His aunt, Dianna Shaw, said the video included both a key word and a gesture that Drueke and his mother had set up during one of his two tours in Iraq so she would know that it was indeed him and that he was OK.

Drueke, who served in the U.S. Army, and Huynh, who served in the U.S. Marines, went missing after their group came under heavy fire in the northeastern Kharkiv region on June 9.