Guadalcanal Diary: Marine Private Luther Rhodes Finally Heading Home
More than eight decades after he was killed in action on Guadalcanal and declared MIA during World War II, the remains of Marine Corps Private Luther Rhodes are finally coming home to rural Henderson County, North Carolina.
In this follow-up conversation, I welcome back retired Army Major Bob Johnson — first introduced in Episode 3 of the Kudzu Project — for a remarkable update on the long and determined effort to locate Henderson County’s missing servicemembers. What once felt like an unresolved chapter from the Battle of Guadalcanal has now reached a moment of long-awaited closure for the Rhodes family of Edneyville.
Bob, who is Commander of the local VFW Post 5206, shares how years of research, advocacy, and coordination with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency helped turn history into resolution, honoring a young Marine who gave his life in the South Pacific in 1942. This episode is a testament to remembrance, persistence, and a community that refuses to let its heroes fade into the past.
Some stories take generations to finish. This is one of them.
Recorded in Hendersonville, NC — where Southern stories grow wild.
