Korean War Tribute 2016

Korean War TRIBUTE 2016

C2 • Daily Globe • Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Korea ‘The forgotten War’ At the end of WWII, Korea – previously under Japanese rule – was split in two along the 38th parallel.

The northern land was subject to Soviet influences, the south to those of the United States. The division was never peaceful, and with the recent development of the atomic bomb, North and South Korea became one of many external battles of the looming Cold War.

June 25, 1950

June 27, 1950 President Truman orders United States forces to help the South Korean government.

June 28, 1950 North Korean troops take Seoul, South Korea’s capital.

September 25, 1950 South Korean and allied forces retake Seoul.

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October 1, 1950 U.N. and South Korean forces push north past the 38th parallel. On October 19, they capture Pyongyang, capital of North Korea.

July 27, 1953

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An armistice agreement is signed. The war is widely considered to have ended at this point, though no peace treaty has been signed. A Demilitarized Zone was established between North and South Korea, and both sides were permitted to reclaim the remains of their dead. Tensions in the area continue to this day, particularly over the topic of nuclear arms.

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October 25, 1950

July 10, 1951

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After prolonged heavy fighting, armistice negotiations begin. The next two years consist of a stalemate, with continued bombing and skirmishes. Both sides sustain high casualties but make little progress.

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After a number of minor skirmishes, North Korean troops (backed by Soviet supplies) crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea. Attempts by South Korea to stop the invasion are unsuccessful and result in a huge number of civilian casualties.

On the same day, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea’s actions, and called on its members to provide military assistance.

►

Chinese forces intervene on North Korea’s behalf. On November 24, the U.S. launches the “Home-byChristmas” offensive, drastically underestimates the number of Chinese forces and is completely overrun.

Daily Globe

• Wednesday, July 27, 2016 • C3

From the farm fields to the front lines GRETCHEN O’DONNELL Daily Globe SIBLEY, Iowa — It’s a long way from the farmlands of George, Iowa, to the battle zones of Korea.

For Alvin Jurrens, it was a trip he never thought he’d have to make.

“My father died when I was in the eighth grade and I was needed on the farm,” Jurrens explained. “I’d been exempt from the draft, but then the orders came through. I did my basic training at Fort Sill, Okla., and then I had advanced training in artillery. When I was done, I went home for a couple weeks and then left for Korea on January 1 (1953).”

Though nobody knew it at the time, the war would be over seven months later. Those seven months changed Jurrens’ life.

“I didn’t think I was going to come home,” Jurrens said of a battlefield incident that permanently injured his back.

That, combined with hearing loss he sustained as a result of prolonged exposure to the noise of battle, brought him home a changed man physically.

“Boy, I tell ya,” Jurrens said, smiling about it now, “I was just a young guy, didn’t know nothing. We shipped out of California. Had 4,500 men aboard. We was packed. We went to Japan first, then Inch’on, Korea, on a little boat. We landed and got off the boat, and they said we were gonna get on a troop train.”

That train, running pitchblack with no lights or win-

dows, wasn’t the nice train Jurrens had expected. Nor was his next assignment something he could have anticipated.

“A soldier walks up to me with a big M1 and ammunition and says, ‘You’re on guard.’

“I thought, ‘Not me!’ So then me, being fresh from the States. I say, ‘What’s the password?’ The guy says, ‘Shoot first and then you ask the password.’ And then he walked away, and then he come back and said, ‘I shouldn’t have said it that way. Whoever talks here first dies first.’”

It was a “Wizard of Oz,” “I’m not in Kansas anymore” moment. Suddenly, the reality of his situation was very clear indeed.

The train ride continued — still in the dark — with a meal of C-Rations. Jurrens and his fellow soldiers didn’t know what they were eating, exactly, in the darkness, but anything tastes good when you’re hungry enough.

“We went along and we went along and then we stopped and got in the back of a deuce and a half. The roads were just from a bulldozer that would go though.

This was late at night. Then, after a while, I started to hear, ‘bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,’ and I thought, ‘Man, that sounds like a 50-caliber machine gun.’ And then it went again and again, and pretty soon we stopped.”

They were near the front lines, in the dead of night, “Sleepy as could be,” Jurrens described. They pitched their tents and fell asleep to the sound of gunfire.

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“That was my first rude awakening there,” Jurrens admitted.

It was just the beginning of the surprises and discomfort he’d endure over the next seven months with the Triple 9 field artillery. They’d been sent to replace the Triple Nickel, which had been wiped out.

“We didn’t know what we were getting into,” Jurrens said, chuckling. “They told us to dig foxholes, but it was 30-below.

How did you dig a foxhole when it’s 30-below? We had to use a pick ax, and we dug a little hole where you could lay in to get out of the way. Oh, I tell ya, that was something.”

There, on the 38th Parallel, in temperatures that sometimes reached 50 degrees below zero, Jurrens was introduced to war.

Virtually everything was different from the farm life he’d grown up in — even the drinking water.

“I was pumping water from the river to drink,” Jurrens recounted. “Didn’t think too much of it until one time I’m pumping my tank and a body floats by. I mentioned it to guys who had been there before and they said, ‘Oh, yeah, that thing is full of bodies.’

It’s a wonder we didn’t get sick.

We would purify the water. Used oodles of that stuff. The water tasted so bad, but you had to drink something.

“We had eggs and potatoes and that,” he added. “One time we run out, and all we had was powdered food for 30 days.”

Each day alternated between missions of varying length and brief ceasefires when the

Korean War veteran Alvin Jurrens, of Sibley, Iowa, shares some of his stories about serving his country.

Tim Middagh Daily Globe

unit would get into their tents to warm up, eat and hopefully catch a little sleep.

The soldiers never knew when the next mission would arise — sometimes they had no more than a few minutes to rest.

There was no difference, day or night. The fighting continued, no matter what.

“One time we got into three days of firing without stopping.

The gun barrels got so hot, you know, from shooting so much that the commander said, ‘When you put the round in, count to six, and if we don’t give you the elevation yet, fire it because if you don’t, it’ll explode.’

“Clear up at the front line there was a big old bunker with oodles of sandbags. You think nothing can blow that thing away. So we was up there — this was my first fire mission up

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there — and them rounds come in and the whole mountain lit up in fire. You think, ‘That is something. Nobody can live through that.’

“The next morning I looked and I thought, ‘What the heck?

It looks so different. And then I looked and sure enough, it blew the whole top of the mountain off. We could see another mountain behind it. So I thought, ‘Boy, now we got ‘em. That’s the end of them.’ Then about, oh, 10, 11 o’clock the next morning, there’s a call for a fire mission.

So we didn’t get rid of them.”

Thinking that a change of pace might be OK, Jurrens spent some time as a truck driver. His job was to hold the ammunition — at 105 pounds a piece — while the truck brought the ammo to the guns.

FRONT LINES: Page C4

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Jurrens returned home from war a changed man

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C4 • Daily Globe • Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Pilot and artillery observer: Turner doubled down on military service JANE TURPIN MOORE Daily Globe WINDOM – With a nickname like “Wig,” it might be a bit surprising to learn that August Turner retains a healthy head of hair, even at 92.

But considering the strength, resilience, courage, resolve and wisdom he’s displayed throughout his nine-plus decades of life, it’s understandable that nothing — not his farm, wife, children, friends, principles or dedication to service, much less his hair — will escape or diminish without his express permission.

Turner, the product of a “mixed marriage” between his Swedish father, Ernest, and Ernest’s fully Norwegian

FRONT LINES From Page C3

“I didn’t realize what I was getting into,” Jurrens laughed. “We had muscles like you wouldn’t know!

One time — this was at night, too — we’re coming back with a load of ammo, powder and everything on it. We had to go through these mountains, you know, with no lights on.

We run off of the road and rode down the mountain.

Oh, I tell ya, the windshield of that truck — I was laying on that.”

“It’s a wonder you made it through, you and the other guy,” Marlys Jurrens, Alvin’s wife, broke 001452167r1

bride, Jenny, served not only in the Korean Conflict in the early 1950s but also in World War II’s European theater in 1944-45.

“I graduated from Windom High School in 1942,” said Turner, who continues to live with his wife of 66 years, Wanda, on his family’s farm acreage a few miles east of Windom.

He completed one semester at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, but he recalls that “different services came to campus recruiting us to join the reserves.”

About the time Turner was due to start his second semester of college, he was instead reporting for duty at St. Paul before being shipped to the Jefferson Barracks Military Post near St. Louis, Mo.

in. “With all that live ammunition.”

Jurrens laughed again.

“He was watching over me.”

Marlys and Alvin met shortly after Alvin returned from the war.

They even have a photograph of that first day they met, taken along the road in downtown Sibley.

They celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary in early July. It’s been a good 61 years, bringing them out to Colorado to work and then back to northwest Iowa to retire. Alvin has undergone back surgery — his pain a constant reminder of the war — but he can walk and hasn’t entirely lost his hearing, so that’s a blessing.

“I never made it back to college,” Turner expressed, but his life’s education was only beginning.

After basic training, Turner and other soldiers in his unit spent time studying at Carroll College (now Carroll University) in Waukesha, Wis. “We had classes in geography and math, and also physical education and marching exercises,” listed Turner, who decided to apply for pilot training.

“I’d dreamt about flying as a kid,” Turner admitted. “Whenever we’d hear a plane flying overhead, we’d all race out of the house, doors slamming, to take a look.”

Turner’s dream came true, possibly aided by a decision he’d made following his sophomore year in high school to stop playing baseball and football after

he’d “seen stars a couple of times” in order to concentrate on his studies in chemistry, physics, algebra and trigonometry.

He ultimately piloted a B-26 bomber for the U.S. Air Force on several bombing missions in Europe before WW II ended.

“I didn’t suffer any injuries in either war,” revealed Turner, “but I did get a few holes in my plane in World War II. “On my second mission, an airplane blew up right in front of me, but I was just lucky.”

After returning home in 1945, Turner farmed with his father and brother Bob, but the lure of “fun” was what put him back in touch with the military.

TURNER: Page C5

Another blessing for Alvin, occurring a couple of years ago, was going on the Honor Flight to Washington.

“You see these buildings on TV and you go out there and they’re humongous!”

Alvin marveled. “We had a tour and saw the war memorials. We had a great time.”

That, combined with a serendipitous chance to shake the hand of the Prime Minister of South Korea recently when he was in Sioux Falls, has helped to bookend Alvin’s Korean War experiences. He’ll never forget, however. And still, even after 63 years, the memories can bring some strong emotions.

FRONT LINES: Page C5

Tim Middagh/Daily Globe

Shown are the medals Alvin Jurrens received in service to his country during the Korean War.

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Daily Globe

• Wednesday, July 27, 2016 • C5

TURNER

FRONT LINES

From Page C4

From Page C4

“Some friends told me about all the fun they had at National Guard camp,” Turner said, chuckling, “so I joined, too.”

Turner affirms the friends were right about the fun, and he also filled the intervening years with flying for the air reserve out of Sioux City, Iowa.

“We didn’t get any pay for that, just the privilege of flying,” he said, and he may or may not have treated a few Windom girls to flights.

Either way, he soon met a young teacher from Minneota — Wanda Dovre, of Norwegian descent — who was working in Windom, and the pair married in June of 1950. They went on to have four sons (Tim, Bruce, Roger and Paul) and now have nine grandchildren.

But just after the 1950 corn harvest, Turner was sent to Fort Rucker, Ala., for training, and then to Fort Sill, Okla., to artillery school.

“I was a forward artillery observer with the U.S. Army’s infantry,” said Turner of his service days in Korea, most of which were spent north of Seoul from the fall of 1951 until late spring of 1952.

“It was a different life entirely from the Air Force,” he continued. “Like they used to say, ‘Infantry is the queen of battle,’ and everyone else — the Air Force, the Navy, everything — supports the infantry, because if you’re going to capture some ground and keep it, you have to have people on the ground.”

Turner’s Korean service was more physically challenging in some ways than his time in WW II, he said, in part because of the cold Korean winter and the sleeping arrangements.

“We slept in fox holes and at observation points,” he said, “and in Europe, we were in tents, but usually far back from the line so we didn’t have to worry as much about things.”

Plus, Turner was older during his Korean stint.

“When you’re 18 and 19, you do what

“We thought it would never end,” Alvin revealed.

As the final ceasefire deadline approached, on July 27, 1963, “We were firing away and firing away and it got close to 10 o’clock (the deadline for the fighting to end). We said to each other, ‘This ain’t gonna stop.’ No way.

“And by golly, 10 o’clock sharp, ‘Ceasefire!’ So we washed up and ate and then we didn’t get a fire mission again; we went to bed and fell asleep. After so long we woke up, and it was so quiet. We thought, ‘Man, they’re coming.’ We just couldn’t get over it, how quiet it was.”

Summarizing his feelings succinctly, Alvin said, “That was the end of it.”

But it wasn’t — not really. The war was over, yes, but the effects remained.

“When you’re in basic training, everything is over and over and over and overw so that you can do it in your sleep,” Alvin recounted.

“That training sure comes in handy.

You do as you’re told. And ninety-nine out of a hundred times, it’s right.”

The scary part, though, is when those built-in instincts kick in later.

After the war is over. After you’re safe. Like the first morning Alvin woke up after the war, back in George.

“I was asleep. My mom come up the stairs and I heard a noise. I reached for my gun.”

Sitting and telling his stories at his kitchen table so many years later, Alvin reached for a safer mark: Marlys’ hand. She reached back. Everyone blinked back tears.

After a moment, Alvin concluded, “Thank goodness (my gun) wasn’t there.”

Submitted photo

August Turner, of rural Windom, is shown while on duty in South Korea. you’re told and keep your mouth shut,” he said.

“I knew better in Korea, but I couldn’t do anything about it. We were all sold on the idea of both wars, but we didn’t know what was going on a lot of times,” Turner said, explaining the plight of the soldier.

“We were told what our missions were, followed our orders and hoped for the best, because when you’re in the army, you do what you’re ordered to do, but we didn’t always know what the other people were doing; you just keep doing what they tell you to do until they say you can go home.”

Turner wasn’t overly fond of the C-rations he ate in the service, but he said there were times the military food wasn’t too bad.

“In France, our squadron’s cook would get fresh flour and make French bread, and that was just delicious,” he recalled.

“The worst part was having powdered eggs for breakfast all the time; I didn’t like those very much. And in Korea, when we were on a base with a mess hall, the cooks fixed up some darn good meals.”

I was a forward artillery observer with the U.S. Army’s infantry in Korea. It was a different life entirely from the Air Force.

AUGUST TURNER, Windom Wanda’s cooking, from which Turner said it would be difficult to name a favorite dish, was waiting at home for him, and the couple’s four sons were born between 1953 and 1960.

“I’m Lutheran, but I won’t eat lutefisk,” confessed the otherwise brave and hearty Turner, a member of Windom’s American Lutheran Church — which, he noted, was formerly the Norwegian Lutheran Church.

“I eat Swedish meatballs, though — they make up for everything.”

Still, Turner fondly recalls his mother Jenny’s cooking. She came to the U.S. from Norway in 1916 and worked for a time in a candy kitchen.

TURNER: Page C6

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C6 • Daily Globe • Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Submitted photo

August Turner (in front) poses for a photo with fellow soldiers outside a bunker in Korea.

TURNER From Page C5

he and Wanda liked golfing and going to dances at the Coliseum Ballroom in Worthington.

“Wanda liked to travel, and we went to Europe, toured a little in Germany and Norway, but I mostly got enough of traveling in the military,” said Turner.

A longtime member of the American Legion and VFW, Turner takes pride in

his military record and years of service.

“At first when we got out, nobody talked about it, especially not guys who were in the infantry,” said Turner.

“Later, we started to hear about some of the things they went through.”

Turner is sympathetic to that sentiment, having witnessed enough in his war years to last a lifetime.

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“She didn’t use recipes,” Turner said.

“She put in a pinch of this and a pinch of that.”

While Wanda, who taught school for many years, retired some time ago,

Turner said he only officially retired from farming this past spring.

“Last fall I was still on the combine,” said Turner, “but it’s getting too technical, even though it’s nice when the machinery drives itself.”

Turner enjoys regular get-togethers with a group of friends over coffee at various Windom cafes. In earlier years,

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Daily Globe

• Wednesday, July 27, 2016 • C7

DeBates brothers reporting for duty Adrian men entered the U.S. Army on Valentine’s Day 1952

Adrian had two Gold Star Boys from the Korean Conflict, George Klinkhammer and Robert Terry. Klinkhammer was killed in action on Nov. 4, 1952, while Terry was declared missing in action on Nov. 26 of that same

Staying together

Bob and Eddie grew up in Adrian as the youngest of five children. They had three older sisters.

By the time Eddie was drafted in early 1952, he was already married.

“He was drafted and I thought, ‘I’m three years younger than him.’ I thought I’d have to go later on anyway,” Bob said. “If something happened to him in Korea, I’d feel awful bad.

I thought if something happened to me, I’d want him with me. We were young and foolish, too, you know.”

The brothers reported for duty on Valentine’s Day

1952. Bob was assigned to the U.S. Army, and Eddie was assigned to the U.S. Marines — which didn’t sit well with either of them.

They insisted on being together, and since Bob’s papers had already been processed and Eddie’s hadn’t, they were able to change Eddie’s assignment to the U.S. Army as well.

BROTHERS: Page C8 Bob (left) and Eddie DeBates had very different experiences as they served their country in Korea. The brothers, originally from Adrian, entered the service on Valentine’s Day 1952.

Julie Buntjer/Daily Globe

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year in the vicinity of Huhung-Goe, North Korea.

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JULIE BUNTJER jbuntjer@dglobe.com ADRIAN — Robert “Bob” and Edward “Eddie” DeBates were celebrating America’s independence in July 1950 when they heard a news alert come across the radio during a family picnic on Lake Shetek.

It was official — the United States was joining South Korea’s efforts against communism after the North Korean People’s Army waged war on its neighbors.

“Someone said, ‘You boys will probably be going to war then,’” recalled Bob, the younger of the two brothers. “The United Nations said they couldn’t let communism go on like that and we needed to stop them.”

The United Nations ultimately sent troops from 21 countries to assist South Korea in battle. The troops helped push back the North Korean Army, and were successful until October 1950, when China came to the aid of North Korea in battle.

“They released all of the Chinese and they had a lot of manpower,” Bob explained. “That’s when all of the slaughtering began of the American troops.”

For the DeBates brothers, war seemed commonplace. They were teens during World War II and watched men leave their hometown of Adrian in service to their country.

Some never returned.

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BROTHERS From Page C7

“I wanted to stay with him as long as I could,” Bob said. “I would have taken the Marines, too, if his papers had been made up first. We just wanted to follow each other around.”

Both were sent to Fort Julie Buntjer/Daily Globe Leonard Wood, Mo., for Eddie (left) and Bob DeBates show some of the eight weeks of basic train- patches, medals and commendations they received ing, where they were also while serving during the Korean War. trained in combat engiRiver. Though they were meal, they started loading neering. not tasked with direct up the trucks, and I went “They tried to split us combat, they were in the to one truck and Eddie apart right after eight combat zone. went to the other truck,” weeks of training,” Bob “My company was up Bob said.

“They split us said. “They wanted to toward the front,” Bob up. I knew this was it for send Eddie for more comsaid. “We rode a truck us.” bat engineer training and for a long time to get up Bob was assigned to the me to mechanics. We went there.”

1092nd Engineer Combat to the office and said we When they finally Battalion, a West Virginia wanted to stay together.” arrived, Bob said he was National Guard unit that The brothers were told to rest in one of the was ultimately filled with able to stay together for bunks. Unfortunately, the men from all across the the remainder of their bunk’s occupant returned United States. The unit training and departed later that night, and Bob was tasked with mainfor Korea together. They ended up sleeping on the taining and protecting the arrived in Imjin Harbor floor. only bridge that stayed in August 1952.

Eddie, meanwhile, was in place over the Imjin “As soon as we had our

assigned to the Eighth Army, 573rd Engineer Pontoon Bridge Company. They operated heavy equipment to build and maintain pontoon bridges vital to United Nations forces, and were prepared to engage the enemy when necessary to protect the structures.

‘Always in a combat area’ The weather along the border of North and South Korea was much like the weather in Minnesota — the winters were brutally cold.

In the 1092nd Engineer Combat Battalion, Bob at least had a tent over his head.

“Each squad had their own tent,” he said, adding that soldiers slept on cots and had oil burners for heat. The heat was turned off in the tents overnight after one soldier accidentally tipped over an oil burner in his sleep and fire destroyed the tent.

Bob’s primary work was to pick up replacement troops in the dark of night and bring them back to the base. He carried a “grease gun” — a little submachine gun — on the journey.

“You had no headlights — they were blacked out — and you couldn’t go more than 10 miles per hour,” Bob said of the three-quarter-ton truck he drove. “I tried to get people to go with me, but no one ever wanted to go.”

That is until one night,

when he was driving on the route and someone jumped into the back seat.

“It was a South Korean,” Bob said. “He wanted a ride down the road. It scared the hell out of me.”

Bob told his commanding officer what happened when he returned to base, and from then on, he was instructed to report anyone who refused to accompany him on the replacement missions. Bob said he never had a problem getting help after that.

BROTHERS: Page C9

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BROTHERS From Page C8

“I was always in a combat area — a mile and a half on the other side of the line,” Bob said. “It was real rough and rugged terrain — hilly. They had a speed limit of 9 mph because it was too hard on equipment.”

For a time, Bob was assigned to get the company’s mail from batallion headquarters. He got caught on one such trip in an MP trap and was cited for speeding — he was going about 10 mph.

“I took it to my commander and he laughed,” Bob shared.

Leading the motor pool

While Bob was kept busy along the front lines, Eddie was stationed farther back in South Korea, northeast of Inch’on. He was in charge of the motor pool at first.

“We had 90 vehicles and I was in charge of maintenance on them,” he said. “I

had Korean workers doing it and I had to oversee them.”

Because of his access to vehicles, Eddie was able to drive northward to visit his brother once.

“I must have drove 40 miles to see him,” Eddie said. “I knew where his outfit was, and I got a pass and I got a truck and drove up there.”

At one point, Eddie was placed on guard duty, which is where he heard too much and saw too much.

“When you’re on guard duty in the daytime and the bullets started flying around you, you had no place to go,” he said. “You were out in the open.”

One night, he went to take his place as guard, only to find that the soldier he was to replace had been stabbed to death.

The fear was constant, and the DeBates figure the same was true for the enemy they were fighting.

“There were a lot of young guys that were fighting us — they got drafted, too,” Bob said. “It isn’t just combat on the line that was

• Wednesday, July 27, 2016 • C9

the danger, you know.”

Bed Check Charlie

Though they served in different areas along the South Korean border with North Korea, both Eddie and Bob remember well the nightly flyovers referred to as Bed Check Charlie.

“He was out there every night trying to harass us,” Eddie said. “The airplanes would fly over at night and drop leaflets on us.”

“They were trying to get you to desert your outfits,” added Bob. “Propaganda is what it was.”

“It was a small plane,” Eddie described. “They’d go too slow that the jets couldn’t bother them because the jets couldn’t go that slow.”

No regrets

Bob said he has no regrets about enlisting in the U.S. Army and serving his country in Korea.

Without America stepping in, the fear was communism would take over.

BROTHERS: Page C10

Submitted photo

Eddie (left) and Bob DeBates pose in their fatigues while serving in the Korean War.

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BROTHERS

behind him.

“We could never go to a restaurant and have people sitting behind him,” Dianne shared. Even in the dining hall at the veterans home, she said he has to sit along a wall where there isn’t anyone seated behind him.

After they were first married, Dianne said she woke up one night and turned the light on in the bedroom. Eddie jumped out of bed when it lit up the room and hollered, ‘Hit the dirt.’

Today, in addition to PTSD, Eddie suffers from spinal stenosis. Meanwhile, Bob is on 50 percent disability as a result of nerve damage in his hands and feet from the extreme cold he was subjected to while serving in Korea.

“We were working with water frequently and they got frostbitten quite a bit,” Bob shared. “The clothing was not adequate.”

From Page C9

Submitted photo

Thank You FOR YOUR SERVICE

Bob DeBates (right) poses with a buddy from New York while on the ship headed back to the United States after the war.

“They called us baby killers when we came home — on the streets of Colorado,” he said. “I just figured, they were lucky that I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t like that.”

Eddie continues to suffer from post-trau-

Thank you for your service

matic stress disorder. He returned home from war to discover his wife had mental health issues of her own. Their marriage later ended in divorce, and Eddie remarried in 1978 to Dianne.

Eddie, who now resides

at the Minnesota Veteran’s Home in Luverne, said he had a difficult time adjusting to civilian life after the war. He continues to suffer from nightmares of the war and is uncomfortable in situations where people are

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“My folks lived in America,” he said. “If someone (was being forced into communism), someone had to stand up for them.

Communism is not the life.”

When the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, the DeBates brothers — and everyone else — were glad it was over.

“We were just glad that we made it through it,” Bob recalled. “It wasn’t long and the Vietnam War started — that was a bad deal, too.”

After Korea, the brothers returned home to Adrian. Both had worked for Safeway Stores Inc., an egg plant in Adrian, before they left for war, and Bob returned to work there when he got home.

He was honorably discharged on Oct. 15, 1953, at the rank of PFC. “I got home and I hadn’t seen young children for a long while,” Bob recalled, saying that he was uncomfortable being around women and children and spent those early weeks at home in Adrian with his mother. “I just didn’t feel right being with people.”

Eddie was honorably discharged in early 1954 as a staff sergeant and returned home to his wife in Adrian, though life would never be like it was before the war.

Bob was married approximately two years after he returned home to Bernice, a woman he met while working at Safeway.

The couple had four children. Eddie and his first wife had two kids.

Looking back on his wartime experience, Bob said he learned to be appreciative of everything here in America.

“The experience, you don’t like it, but it’s something you can be proud of,” he said.

For service to their country, Bob received the Meritorious Unit Citation, Korean Service Medal with three bronze stars, United Nations Service Medal, the National Defense service medal and a citation from the President of South Korea, Kim Dae-Jong; while Eddie earned the Korean Service Medal, United Nations Service Medal and the National Defense Medal.

Daily Globe

A changed life

• Wednesday, July 27, 2016 • C11

Willers drafted into U.S. Army for tour in Korea ALEX CHHITH Daily Globe LUVERNE — Luverne resident Al Willers received the Ambassador of Peace Medal earlier this year, a token of appreciation from the Korean government to those who served during the Korean War. Willers was one of seven Rock County Korean War veterans who received the medal from the South Korean Minister for Patriots and Veterans Affairs in January.

Willers was drafted into the U.S. Army when he was 21 and served from 1952-1954 in Korea. When he returned to southwest Minnesota, he joined the U.S. National Guard and served as a Mess Sergeant Dining Facilities Manager until his retirement in 1993.

Willers encourages everyone to join the military for at least two years.

“You get acquainted with a lot of people and you get to see how other people live,” he said.

In Korea, Willers inspected ammunition and received training so he could fight in any type of weather and use different types of explosives.

People he met in Korea were very friendly, Willers said.

“If you wanna be friends,

Al Willers, Korean War veteran from Luverne, displays the scarf and medal he received from the South Korean Ambassador during a ceremony in Sioux Falls, S.D. earlier this year. The ambassador thanked them for defending their country during the war.

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Tim Middagh/ Daily Globe

that’s what you’re going to have to be,” he said. “People respect you if you respect them.”

Willers also advises citizens to study history.

“You should study it to know the world,” he said. “You will realize that we’re not the only ones here.”

When Willers returned home to Rock County, he continued to farm with his grandfather and father while serving in the National Guard. He now volunteers fives times a week at Luverne Elementary School, helping students in third through fifth grade learn math.

Before his grandfather, Joseph Willers, immigrated to the United States, he served in the second regiment of Berlin’s Imperial Guards in Kaiser Wilhelm’s Army for three years.

His grandfather did not speak about his experiences often.

Willers is very humble about his experiences and believes that those left behind sacrificed more than many other soldiers.

“There’s people that did a lot more than I did,” Willers said.

“I always feel that those that got left behind. … They did more than the rest of us, but that’s my opinion.”

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Daily Globe

• Wednesday, July 27, 2016 • C13

Steen saw plenty while serving in Japan you go the hospital, your orders were cut.

“So I had a choice to go to the fire department crash rescue or the motor pool or the air police, so I chose the fire department crash rescue,” he continued. “I stayed in Mississippi about a year, and then I got orders to go overseas. I went to Camp Stillman, Calif., shipped out on a ship and had a nice experience. Being that my last name started with S, they had me stand guard on the fantail — that’s the back end of the ship — with a throat mic on to tell them if someone jumped overboard.

“Fourteen days later, we landed in Yokohama.

I remember when the Japanese peasants came to meet the ship to get some of the ship’s garbage. What an awakening for a farmboy.”

Steen rode a train to a base where he received orientation, and then was brought to another base that was his “final destination” — Haneda Air Force Base, located seven miles from Tokyo — where he would be stationed for 27 months.

“I started on the line where sat and watched planes come in,” Steen said. “Anything that’s not normal on an aircraft (during landing) was considered an emergency.

Our main mission was standing by for wounded air evacs that came in from Korea, of which we would

generally several a day.”

In the meantime, Steen and others serving alongside him “played a lot of volleyball after 5 o’clock. We were still on duty; we had duty 24 hours on, then 24 off. The Japanese played very good volleyball.” Steen, though, would then suffer another injury.

“I sprained my ankle playing volleyball and the master sergeant chief looked at my Form 20, which has all your military information on it,” he said. “Seeing that I could type, he put me in the dispatcher’s office for the rest of my tour. I had five telephones on my desk and two radio calls — one with the control tower, which was about 300 feet away from us, and the other was about 16 pieces of equipment that I would dispatch on the tower ... whatever the emergency was.

“It was a very interesting position and I made a good rank,” Steen went on. “I went over as a corporal and made staff sergeant in three years.

I studied every manual and I could drive all 16 pieces of equipment, including craft boats and a landing craft we used out on the ocean.

This was a small island and it had a Japanese factory there that made zeros (war planes) … that the American B-29s obliterated.

“I had the privilege of meeting two people that I knew from around the Trimont area come off air evacs. One guy got his elbow shot with shrapnel — Cliff Meyers from Fairmont — and another was a first lieutenant, Warren Sopes, who crashlanded his F-80 in a rice paddy. He had a flameout on takeoff. He was not hurt. However, when was going to evacuate the aircraft, his gear was all tangled up with his equipment, so he sat back in the cockpit seat which in turn malfunctioned and blew him up in the air. …

He was paralyzed from the waist down at 23 years old, and he wanted to die.

I went to see him at Tokyo General (hospital) every day.

“I knew how the bad the war was when you went on that paraplegic ward. You had to have cast-iron guts.”

Soon afterward, the Korean War came to a close in 1953, Steen said. He’d been in Japan a year and a half, and Haneda Air Force Base had become Tokyo International Airport.

Planes there were flying in from all over the world.

“Sometimes we would wake up during the time when we were bombing North Korea. .. We would wake up in the morning and have maybe 40 B-29s at this small base because they were fogged in at their bases,” Steen said. “And we 001456187r1

slept through all of that.

“One of my special thrills was when a B-29 had a bomb stuck in a bomb bay door, and he (pilot) taxied to a spot and we had to stand by while the crew ran away. An armorman had to come and defuse the bomb. All went well.

“Then, when the war was over, the American soldiers that had been prisoners of war landed and came right through our little base on the way to the hospital to get checked out. What a sight that was to see — there were hundreds of them.”

Steen made NCO (noncommissioned officer) and was supposed to fly back to the United States, but instead headed on a troop ship from Yokohama to Buson. Korea. He would remain there several days while helping to unload troops that were going to be stationed in Korea

and taking a board troops that were ready to rotate back home. He received a month’s combat pay for his efforts, and rotated back to the U.S. in 1954.

“I came into Seattle,” he remembered. “I thought the Can-Can Ladies were going to meet us, but the Grey Ladies brought us coffee and donuts. We were happy to see them, too.”

Steen had six months left to serve and eventually received his discharge at Gren er Air Force Base in Manchester, N.H. “One thing I’m very proud to say is that the Korean War was successful for South Korea, and they have been very appreciative of veterans,” he said.

“They would … pay for a veterans flight there in appreciation for the time they spent stationed there.

STEEN: Page C14

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RYAN MCGAUGHEY rmcgaughey@dglobe.com JACKSON — Like most veterans, Merv Steen saw a lot during his service in the Korean War, even though he didn’t actually spend much time in the Asian nation.

Steen spent the bulk of his wartime military service in Japan, where he said he was part of the U.S. Air Force’s Fire Department crash/rescue team. It wasn’t Steen’s first choice for his area of service to his country, but that’s only a small part of his story.

Steen grew up in Trimont and graduated from high school. He was lined up to get drafted, but his father had a brother who was a career Marine who fought in World War II, and Steen wound up getting a release from the draft and instead enlisted in the Air Force. That was in 1951, and Steen went off to basic training in San Antonio, Texas.

“There were 15,000 like me that were sleeping in tents because a lot of them didn’t want to get drafted,” Steen remembered. “My first choice was a diesel mechanic school.

However, I got a bad case of diarrhea … from GI soap that they used to wash the trays with. I ended up in the hospital, and my orders were automatically cut to go to the school. That was just a standard regulation —

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C14 • Daily Globe • Wednesday, July 27, 2016

STEEN From Page C13

“I’ve been back to Japan … and took 4-H kids there a chaperone. What an experience that was. I appreciate the teachers a lot better because each one of the kids went to a respective place —- they had hosted exchange students from Japan before through that 4-h program. Twenty years later, my wife and I went back for an anniversary of this program. I still get Christmas cards from some of the teachers that worked with the program.”

Outside of his military service, Steen was a longtime farmer. His son, Brian, has since taken over his farm and operations; he manages 4,000 acres.

“I got to do what I wanted to do in life,” Steen said. “My son, he got to do what he wanted in life, too.”

Steen’s wife, Bonnie, passed away two years ago. The couple also had three daughters: Mary Jo, who lives in Sioux Falls and works for Good Samaritan Society; Pat, who resides in Mesa, Ariz., and has a husband who was disabled during the Vietnam War and a son disabled during the Iraq War; and Sandy, who lives in Park Rapids while wintering in Arizona.

Steen, who will celebrate his 85th birthday in August, played in the American Legion Drum Corps for 43 years and has been a longtime Lions Club member in both Jackson and Arizona. “It keeps me busy, and it helps me pass time and stay young and be helpful,” he said.

In addition to his birthday, August will bring another special celebration.

“In the tast week of August .. we’ll have our service reunion; all the vets from Haneda Air Force Base,” he said.

“That’s going to be in Jackson and on the farm. We have reunions once a year, and think this will be about 30th time or so. … This will be the third time I’ve hosted it.”

Steen is expecting about 30 veterans for this year’s reunion. Unsurprisingly, those numbers drop off each with passing year.

‘Between Heaven and Hell’ Woelber’s service included paratrooping supplies and movie role

BETH RICKERS brickers@dglobe.com GEORGE, Iowa — Harold Woelber hasn’t wandered far from his home in northwest Iowa. He now only lives a few feet from the house in which he was born — in a manufactured home adjacent to the original homeplace.

But he did get far afield once — for Army service during the Korean War era.

“This is where I was born,” said Woelber, sitting at the kitchen table in his home south of George. “The only time I left was for the two years I was gone (to the military).”

Woelber was drafted into the U.S. Army. He did his military training in Arkansas and Virginia. It was in Virginia where he trained to be a paratrooper.

“There’s nothing to it,” he said about jumping out of an airplane. “All you got to do is jump and don’t hold your breath … or you’ll pert near pass out by the time you’re done.”

So how did he get selected for paratroop training? Did he volunteer?

“Nope. They just said, ‘You, you, you,” he related, pointing a finger to designate how he was selected.

While they were stationed in Virginia, the father of one of his Army buddies worked in nearby Washington, D.C., so Woelber was treated to a VIP tour of the capital city.

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“He said, ‘Do you want to go to the White House?’ That was in December, and it was probably about 40 degrees. He took us from place to place, and the last stop was the White House. Ikey (President Dwight Eisenhower) was in there then, and we got to shake his hand.

“We had some sad times and some good times,” added Woelber.

In addition to the men who received paratroop training, there were three women in their ranks who were medics.

“They learned to bandage them up,” he said. “One of the women was like a doctor. She could have done surgery if needed.”

But Woelber’s paratrooping skills weren’t used for combat missions. He became part of the supply chain that delivered necessary parts out into the field and was never in the path of any bullets, as the plane usually flew well above gun range.

“We was out at the battlefield and had a tank that blew up its motor,” he gave as an example of a supply paratroop detail. “The pilot says, ‘We got to make this one good?’

‘Why?’ ‘We’re going to put the motor as close to the wrecked machine as possible.’ We shoved it out, and they guided it down, and it ended up four feet in back of that tank.”

For a time, Woelber was based out of Hawaii, but he

Julie Buntier/Daily Globe

Korean War Army veteran Harold Woelber sits in the kitchen of his rural George, Iowa, home. In front of him is a mounted albine pocket gopher that he trapped two days after his discharge from service, which he is in the process of remounting on a board. did spend a few months in Korea — not quite a year overseas in all. He particularly remembers a young lad who would regularly visit the camp in Korea. Woelber never knew his name or circumstances, although the youth did speak English.

“He was with the Koreans,” he said. “We told him when

WOELBER: Page C15

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he first came in — he had a pistol — you leave that where you came from, then you can come visit with us. He never brought it again.”

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He rarely had to jump himself.

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Daily Globe

From Page C14

“We even delivered a full-size jeep one night,” he said. “We had six parachutes on that. They would catch it when it got down there. We had drop cords on the vehicle that they could grab.”

Although his duration of service was two years, Woelber got a bit of a reprieve due to a need at home.

“My brother broke his arm, and my mother requested through the Red Cross that I come home for 30 days,” he explained. “While I was home, I ruptured my appendix and was in the hospital for 14 days.

“That’s where I met the other half,” he added, pointing to his wife, Grace, sitting in the other room, who was a nurse in the hospital at the time. They now have seven children — three boys and four girls — and four grandchildren.

After recovering from surgery, Woelber had to return to his overseas duties, and thoughts of his girlfriend at home kept him on the straight and narrow and away from the Korean women who were looking to get out of Korea and to the United States.

Woelber didn’t see any combat duty during his Army stint, but he did end up with an injury that has continued to plague him throughout his life — rup-

tured eardrums that resulted from a firearm demonstration gone awry.

“I’ve just got a constant hum,” he said, pointing to his ears. “I wish I could get cotton balls that are bigger.”

Besides his paratrooper duties, Woelber had one other memorable assignment — a role in a movie. He was part of a detail that acted out maneuvers for a war film that eventually got named “Between Heaven and Hell.”

“I had to crawl out of a boat, like they used for landing on the beach — I crawled out of that and into a big boat. It was the funniest deal. We made the movie, and then when we all get to Hawaii we seen the movie. Then we got to give it a name. Some of the other guys came up with that.”

Woelber was discharged May 14, 1956, and shortly after returning back home, the “Between Heaven and Hell” was shown in the theaters in both nearby Rock Rapids and Sheldon.

“I knew where I was (in the film),” he said. “All I was doing was climbing that rope to get into that ship. This guy I knew in Rock Rapids asked me, ‘Where are you at?’ I told him, ‘Where there’s lonely person going into the ship on a rope, that’s me.’ You always had to leave one guy back to help the others along.

“You needed someone with strength, and that was me. I wouldn’t want to do it today.”

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