By Kim Vo

Mercury News

Lance Cpl. Samuel Sharp Jr. came home Saturday, nearly 38 years after he had been killed in Vietnam.

The Marine was shot during a reconnaissance mission on May 10, 1967, his comrades had long said. But it was too dangerous to recover his body, or the bodies of the three others who died with him that night.

So his family waited. For decades, they visited his grave site on Memorial Day and Feb. 9 -- Sharp's birthday -- knowing nothing was buried underneath the memorial tombstone.

It had been difficult ``not having him home,'' said Sharp's mother, Irene Sharp, 79. ``Just knowing he's over there somewhere.''

That changed Saturday. Sharp's remains were finally found, and his family watched as his casket was lowered into the lawn at Oak Hill cemetery in San Jose, his hometown. Inside the casket was a dark-blue Marine uniform and Sharp's teeth -- all that could be recovered and positively identified of the man who died at age 20, leaving behind his parents and a younger sister.

The teeth delivered a sobering but welcome confirmation of Sharp's death, said his sister, Janet Caldera, 56.

``You always have that thought that maybe they made a mistake, maybe he was still alive,'' she said. ``I think it's a relief -- I don't know if that's the right word.

``I guess you'd call it closure.''

Caldera still remembers clearly the day she was called to the principal's office. She immediately suspected something was either wrong with her father or her brother, Sam, the one she had fought with as a child and had grown close to as they got older. The one who, in his last letter home, sent along $5 for her birthday.

She drove home fast. And rounding the corner, she saw the Marines. She knew.

Samuel Sharp Jr. had enlisted in the Marines after graduating from Pioneer High School. That May day, he was part of a seven-man team sent to gather information on a route North Vietnamese soldiers were using near the demilitarized zone in South Vietnam. Shortly after a helicopter dropped the men on a hill, they came under attack, said Britt Friery, who was there that night and survived.

Sharp had been a mentor to Friery. ``I followed him around like a puppy,'' Friery said Saturday. ``I saw something that indicated he'd been hit. I went to him and he had been shot between the eyes.''

The three survivors were airlifted out the following morning, but there were too many enemies about to recover the other four. In the late 1990s, an agency began looking into the deaths and began interviewing witnesses to pinpoint the exact location, according to a Web site by Task Force Omega, a group of Vietnam veterans, families of war prisoners and those missing in action.

Sharp -- along with Heinz Ahlmeyer, James Tycz and Malcolm Miller -- apparently remained on that hill for decades. Bones and teeth were found, and last year DNA testing confirmed the identities of all four men. Some fragments were too small or too old to yield any DNA, Caldera said, and those pieces will be buried together May 10 in Arlington National Cemetery.

Saturday's ceremony was for Sharp alone. His childhood friend awoke early and drove five hours to attend the 11 a.m. service. His high school sweetheart flew in from Pennsylvania. His mother and sister -- his father died in 1993 -- came from Washington.

The military also came. Not just the guard to fire the 21-gun salute, play taps or fold the flag. But military officers from all services who filled the pews of the chapel, lined its aisles and crowded the foyer.

One by one they walked up to his open casket to pay their respects. A man in a Navy jacket limped up, nodded his head and spoke to the uniform inside. ``Welcome home, brother.''