The Graybeards - Korean War Veterans Association
The Graybeards - Korean War Veterans Association
The Graybeards - Korean War Veterans Association
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BOOKS from page 6<br />
<br />
Word <strong>War</strong> I gave us All Quiet on the<br />
Western Front, Over <strong>The</strong>re and<br />
Hemingway. <strong>The</strong> Second World <strong>War</strong> gave<br />
us a thousand movies, some memorable<br />
songs, ‘Mister Roberts‘, ‘<strong>The</strong> Naked and<br />
the Dead‘, and ‘From Here to Eternity’.<br />
Vietnam has been a cottage industry of<br />
film, books and endless debate. Those of us<br />
who fought in Korea didn’t have a song,<br />
not even a protest song. We had no Bob<br />
Dylan. <strong>The</strong>re were a few movies, a few<br />
good books and “M*A*S*H*” which is<br />
why Americans who went to Korea a half<br />
century ago deserve a book like ‘<strong>Korean</strong><br />
Vignettes’, Faces of <strong>War</strong>. A forgotten war?<br />
Not when we are reminded of those young<br />
men who fought there We might as well<br />
forget the young men we ourselves were<br />
and the young men we left behind.<br />
James Brady<br />
Plt Ldr Co XO & Bn S-2 USMC<br />
Korea 1951-52<br />
Mr. Brady is a feature correspondent<br />
for Parade Magazine and<br />
author of <strong>The</strong> Coldest <strong>War</strong>.<br />
<br />
Freedom is never free. Always. there is<br />
a price to be paid. This book remembers<br />
those men who paid their dues of citizenship<br />
as they fought and died in the frigid<br />
mountains of Korea. In this era of peace,<br />
Americans are secure in their heritage. Yet,<br />
let them not forget those others. those<br />
“Faces of <strong>War</strong>,” who paid freedom’s price<br />
in that battle hell known as the <strong>Korean</strong> <strong>War</strong>.<br />
Dr. Morton I. Silver Lt USNR<br />
HQ 5th Marine Regiment<br />
Korea 1950-51<br />
<br />
In these pages American fighting men<br />
tell in their own blunt and graphic language<br />
just how it was to fight the Chinese and<br />
North <strong>Korean</strong> enemy. Here assembled are<br />
201 personal stories of US soldiers, sailors,<br />
airmen and marines. Together these add up<br />
to a memorable saga of brave fighting men.<br />
David B. Richardson<br />
Foreign Correspondent<br />
Time & US News & World<br />
Report 1945-81<br />
S/Sgt Yank Magazine & Merrill’s<br />
Marauders, WW II<br />
<br />
This book makes very powerful reading.<br />
It pioneers a new and significant<br />
development in military writing, and dramatically<br />
illuminates the typical American<br />
who really fights our wars. <strong>The</strong> field of<br />
military history is dominated by the generals<br />
and the captains. <strong>The</strong> guy who needs<br />
the guts is the GI Joe who fought it out in a<br />
lonely foxhole. It is his bayonet that marks<br />
the US boundary. This book salutes him as<br />
America’s best.<br />
William J. McCaffrey<br />
Lt General USA Ret<br />
Deputy Chief of Staff X Corps<br />
1950 CO 31st Infantry Regiment<br />
1951-52 7th Division<br />
Korea 1951-52<br />
(I have another 20 more highly recommended<br />
reviews from military men,<br />
authors, newspapers, Historians, etc. that I<br />
can not print so I picked the above because<br />
I felt they were more known to the average<br />
<strong>Korean</strong> <strong>War</strong> Veteran. I will add a few comments<br />
of my own. This is my kind of book.<br />
Full of photos, maps, history and most of<br />
all written by those that experienced these<br />
events. <strong>The</strong> 201 stories are the ones that<br />
are the most memorial in their minds.<br />
Many of you out there were in these battles<br />
and they will jog your memory and fill in<br />
the gaps of forgotten events. We would<br />
have been proud to print any one of these<br />
stories in <strong>The</strong> <strong>Graybeards</strong>. A great history<br />
of our war.– Editor.)<br />
<br />
Unforgotten<br />
By Daniel J. Meador<br />
Extract from the novel Unforgotten continued<br />
from September-October 1999 Issue.<br />
One by one he entered the names of his<br />
fellow lieutenants in Baker Company, no<br />
word of whom he had ever received after<br />
that catastrophic night on Hill 274.<br />
Malcolm Mason of Terre Haute, Indiana,<br />
the company exec; Alex Puccini of<br />
Milwaukee, commanding First Platoon;<br />
Chris Ridley of San Jose, California, commanding<br />
Third Platoon; Mike Forney, the<br />
forward observer, from Bowling Green,<br />
Kentucky. <strong>The</strong> machine reported no information<br />
on any of them.<br />
He then moved over to the computers<br />
containing the MIAs. He entered each of<br />
the names again. Mason, Pucinsky, and<br />
Ridley were all reported to be missing in<br />
action, as of 25 November 1950. He saw<br />
no way they could still be alive. He could<br />
think of only two possibilities. Either they<br />
died on 274 or they were taken prisoner by<br />
the Chinese and died in their hands.<br />
Mike Forney’s absence from both the<br />
KIA and MIA data meant that he must have<br />
survived the war. John wondered how he<br />
got out of that hellish night. Where was he<br />
now? He could well have died of natural<br />
causes since then, as had a host of men<br />
who’d returned from the war. Indeed, as he<br />
reflected on the crowd here today, be realized<br />
that the ranks of the veterans were<br />
inevitably thinning, time, like an ever<br />
rolling stream, bears all its sons away.<br />
He typed in the name of Capt. Howell<br />
Grimes, the Baker Company commander<br />
from Amarillo, Texas, whom he had last<br />
seen on the chaotic withdrawal south of<br />
Kunu-ri. Not finding him among the missing,<br />
lie went back to the KIA computers<br />
and typed in the name. It was immediately<br />
projected on the screen, showing him to<br />
have been killed in action on 21 March<br />
1951. He shook his head over the irony of<br />
Grimes’ having survived the collapse of the<br />
army along the Chongchon only to die in<br />
the victorious advance back north. He was<br />
left with the depressing thought that he<br />
alone of the officers in Baker Company<br />
was still alive, with the possible exception<br />
of Forney.<br />
He wandered along the lines of tents,<br />
threading his way through the heavily perspiring<br />
crowd, steadily growing in size. He<br />
had now removed his tie completely and<br />
rolled up his sleeves, hoping not to become<br />
a customer of the first-aid tent he was passing,<br />
already busy with cases of heat<br />
exhaustion. He took another bottle of water<br />
and continued sipping.<br />
He passed the food tents, emitting a<br />
variety of aromas, including the unmistakable<br />
smell of kimchi. He went into a tent<br />
that seemed to be serving a mixture of<br />
<strong>Korean</strong> and Chinese food. He ordered an<br />
egg roll and an oversized cup of lemonade.<br />
It was too hot to be hungry.<br />
Among the sea of crowded tables he<br />
found an empty chair away from the sunniest<br />
area and sat down. <strong>The</strong> tent’s sides were<br />
rolled up, permitting a hint of a breeze to<br />
Page 48<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Graybeards</strong>