At age 17 Neal Vance had never seen a body, fired anything bigger than a .22, shot a man or been scared for his life. He hadn't seen a North Korean, either. In the space of two hours on July 27, 1950, all of that changed. The Bakersfield resident had dropped out of Bakersfield High School in November 1949 while a sophomore to join the U.S. Army -- and to escape an abusive stepfather. At Fort Ord on Monterey Bay for basic training, he met Eddie L. Payne, 17, who'd also left BHS to join the army. The two eventually...