Posted on 10/23/2018 8:01:44 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un fulfilled an agreement he made with President Trump at the Singapore summit in June to return 55 boxes of remains of Americans killed in the Korean War. It's only a tiny fraction of the nearly 5,300 still missing but for at least one family, it provided closure.
A faded photo is one of the few memories Charles McDaniel has of his father. He was just three years old when Master Sgt. Charles McDaniel went off to the Korean War and vanished without a trace.
"He disappeared from history. I mean he was just gone. He wasn't dead. He wasn't a POW that was listed. He was gone," Charles told CBS News correspondent David Martin.
He was a medic in an Army battalion overwhelmed by Chinese troops at the Battle of Unsan in North Korea on November 2, 1950....
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
My father (RIP) landed at Inchon. He made it back. A few guys from his hometown didn’t.
Wars have been and will be very bloody affairs...
++++
“They lost 600 and something people in one night….the Chinese came in around them, surrounded them and just overran the battalion headquarters,” Charles said.”
Welcome home, soldier.
If and when we ever cease to demand that all our dead and missing be brought home, we will then cease to be a great nation.
The headline led me to believe that, the son got a surprise call from his father. Father would have been in his late 80s or 90s.
Imagine if it had turned out to be like that.
Son would have said: “what took you so long?”
Thanks for posting this!
Welcome home!
Canteen PING!
The dog tags hold up. After WWI they began to be made from Monel. Don’t know if they still are though.
Monel is non-magnetic and a naturally occurring alloy that is heat resistant of course but also corrosion resistant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monel#Other
There’s a guy in the senior center band I play in. He was a tank commander in Korea. He has Alzheimer’s, so he tells the same story over and over. He has this harmonica, he plays, and it’s the same one he had in Korea. He told us as long as he was playing the harmonica on a hill named Old Baldy, the Chinese snipers wouldn’t shoot at his tank, and he could stick his head out of the turret. But if he wasn’t playing, he didn’t dare pop up for a look-see, cause he would hear the plink-plink off the tank when they shot at him.
Both of my folks served in WWII. It is sickening what this country has become. Many. . .too many. . . today have no idea the sacrifices that have been made. I’m substitute teaching. . .definitely a shortage of not only subs but teachers. Many if not most of the students have no idea why they are saying a pledge to the flag. . .some of which need to be replaced . . .worn and dirty. The flag outside the building is tattered and not because of the reenactment of the Star Spangled Banner. We are working on making replacements.
My dad fought in Korea. He was injured, and later he received a small pension as a result of those injuries. He’s 83 now. He forgets a lot, but to talk to him over the phone, he sounds just like he did when he was 30
It’s a stressful thing when relatives go missing. It also feels weird to rejoice when you get remains, but there’s such a relief from the stress of not knowing, that you’re glad to have that member back, you can’t help but rejoice, even in your sorrow.
That person is dead, but they’re with you, where they belong.
My father fought at Old Baldy. Lost his best friend there. He burned his uniform because it was so saturated with his friend’s blood.
I’ve only seen my father cry a few times in my life; when my nephew died, when my mother died, and when he talked about Korea.
My friend was proudest of his record as a platoon leader in never having lost a man in combat in Korea. He was saddened to learn the guy who took over his platoon was killed in action while my friend was on the boat home from Korea.
My uncle was on occupation duty in Japan in June 1950 in a mortar crew in the 24th Division and a week after the invasion by the Norks he was on a ship headed across the Sea of Japan.
He fought at most of these battles: Pyongtaek, Chonan, Chochiwon, and eventually Taejeon. He saw General Dean giving orders for US defense of the Taejeon right before the battle started and he was one of the last unit to break out before it fell. They fell back to Pusan and held until Inchon and then he talks about pushing through Pyongyang and it looking like a total wreck after they finished with it and going to the Yalu.
The night before the Chinese entered the war he witnessed junior officers asking the colonel in command how he wanted to set up defensive positions for the night, go down to the village next to the Yalu or stay up on the plateau and set up. He said the colonel looked around for a moment and said, will stay up here on the high ground, we can always move to the rivers edge in the morning. My uncle said strangely he went to sleep that evening and slept the most soundly his entire tour in the war.
About 2:00am he said his buddy was tugging on him telling him to wake up the front outpost was engaging something and he told his buddy its nothing and went back to sleep. About thirty minutes later the second line of defenses engaged and their armor started firing and his buddy got him up then and they were headed to trucks. Command had ordered a retreat and he said they past a rear area where the cooks had been caught and they were strung up and had been castrated and tortured before being killed. He made up his mind then he said, I would not be surrendering to these animals. Had they set up at the village by the Yalu they would have been slaughtered.
At one point during the war in a firefight him and his buddy got lost from their unit and found themselves running from the Norks for three days, up one mountain and down, over and over. After two days they were out of food and at the bottom of one of these mountains was a farm house and they found a chicken and the buddy wanted to kill and cook it and my uncle said, no kill it and bring it with us will cook it later and they hadn’t more than started up the next mountain and looked down and it was swarming with Norks.
Finally the third day they came to a road with an intersection and noticed soldiers in what appeared to be green US fatigues but they were not Americans. Taking a chance they walked up to one and the soldier was shocked to see two Americans and they started trying to communicate. Thank God he said they were ROK troops and he pointed them in a direction and they went that way and ran into a couple of Americans in a jeep who were shocked to see them. They took them to a big US air base where they stayed for three days as the base tried to find out where their unit was so they could get them back to it. In the meantime he said him and his buddy ate very nice meals with some big brass at the base, they were well fed and enjoyed themselves until they got sent to their unit.
He struggled with PTSD for nearly a decade after the war, he had seen hand to hand combat and killed people up close, shovels, bayonets, knives. His first marriage didn’t last because of the PTSD. He finally settled down and came to terms with it in the early 1960’s. Now he will talk to you about the war if you ask him.
I can’t imagine all they went through, including my Dad.
He told me a few stories.
God please bless our vets, here and gone.
God please help America, we’re wounded.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.