With men dying all around him, dad moved up quickly in military rank, replacing those who had fallen. Ever vigilant, he never lost a man under his direct command. "I wanted to come home, and I wanted them to come home," he said.
But not everyone made it back to U.S. soil. The death of one soldier, in particular, haunted my father throughout his life. My dad had just returned from the front line when his regiment was ordered to dig trenches in a second line of defense.
Before leaving for the assignment, my dad learned a fellow sergeant would be shipping out the next day, headed back to Nebraska. Everyone was excited for the young man, especially since he would be returning home to a six-week-old daughter he had never seen.
Those happy thoughts were on the soldiers’ minds as they moved forward. Then it happened. "Just as we got in the trenches, I heard a round coming in," my dad said. "I knew someone would get hit." Before his eyes, my father saw his young friend blown to pieces by an incoming shell.
"I could fight a lot, but that one hurt," he said, fighting back tears.
It was a horrific battlefield memory my dad carried with him for the rest of his life. It’s a memory that gave him nightmares until his death fifty years later. It’s one of the few memories he ever shared of a war that claimed 33,650 American lives.
Twenty-eight men from the 2nd Battalion, 65th Infantry Regiment, my dad’s unit, died during the early summer of 1953. On July 31, my dad attended a service in Sucham-dong, Korea, memorializing the twenty-eight soldiers, among them his buddy from Nebraska. My dad found comfort in these words from John 15:13 printed in the service folder: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (Rsv). He carried that memorial bulletin with him all the way home from Korea. It was a remembrance of those who had fought beside him and given the ultimate sacrifice—their lives.
While the Korean War is often termed "The Forgotten War," sandwiched between World War II and the Vietnam War, it was never a forgotten war for my father. During his time on Korean soil, my dad saw more blood and death than anyone should witness in a lifetime. He carried the bodies of his buddies off the battlefields in a land that chilled his bones to the very marrow. More than two thirds of the Americans who died—23,835 of them—were killed, like my dad’s friend, on the battlefield.
Almost a year after his feet touched Korean soil at the port of Inchon, my dad boarded a ship for America. He was returning home a different man, a man whose emotions and body had been scarred by the horrors of war. He had seen too much blood, too much death, and too many atrocities. He had lived in a land so cold water froze in canteens, oil congealed in soldiers’ weapons, and the frozen bodies of comrades were used to barricade positions.
Despite everything, my dad’s single most earnest prayer had been answered. God had brought him safely back from the mountainous killing fields of Korea to the flat, open farm fields of southwestern Minnesota. For that he was thankful.
Forty-seven years later the United States government thanked my dad for serving his country in a war that many forgot. On May 21, 2000, he received a Purple Heart for the wounds he suffered at Heartbreak Ridge on February 26, 1953. For reasons unknown, my dad never got his medal as a young soldier.
That Sunday afternoon in May 2000 was a memorable day for my dad and his family. Emotions overflowed as the Purple Heart was pinned on his chest. I choked back tears as I focused my camera, intent on capturing this intensely personal, yet public, moment. Tears slipped down my dad’s face as he recounted war stories to a local television reporter covering the event. The pain in his eyes was obvious as he spoke. He was proud of his service to his country, yet the horrific battlefield memories were still almost too unbearable to share.
