the nation’s most sacred ground: Arlington National Cemetery.

Please see full article courtesy of Regis University Magazine, Volume 28, Issue 1, Spring/Summer 2020

https://www.regis.edu/news/2020/magazine/07/fallen-but-never-forgotten