Vietnam veterans organize tributes
to older comrades in arms
By:G. Natasha Zoe
Half a century after fighting in Korea ended, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2290 will hold its 50th Anniversary Korean War Memorial Services at 600 Washington Ave. at 1 p.m., July 27.
"The public is encouraged to come out and pay their respects especially to those who made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure our freedom," said Vietnam veteran Andy Henkel, past post commander.
Not even five years after the welcoming parades for the heroes of World War II, young American men were again drafted into military service. This time they were sent off to a little known place Korea across the globe to support a police action.
To support America’s foreign policy of containing communism, 36,570 Americans died, as well as almost 4 million Koreans. During the three years of war, as the 1.8 million veterans returned home one at a time instead of in large units, there was little fanfare or appreciation of their service.
It is the memories of those who did not return home that still haunt Korean War veterans today.
"When we came home from Korea it was like we had done nothing," said John Feeney, a 73-year-old Manville resident who was drafted at the age of 22. The lack of appreciation didn’t personally bother Mr. Feeney so much as the implication that his friends then died for no reason. "Conflict nothing it was a war! I was fortunate," he said until the memories choked up his voice and he looked away, rubbing his eyes.
The first six months of the Korean War was fought by World War II veterans, explained Bill Conner, who enlisted in the Army as a 17-year-old and returned with two Purple Hearts. A Purple Heart is a military decoration given to those wounded in combat.
"The greatest thing I remember is the inadequate gear. We had no cold weather gear," said Mr. Conner. In fact he had little in the way of military gear at all. "I went over in civilian clothes. My family sent me clothes."
While waiting for a winter coat from the States, he wore a winter coat taken off a dead Chinese soldier, like many of his comrades.
The shortage of military gear and outdated equipment, explained Sam Umbriac, a 72-year-old Manville resident who was drafted into the Army, "was because the Korean War was fought without a budget. Since war was never declared, we had to use WWII leftovers. When the war started June 25 everyone figured it would be over by July, then the Chinese got involved."
The extreme cold and a military unequipped to deal with it, the U.S. Army estimates, was the cause of at least 10 percent of both the 103,284 men injured and the 36,570 who were killed during the Korean War.
The extreme cold weather affected equipment as well as the soldiers and Marines. "Grenades would not go off. Our weapons were out dated; at 30 degrees below zero, they wouldn’t fire. Only mortars would fire," Mr. Conner said.
But if the American’s equipment was outdated, the North Koreans and Chinese were often worse off. "They came with bamboo polls," Mr. Kaswell said, "but they had the manpower alone to take a hill."
The reliance on mortars, which worked in extreme cold, made life miserable for the soldiers and Marines in its "own special way," recalled Mr. Conner. There would be more than 150 guys on each side of a hill, the Americans fighting the Chinese on the same hill for a month. "Everyone had to go to the bathroom. We’d dig a hole, as best we could in the cold."
"The ground was (frozen) so hard it would bend a pick (ax) and break a shovel," said Mr. Umbriac, who fought in places code-named Bunker Hill, Freedom Hill and Old Baldy. Often C-3 or dynamite was needed to blow even a shallow hole.
"When the Chinese would put a mortar over the hill, everything would fly. The filth 169 guys can create in a week is unimaginable. It was not too bad in the winter time, but in the summer it was simply awful," Mr. Conner said. "It is good to finally be able to laugh at something about that … time."
Most of their memories make horror movies seem like child’s play. Mr. Conner had to "break the legs and arms of frozen bodies" so his former comrades’ bodies could be sent back home to America to their families.
"The smells!" said Mr. Feeney who served "at places with made up names" Punch Bowl, Pork Chop Hill and Heartbreak Ridge. "The Koreans just left their dead. In the summer they had to be burnt with flame throwers."
Mr. Kaswell, whose "baby daughter is getting ready to retire from the Air Force after 23 years," remembers the mortars unearthing the shallow graves of his friends. "All this stuff comes back to me when standing for the national anthem. It is hard to forget."
Mr. Kaswell has a lot to say, although none of it is nice or polite, about Americans who won’t even stand while the "Star-Spangled Banner" plays.
Despite their willingness to talk about some of the horrors of war, they are most haunted by the memories of those who did not return.
"It bothers me to no end," Mr. Kaswell said. "Tears come to my eyes to this day, not for us, but for the guys that did not come back," he said, as a tear escaped down his face, wrinkled by both time and sorrow.
Not willing to seem like martyrs, they are quick to point out that "Vietnam (veterans) got it worse than us," said Bob Clifford, who served in both World War II and the Korean War.
"We got not even a tenth of what those guys went through," Mr. Conner said.
"If it wasn’t for the Vietnam vets speaking up when they came home, we probably still wouldn’t be recognized as war vets," Mr. Umbriac said.
"It took a long time for them to call it a war was called a conflict," said Vietnam veteran Mr. Henkel. "No matter where you fight is always a war, not a conflict. It is about time they are recognized for service they have given for their country, particularly for those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice."
For decades the Korean War was called a police action or a conflict, like Vietnam, because Congress did not officially declare war. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999 (section 1067) legally changed federal references to the war from the "Korean Conflict" to the "Korean War."
"A war is a war, no matter what you call it. There is no difference from the Revolutionary War to today they are killing each other," Mr. Conner said.
Calling the war a conflict affects more than just a veteran’s pride. When Korean War veterans returned home, they initially had few veterans benefits.
"In the early months of the Korean War, it became apparent that federal benefits available to veterans were substantially less than those available to their World War II counterparts. This was because the United States was officially at peace. Korea was officially a police action, not a declared war," according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Some benefits, like education, remain to this day substantially less for Korean War veterans than for WWII veterans.
World War II veterans came home heroes. "They had saved the world, but they said we did not win our war," said Mr. Conner.
"Before the war, Korea was 100 years behind the times. Just look at the pictures then and now. Today at night South Korea is all lit up while at night North Korea remains dark. South Korea has the second largest economy in the Far East now. I’m rather proud of what we did," said Mr. Kaswell.