A Veteran Father's Military Legacy

Some years ago my wife bought her Dad a book called "A Father's Legacy" which has blank pages for Fathers to write thoughts on memories of various activities that affected their own lives. One page asked the question, "If you were in the Armed Forces, how did your service affect your life?"

He entered the Korean war as an infantryman and carried a Browning Automatic Rifle and a 1911 at his side. I have a photo of him fresh off a combat patrol holding his BAR at his side & it was almost as tall next to him as he was at the time. About half way through his tour he volunteered to be a combat medic. He was 16 when he enlisted & lied about his age. Although he was a small statured man, he was larger than life to me.

What he told his daughters was vastly understated compared to the realities he told me about. I think he opened up to me because I'm a veteran.

I can't even imagine the horrors of what he saw and what he had to do in performing his duty in Korea. He wouldn't talk about it at all until he neared death.

When he started talking to me about the War during his last two years he told me that he killed so many people in combat that he couldn't even remember how many. It was a blur.

He told me that once there were hundreds of heavily armed North Korean soldiers & accompanying civilians carrying pitchforks, shovels, axes, hammers, clubs, spears & sticks charging toward the berm that he and his fellow soldiers were behind fighting them off. And that the magazines ammo carriers brought up could barely keep him supplied with what he needed for the rate of his automatic BAR fire. In the next few days a bulldozer dug a trench below the berm in front of where he & his buddies fought them off to push in and bury the dead who attacked from the North.

He was once riding in a Jeep with several other people when a mortar round landed right next to it & knocked their Jeep off a 30' cliff next to them. One of his buddies died & he had a kidney injury.

When he passed we found his Medic bag he brought back. Among the bandages and medical supplies, we found a number of Morphine syrettes and about 30 safety pins attached to one of the closed safety pin sides.

He had told me that he used safety pins to close gaping or ripped wounds as well as he could until the wounded could reach better Medical care.

He served 27 years in the Army and retired as a Sergeant Major. Always understated he described his year & a half in the letter in two sentences.

Here's what he wrote to his daughters. Although he told me much more, this was all he would tell them.

"I enlisted in the Army in August 1950 at Whitehall Street NYC. I was sworn in at 16 years old. I was sent to Ft. Dix New Jersey for basic training. Then to Ft. Meade Maryland for advance training. Then on to Virginia.

I flew to California and on to a troop transport ship for 17 days to Japan. 2 days after getting there we were on another ship headed to Korea. South Korea, where war had broken out. That was January 1951.

Then back to Japan. Tokyo Japan and back on a ship again 16 days to California and on to Edwards Massachusetts. Then I was sent to West Point to train Cadets.

I was married to Mom so I put in for a transfer to Ft. Jay Governor's Island New York Hospital. Then I transferred to Ft. Wadsworth Staten Island. I worked in the dispensary there. It was about 5 miles from our house in Staten Island.

The War affected all of our lives because everyone I knew drank very heavily when we came back. I did too. It was the biggest mistake I ever made. Drinking was trouble."

A WW2 Marine I knew quite well told me that Corps always gave the BARs to the smallest guys in the platoon. (He was one of them.) I had the greatest respect for him. He was wounded on Iwo, but preferred to talk about his experiences during the first weeks of the occupation of Japan, especially how welcoming the ordinary Japanese were. Working-class women had been cruelly repressed prior to the arrival of the Americans, and he said they would often applaud when a Marine put a stop to abuse by the men.

The Corps recruited him in his later years to talk to new recruits about what it meant to be a Marine. I know why. RIP Bernie Link. You did your duty proudly.

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