Nov. 26, 1959

MP Investigator Adopts Orphan

A SALUTE FOR A FRIEND at the entrance to the 19^th Military Police Bn., 1^st Cav. Div., Korea, is extended by Cha Moon Dal, alias Cha Michael Dunbar, as he enters the compound.  The boy was found abandoned by the Military Police detachment a little more than a year ago.  He will leave Korea for the U.S. Dec. 4 with his foster-father, civilian investigator Charles E. Dunbar of Mount Holly, N.J.  (USA Photo)

HQ., U.S. 1^ST CAV. DIV., Korea (IO)-A Korean orphan boy, once abandoned to die of starvation of exposure, will leave for the U.S. Dec. 4 as the adopted son of a civilian investigator with the Military Police detachment here.  Cha Moon Dal, since renamed Cha Michael Dunbar by his foster father, Charles E. Dunbar of Mount Holly, N.J., was found, cold and hungry, by the MP detachment a little more than a year ago. 

The MPs said he was born in Kaesong at the outbreak of the Korean conflict, when the communists invaded his home.

WHEN CHA was about 3 months old he was put in a Republic of Korea vehicle heading south.  He went from one orphanage to another before being abandoned.  Investigator Dunbar was appointed unofficial guardian of the boy after the MPs took him as a mascot.

Later, when the ties between the man and the boy grew stronger, Dunbar wrote to his wife about adopting Cha as their son.  The answer was yes.

WHILE ADOPTION proceedings were being carried out by the Holt agency in Seoul, Cha was enrolled in the Paju Primary School, where he finished first in his class with a 95 average.  Mathematics was his best subject.  Mike, as his MP friends call him, will have a room all to himself at 216 Cardinal Lane in Mount Holly.  A new outfit of clothes is hanging in the closet and, according to Dunbar, he's practically a member of the local Boy Scout troop already.