LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- After nearly 80 years, a World War II soldier's remains are finally back on American soil.

At 25 years old, Pvt. First Class Leonard Adams, a Dana, Indiana, native, shipped off to Northeast France. 

He was killed in 1945 in a battle against the Germans where only two men made it out alive. 

"I can't even put into words," Todd Matonich, with Rolling Thunder Kentucky 5 Chapter, said. "I can't imagine what those guys have been through, knowing that they're the only two that got out. There's guilt, there's remorse."

Unidentified and alone, Adams was buried in an American war cemetery in Belgium in an unmarked grave.

But that changed last year.

"Seventy-eight years, waiting to come home," Matonich said.

The Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) Accounting Agency disinterred his remains. Through new DNA technology, they were able to positively identify Adams.

"It makes you kind of a little choked up here," Chris Kershaw, with Combat Veterans Motorcycle, said.

The soldier, no longer classified as missing in action, but killed in action.

"He has to come back to American soil knowing that he's honored, respected, knowing that his sacrifice wasn't for nothing," Matonich said.

With just days notice, dozens of veterans — affiliated with motorcycle clubs — showed up in Louisville, lining the way with flags to welcome the soldier home and escort him to Radcliff, Kentucky.

"The little bit of pain that we feel riding is nothing compared to the pain that families felt when they lost him," Kershaw said.

Adams will be buried in the Kentucky Veterans Cemetery in Radcliff, but not without a final salute and a goodbye from his military brothers and sisters.

"Welcome home, brother," Kershaw said.

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