The Graybeards - Korean War Veterans Association

BOOKS from page 6
Word War I gave us All Quiet on the
Western Front, Over There and
Hemingway. The Second World War gave
us a thousand movies, some memorable
songs, ‘Mister Roberts‘, ‘The Naked and
the Dead‘, and ‘From Here to Eternity’.
Vietnam has been a cottage industry of
film, books and endless debate. Those of us
who fought in Korea didn’t have a song,
not even a protest song. We had no Bob
Dylan. There were a few movies, a few
good books and “M*A*S*H*” which is
why Americans who went to Korea a half
century ago deserve a book like ‘Korean
Vignettes’, Faces of War. A forgotten war?
Not when we are reminded of those young
men who fought there We might as well
forget the young men we ourselves were
and the young men we left behind.
James Brady
Plt Ldr Co XO & Bn S-2 USMC
Korea 1951-52
Mr. Brady is a feature correspondent
for Parade Magazine and
author of The Coldest War.
Freedom is never free. Always. there is
a price to be paid. This book remembers
those men who paid their dues of citizenship
as they fought and died in the frigid
mountains of Korea. In this era of peace,
Americans are secure in their heritage. Yet,
let them not forget those others. those
“Faces of War,” who paid freedom’s price
in that battle hell known as the Korean War.
Dr. Morton I. Silver Lt USNR
HQ 5th Marine Regiment
Korea 1950-51
In these pages American fighting men
tell in their own blunt and graphic language
just how it was to fight the Chinese and
North Korean enemy. Here assembled are
201 personal stories of US soldiers, sailors,
airmen and marines. Together these add up
to a memorable saga of brave fighting men.
David B. Richardson
Foreign Correspondent
Time & US News & World
Report 1945-81
S/Sgt Yank Magazine & Merrill’s
Marauders, WW II
This book makes very powerful reading.
It pioneers a new and significant
development in military writing, and dramatically
illuminates the typical American
who really fights our wars. The field of
military history is dominated by the generals
and the captains. The guy who needs
the guts is the GI Joe who fought it out in a
lonely foxhole. It is his bayonet that marks
the US boundary. This book salutes him as
America’s best.
William J. McCaffrey
Lt General USA Ret
Deputy Chief of Staff X Corps
1950 CO 31st Infantry Regiment
1951-52 7th Division
Korea 1951-52
(I have another 20 more highly recommended
reviews from military men,
authors, newspapers, Historians, etc. that I
can not print so I picked the above because
I felt they were more known to the average
Korean War Veteran. I will add a few comments
of my own. This is my kind of book.
Full of photos, maps, history and most of
all written by those that experienced these
events. The 201 stories are the ones that
are the most memorial in their minds.
Many of you out there were in these battles
and they will jog your memory and fill in
the gaps of forgotten events. We would
have been proud to print any one of these
stories in The Graybeards. A great history
of our war.– Editor.)
Unforgotten
By Daniel J. Meador
Extract from the novel Unforgotten continued
from September-October 1999 Issue.
One by one he entered the names of his
fellow lieutenants in Baker Company, no
word of whom he had ever received after
that catastrophic night on Hill 274.
Malcolm Mason of Terre Haute, Indiana,
the company exec; Alex Puccini of
Milwaukee, commanding First Platoon;
Chris Ridley of San Jose, California, commanding
Third Platoon; Mike Forney, the
forward observer, from Bowling Green,
Kentucky. The machine reported no information
on any of them.
He then moved over to the computers
containing the MIAs. He entered each of
the names again. Mason, Pucinsky, and
Ridley were all reported to be missing in
action, as of 25 November 1950. He saw
no way they could still be alive. He could
think of only two possibilities. Either they
died on 274 or they were taken prisoner by
the Chinese and died in their hands.
Mike Forney’s absence from both the
KIA and MIA data meant that he must have
survived the war. John wondered how he
got out of that hellish night. Where was he
now? He could well have died of natural
causes since then, as had a host of men
who’d returned from the war. Indeed, as he
reflected on the crowd here today, be realized
that the ranks of the veterans were
inevitably thinning, time, like an ever
rolling stream, bears all its sons away.
He typed in the name of Capt. Howell
Grimes, the Baker Company commander
from Amarillo, Texas, whom he had last
seen on the chaotic withdrawal south of
Kunu-ri. Not finding him among the missing,
lie went back to the KIA computers
and typed in the name. It was immediately
projected on the screen, showing him to
have been killed in action on 21 March
1951. He shook his head over the irony of
Grimes’ having survived the collapse of the
army along the Chongchon only to die in
the victorious advance back north. He was
left with the depressing thought that he
alone of the officers in Baker Company
was still alive, with the possible exception
of Forney.
He wandered along the lines of tents,
threading his way through the heavily perspiring
crowd, steadily growing in size. He
had now removed his tie completely and
rolled up his sleeves, hoping not to become
a customer of the first-aid tent he was passing,
already busy with cases of heat
exhaustion. He took another bottle of water
and continued sipping.
He passed the food tents, emitting a
variety of aromas, including the unmistakable
smell of kimchi. He went into a tent
that seemed to be serving a mixture of
Korean and Chinese food. He ordered an
egg roll and an oversized cup of lemonade.
It was too hot to be hungry.
Among the sea of crowded tables he
found an empty chair away from the sunniest
area and sat down. The tent’s sides were
rolled up, permitting a hint of a breeze to
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The Graybeards