Private First Class Lopa was a member of Battery A, 82nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery (Automatic Weapons) Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was listed as Missing in Action while fighting the enemy in South Korea on August 31, 1950. He was presumed dead on December 31, 1953. 

Through the work of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the remains of Private First Class Lopa were accounted for in 2023. His name is permanently inscribed on the “Courts of the Missing” at the Honolulu Memorial