Military officials announced that Chavez, who vanished 75 years ago, was accounted for, with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency confirming his identification on April 15. He was 19 years old when he disappeared. According to a newspaper clipping shared by the agency, his last communication was a letter to his mother on November 27, 1950, in which he wrote that if anything happened to him, she should not cry. Chavez was assigned to D Battery, 15th Anti-Aircraft Artillery, Automatic Weapons Battalion, 7th Infantry Division in late 1950.
During a battle near the Jangjin Reservoir, Chavez was injured. A statement accompanying his posthumous award described how he was struck and seriously wounded but refused evacuation because no replacement was available. He voluntarily stayed at his post and kept his weapon firing until the enemy attack was broken up. After the attack, he collapsed unconscious from blood loss and fell from the M-19 gun carriage. Chavez was evacuated to an aid station on November 30, 1950.
He was reported missing in action on December 2, 1950, when his convoy was ambushed by enemy forces en route to Hagaru-ri. The U.S. Army did not receive any indication he was ever held as a prisoner of war. With no evidence of his continued survival, the Army issued a presumptive finding of death for Chavez on December 31, 1953. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for continuing to man his position despite his wounds during the November 30 attack, along with a Purple Heart and the Korean Service Medal with two Bronze Service Stars.
Chavez's remains were recovered as part of broader Korean War accounting efforts. In the summer of 2018, at a summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un, North Korea turned over 55 boxes reportedly containing the remains of U.S. service members who died in the war. The agency took these remains to a DPAA lab for identification using anthropological analysis, circumstantial evidence, and material evidence. Chavez received a burial with full military honors in his hometown of Gallup, New Mexico on April 15.