Corporal Mitchell was a member of Company C, 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was taken Prisoner of War while fighting the enemy in North Korea on November 4, 1950 and died while a prisoner on August 31, 1951. 

Through the work of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the remains of Corporal Jesse Leroy Mitchell were accounted for in 2024. His name is permanently inscribed on the “Walls of the Missing” at the Honolulu Memorial