PENDLETON — A crowd of nearly 200 individuals filled the Pendleton Community Library on Saturday morning to hear first-hand accounts about the conflict which has often been called “the forgotten war.”
“We’re here today to say ‘Thank you,’” said Don McAllister, director of the National Veterans Historical Archive, as he recognized 66 honorees from all over Madison County who fought in the Korean War.
One by one, members of a discussion panel of veterans representing each branch of the military service told personal stories and relived the events. Many of them were in uniform. As they recounted the battles, heads nodded in agreement as emotions were stirred. For many of the wives who attended, it was a chance to learn more from spouses who have often been reluctant to talk about hard memories.
Jim Foster, of Anderson, served in the U.S. Marine Corps and described the Inchon invasion. “I went in weighing 185 pounds and came out weighing 129.
“The C-rations were frozen so tight we couldn’t get the food out of the can,” he explained, adding that many men froze to death in the 35- to 40-degree below zero temperatures. “If you don’t have food, you don’t eat. And, if you don’t eat, you don’t generate heat.”
Foster said medics often carried syringes of morphine in their mouths to keep the drug from freezing. “The cold weather did keep a lot of people from bleeding to death,” he noted.
Suffering from severe frostbite, Foster ended up on a hospital ship after his eyelid was stapled to his eyeball by shrapnel. He gave an account of the conditions: “The temperature onboard the ship was 60 degrees, almost 100 degrees difference from where we’d been. The heat was stifling.”
Foster said the entire hospital smelled like gangrene, a common result of frostbite.
George Sprague, of Frankton, was part of the first U.S. Marine outfit to arrive in North Korea. He said the frigid temperatures caused weapons to freeze up, so he carried a handgun near his chest on the inside of his jacket. Recalling the treacherous cold and deep snow, he said it took 10 men to carry a soldier on a stretcher after he stepped on a landmine.
Sprague also recounted seeing two trucks fall over the side of a mountain in the dark. “There were a lot of ways to get killed,” he remembered.
Tom Applegate, director of Indiana Department of Veteran Affairs, was a featured speaker on Saturday.
“Few of the American families had television in the early ’50s,” he told the crowd. “Radio and newspapers were the media of the day, and they weren’t paying much attention to that ‘police action,’ as it was called. That’s one of the reasons it’s been referred to as ‘the forgotten war.’ It might more accurately be called ‘the ignored war.’ Only through retrospect do we see that men, just as these, fought just as hard and died for just as noble a cause as the men who fought and died in World War II, a war which had the almost total support of the American people.
“We lost 36,000 men in theater, 54,000 men service-wide,” he said. “The lessons learned during the Korean War shaped the military training and decision-making for decades.
“The Korean War is not so forgotten anymore.”
Applegate quoted the words of well-known General Alexander Haig Jr.: “Never again should poorly equipped, poorly trained, and in some cases, poorly led Americans, be asked to shed their blood by a national leadership which overlooked its sacred responsibility to maintain America’s military preparedness.”
Each of the Korean War veterans at Saturday’s program was presented an Indiana House of Representatives Certificate of Recognition by State Rep. Scott Reske, of Pendleton. Reske served in active duty as a helicopter pilot in Iraq. He said Korean vets were a source of strength. “A lot of you told me your stories when I was growing up,” he said. “During the trying times, when I was in Iraq and Haiti, I never wanted to let you down.”
Saturday’s program was the second in a series presented by Pendleton Community Library to honor veterans of war. According to Arlene Shannon, the library’s outreach specialist, the goal of the Korean War remembrance was to provide an opportunity for veterans to tell, in their own words, stories that have gone largely untold until now.
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May 24, 2008
8 p.m.: Korean War vets honored in Pendleton
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Photo gallery: AU vs Mount Saint Joseph Baseball
Photos from the baseball double header and senior night for Anderson University and Mount Saint Joseph on 5/7/10.
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Comedian Harland Williams coming to Paramount
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Auction deal for buyers, not for owners
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Ann Duran on the air in Madison County
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AHS rocking to 'Schoolhouse Rock Live!'
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Anderson native to lead county ghost tour
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Sidewalk Prophets looking for a Dove
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At Home: Project a bonding experience
PENDLETON — When a four-year project goes on for seven years, the result is often a strained marriage.
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