My dad was a war hero in Korea

[sugarplumkitty]

I didn't know much about his war days in the army because he avoided the topic for most of my life. Mom said he had night terrors from his experience. It was only after he joined a Korean Veterans group that he started talking about it. Even then, it was just small episodes. I came to understand why he and Mom never took us to the snow when I was a kid. He had enough of that in Korea while living in tents. He said all the horrible stories about Vietnam were just like Korea was for him. The only difference was the use of drugs by soldiers.

One story he told was of a mortar that landed in his tent one night and exploded, showering them with propaganda leaflets. Can you imagine the terror before they realized it was just paper? *shudder*

Another armed mortar went off when they were marching one day. A piece of shrapnel took the heel off his boot. That led to the only interaction he had with the Korean people. His CO called a halt at a village that had a cobbler so my dad could get his boot repaired.

During one heated battle, the company sniper was hit and my dad was ordered to replace him. Dad saw the enemy sniper and fired at him, hoping not to hit him. He missed and his CO's CO shrieked at him to stop drawing fire. Dad was relieved. He didn't want to kill anyone. He was too soft-hearted.

In another battle, one of the men was hit badly and needed a blood transfusion on the spot. Dad volunteered and they hooked up a direct line between them. Dad ran along side the stretcher all the way to the MASH unit, where he promptly fainted from blood loss. That earned him a purple heart and a silver cross. He didn't know what happened to the soldier until he joined the Korean Veterans group. The man survived and lived less than two miles away. He was eternally grateful to my dad for saving his life. Finding out the man lived because of him may have been what got Dad to start talking about his experiences.

My dad was on a ship enroute to Korea when my sister was born. He was beside himself with worry when he didn't hear anything for two months. Finally he talked to the radio operator for his division and they patched through ham radio operators up through Japan, Alaska and down to California to get my mom on the phone. The mail caught up to him soon after that with all the pictures my mom's brother Jim (not the Jim in the photos) was taking of my sister. Dad took one of those photos to Japan when he got R&R and had an artist there paint a silk painting of her. I wish that hadn't been lost in a move before I had a chance to see it. Dad said it was odd because the artist had never seen a blue-eyed caucasian baby and gave her brown Asian eyes. Pictures back then were all in black and white so he had no color to go from.

Here's a few pictures of Dad from his Army days, including the moment he first met my sister.

Comments

[alessandrastarr.livejournal.com]

My dad was in the Vietname war, he quit high school and lied about his age, and he still has some problems. He was a door-gunner on a medi-vac, but he dosen't talk about that. If he talks about anything it'll be the good times, or when he was a guard. And if you need to wake him up you have to stand near his feet, 'cause he kind of pops up. My dad has joined the VFW, DAV, and American Legion, and he probably talks to the people in those groups, or at least I hope he does, because he knows that they will understand, where's I and most of the people I know can't because we haven't been there, so we don't understand.

[sugarplumkitty.livejournal.com]

I think war is so awful that people never do quite heal from it. In Vietnam, people did a lot of drugs that increased the emotional damage both on those who used them and those who dealt with the ones who used them.

My dad popped up out of sleep, too. Actually, so do I if people say my name. If people touch me gently I wake up gently. I never went to war. Who knows why that happens?