11/11/2025
In honor of Veterans Day, I want to reshare a story I covered last year. It’s about a veteran and his great-grandson, two generations bound by service, strength, and tragedy.
◈ This story begins with James Combs of Rochelle, Illinois, who served in the Navy during WWII. Following the Battle of Leyte Gulf, he was reported killed in action. But, he was actually still alive.
◈ After chaos in the infirmary, they sent a card home to his family to inform them he was killed, but several months later, he came walking across the yard of the Combs residence. The story goes on to say that James’ mother slapped him in the face to make sure he was not a ghost. This is a tale that James’ great grand-son, John Combs, knew quite well.
◈ While they never spent much time together on earth, last year their paths were joined together unexpectedly through an unfortunate circumstance.
◈ John was a lineman who was sent to Savannah, Georgia to help restore power following hurricane Helene. At 24 years of age and so much life ahead of him, for reasons still left misunderstood, he would never make it home from that work trip in Georgia.
◈ On October 4th of 2024, John was struck by a train in Montgomery, Alabama. The first obvious question is why was he in Montgomery if his worksite was in Savannah, Georgia? That is just one of millions of questions that have been left unanswered over one year after his passing.
◈ The days leading up to his death paint a picture of someone battling confusion and fear that seemed to come out of nowhere… a sudden shift from the grounded, confident person everyone knew him to be.
◈ On October 2nd, he visited the hospital in Savannah. Based on a phone conversation between him and his dad, John explained that he didn't understand why he was in the hospital, but he felt like he could not put his thoughts together. John sounded scared and seemed ‘out of it’, traits that caught his father off guard.
◈ In hopes of cutting the work-trip short and coming home, he booked a flight at the Atlanta airport. After acting erratically before boarding the flight that would have brought him home, he was not allowed onto the plane.
◈ One day later is when his body was discovered on the railroad track in Alabama, over 150 miles from the Atlanta airport.
◈ The Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences ruled the death of John Combs a su***de, a conclusion that has brought anything but resolve to the all of the unanswered questions that led John to the train tracks on the day of his death.
Just a few of those questions…
� What happened to him in Savannah that prompted a hospital visit?
� How did his psyche shift so suddenly, becoming someone his father couldn’t distinguish on the phone?
� Why wasn’t help or intervention provided when he was clearly in distress at the Atlanta airport?
� How did he get from Atlanta to Montgomery, and what were his intentions being there when his goal all along was to get back home to Illinois?
◈ When I sat down and interviewed John’s father, Chris, one year ago, he said, “He never let anything stop him and his one theme through this whole thing was, 'I just want to go home,' Somebody stood in his way trying to find his way back home."
◈ Amid piecing together what happened to a beloved son, brother, and friend… the Combs family held John’s celebration of life on October 26th, 2024. Little did they realize that they had planned it on a significant date in their family history.
◈ October 26th was 80 years to the date that James Combs was reported killed in action as well as the date he ended up passing in 2006.
◈ This felt meant to be for the family, because for those who knew John, he lived his life as if he was from his great-grandpa’s time period. Chris describes, "He wished he would have lived back then rather than today. He liked the simplicity of life. He liked the old motorcycles, the old cars, trucks, and riding horses, ya know, and the way where it was simple. You worked hard and you were rewarded for it.”
◈ As the Combs family continues to search for answers, they often find themselves wishing for history to repeat itself, for John to walk across the yard, just like his great-grandfather James once did all those years ago. But through all of the uncertainty, what remains is the determination to find closure and the unbreakable thread that ties their family’s generations together… from a Navy veteran who came home against all odds, to a young man who tried so desperately to do the same.
Link to last year’s story: https://newschannel20.com/news/local/tragic-twist-ties-two-generations-on-historic-date-amid-combs-family-searching-for-answers
To keep up on the latest developments, follow: Justice For John Combs
