For Douglas - A Final Word on The Korean War

During the day, (Grandpa John) would stand near his furnance with his sweaty, brown fedora perched on his head, and with equally sweaty green tee shirt, while he munched on chewing tobacco, as a filter through which the perennial smoke could not penetrate. Invariably, he would be surrounded, while he stood there, with what appeared to be a huge pile of metal junk. Meticulously, ...he would pull out the right materials for smelting, leaving as mementos (as I often observed) around the edge of his furnance--metal ashtrays, ship bookends, religious figures...such as statues of a monk praying, crucifixes, holy water fonts or even pewter candle holders. One day, he brought home a metal angel with a broken wing and told us it was our duty to give it a special place in our home because angels with broken wings are crying for humanity.



One day, September 15, 1950 on both our large, stand up Zenith radio and on our new round-screen Zenithblack and white T.V., came some startling news that validated all the battles I had (waged) amd victories I had(won.) The battle and the man associated with it would be forever etched in my psyche and persona. The battle was Inchon and the man associated with it--General Douglas MacArthur.



We open the door to the building and we were immediately confronted with five prison cells, each filled with agray or white haired man, in his 70's or 80's, in motionless states. These had to be the five P.O.W.'s we had beensearching for!



At that very moment, Severino Russo, a Korean veteran of the fight for Seoul, Korea against the Chinese inMay of 1951, was now being brought through the airport by wheelchair to live with his daughter in Greenville, South Carolina. He had two worsening conditions, which did not bode well for the future--Alzheimer's and a bad heart. Coincidentally, a little boy of five years old, standing near the ticket counter blew a toy bugle his grandfather had given him that morning as a birthday present. The bugle sound stirred in Severino's long repressed memories, the thoughts of Korea and of Chinese soldiers sounding bugles as they charged.



He immediately swung into action. Realizing he didn't have a gun on his person, he reached for his bayonet and in his confused state, found the only (knife) he could defend himself with from the Chinese horde, in the form of a fountain pen, long forgotten from the 1950's that he had placed in his only good suit jacket years ago. It was long-since dry and minus the cap that would normally be there. He felt the tip of his pen (or knife) and immediately looked for a Chinese aggressor.