Sergeant Sparks was a member of Company L, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. He was taken Prisoner of War while fighting the enemy near Unsan, North Korea on November 2, 1950 and died while a prisoner on April 30, 1951. His remains have been recovered and accounted for. . SGT Sparks' name is permanently inscribed on the Korean War Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.