Sergeant Saunders was a member of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. He was seriously Wounded in Action by the enemy in North Korea on November 26, 1950 and returned to duty on January 25, 1951. He was taken Prisoner of War while fighting the enemy in South Korea on February 12, 1951 and died while a prisoner on August 31, 1951. His remains were not recovered. Between 1990 and 1994, North Korea returned to the United States 208 boxes of commingled human remains, which when combined with remains recovered during joint recovery operations in North Korea, account for the remains of at least 600 U.S. servicemen who fought during the war. North Korean documents included in the repatriation indicated that some of the remains were recovered from the area where Saunders was believed to have died. DNA analysis and circumstantial evidence were used in the identification of his remains in 2016. His name remains permanently inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.