By the time Green Valley residents Joe and Carolyn Clark were invited by the Korean government to attend an appreciation ceremony for war veterans, they knew something of what it was about.
Likening the trip to Honor Flight, which takes World War II military veterans to Washington, D.C., to see their memorial, the Clarks have known other vets who’ve attended the ceremonies funded by the Korean government dating to 2000 — the 50th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. A friend who attended an early one told the Clarks, “You’re going to find out what it’s like to be treated like royalty,” Carolyn said.
Little did they know.
It’d been a lifetime since Joe was in Korea — 1951 to be exact. A
U.S. Marine since 1947, he’d been called to serve as a gunner/mortarman
in an escalating war against Communist rule.
The war, and specifically the Chosin Reservoir campaign,
is still mentioned in history books but is better detailed by those who
were there. They faced impossible odds, leaders who miscalculated the
enemy’s cunning, Korea’s worst weather in 100 years — and they were
outnumbered more than 10 to one by the Chinese. No one foresaw the
bitter cold that killed many, ravaged limbs with frostbite, caused
weapons to malfunction, vehicle batteries to fail, and rendered medical
supplies useless. The steep, mountain roads were slick with ice and
frost too hard to dig foxholes. A hot meal could freeze between the chow
line and finding a place to sit and eat.
“We were poorly prepared with no winter clothes,” Jim recalled.
“We had field jackets and boondockers (ankle-high work boots) with
canvas leggings. We got the Army’s hand-me-downs. I went ashore and was
handed a rifle I’d never fired.”
The fighting begins
Joe was a corporal with a fire team of four men.
“Once we got into real fighting, people were subtracted quite
rapidly, then they started bringing in cooks, truck divers,
third-echelon Marines sent through Japan.”
On arriving, the Marines encountered other military and United
Nations forces of Greeks, Turks, British and South Koreans, Joe said.
“We tried to have at least one English-speaking Korean per
platoon. What it depended on how close you were going to be to the
fight.”
Following a grueling two weeks in the Taebaek Mountains and
around Chosin Reservoir, now know by its Korean name Changjin, Allied
Forces were finally ordered to withdraw the horrific conditions under
which thousands were killed in battle or perished in the cold. Joe was
among the few survivors able to hike 79 miles back to port where he was
put on a stretcher and hoisted aboard the hospital ship Constellation.
His hands and feet were frozen, his arms and legs pierced by
shrapnel and he suffered from blood poisoning. The more seriously
injured were slowly trucked to the ship over rough, frosty terrain.
They were all brought aboard and would come to be called the Chosin Few.
As the Constellation made its way out of the east Korean port on
the Sea of Japan, the Allies bombed the harbor to prevent the enemy
Chinese from overtaking it. The billowing clouds of thick smoke are
still vivid in Joe’s mind. In his home library is a “Pictorial History
of the Korean War,” published by the Veterans of Foreign Wars that bring
it all into focus in stark black and white.
After about six weeks recuperating in Japan, Joe was sent back to Korea in early March 1951.
“They never let us go back across the 38th Parallel,” he said,
referring to the military demarcation that still splits the Korean
peninsula roughly in half. To this day, the line separates North, which
no longer calls itself Communist but a “single-party state,” and the
South, Republic of Korea.
Back home
Joe then got orders to return stateside and arrived back
in Michigan in November. His family knew some of what the Chosin
soldiers had experienced from headlines in American newspapers, but
those quickly subsided. He came through San Francisco and was surprised
to see society ignoring the returning troops.
“We were like the guys from Vietnam. There was no parade.”
Now called The Forgotten War by many, Korea is but a
fading memory for survivors, and virtually unknown to younger
generations, Joe said.
Shortly before Christmas 1951, he was met at the rail
station by his father and father-in-law. He went to work the following
Monday.
“People were tired of World War II, which had just ended
in 1945,” he said. “The Korean War wasn’t over yet, there was no clear
victory. A resolution was still hanging at armistice, and the country
was still divided.”
Soldiers were still stunned over military decisions based on low-ball enemy counts that resulted in thousands of bloody deaths.
“We knew they (Chinese) were there,” Joe said.
Many vets also bristled at references to the eventual
decision by military leaders to withdraw being categorized a “retreat,” a
cowardly term in Marine vernacular.
On returning to the states, Joe entered training at Marine
Corps Base Quantico, where he stayed five months. He was offered the
chance to remain in the service, but says “my wife at the time helped
decide. Stay and it would mean divorce. She’d had enough.”
So Joe went home to Michigan and entered police work,
making it his life’s career first in Detroit, then with the Roscommon
County (Mich.) Sheriff’s Department.
Joe is now 83 and long retired from police work. His
children are grown and he survived a bout of cancer three years ago. He
and Carolyn now live in Arizona because, unlike Chosin, it’s not cold.
He hasn’t shared much about the war — it was 10 years into
their marriage before he mentioned anything, Carolyn said. Even after
61 years, he gets emotional. But after a trip back to the 38th Parallel
during the couple’s visit to Korea last month, Joe is impressed with
what the country has become.
A new Korea
The modern Korea is an economic force, clean, rebuilt,
respectful, well-educated. Its people seem to genuinely appreciate what
the Allied Forces did. Nearly 100,000 refugees left with the troops,
escaping communist tyranny. When Joe left, the place had been leveled.
“They can’t say thank you enough,” he said. “My only regret is
that we didn’t finish it, it is still an act of war. The South Koreans
live in fear every day of the Chinese and the North Koreans coming
back.”
Carolyn added, “I think they’re afraid Americans won’t help them.”
While there, the Clarks met people from all over the U.S., about
300 veterans, relatives and companions. They filled five buses, which
took them on daily tours, furnished meals and hotel stays, all at
government expense.
“They’re selling Korea, no doubt about it,” Joe said.
The Clarks were impressed. Traveling with them were medical
personnel, ambulances and four big, young men to help the aging veterans
on and off.
“They wouldn’t take tips,” Joe said.
At a school visit on Sunday, children sang, played, danced and
most touching, presented personally written letters and artwork to each
veteran. Some even joined veterans on buses. As the entourage rolled
through town sporting Korean War veteran banners, people on the streets
waved and gave “thumbs up,” Joe said.
They visited the U.S. Veterans monument and Korean Veterans
Memorial in Seoul, and the 38th Parallel, where guards still watch over a
30-mile stretch of the Han River, armed ones on the north side. On the
last day, veterans were given “Ambassador of Peace” awards by retired
Gen. Se Hwan Park at a banquet. The weeklong visits were sponsored by
the Korean Veterans Association and the Patriot and Veterans Affairs,
Republic of Korea.
The Forgotten War shouldn’t be, Joe said. He’d like to see the missing in action returned.
“There are three places I know of that are well-marked on maps
where we dropped the dead. The graves were marked so they could be
found. We constantly try.”
Due to the dwindling attendance at Chosin reunions and the
inability for many vets to travel, survivor chapters including Arizona’s
may be closed soon.
“They’re running out of guys like me,” Joe said. Korea is now
inviting descendents of Korean War vets to visit the country. Anyone who
gets the chance should go, the couple says.
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