THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 22, 1995 TAG: 9510220008
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
No crowds welcomed Dick Gallmeyer and his Army buddies when they came back from the Korean War in November 1953.
They took a bus from the San Francisco docks to a nearby base and stood around in the rain all day waiting for transportation home. Gallmeyer, a 21-year-old Army radio operator, was drenched by the time he got on the plane back to Ohio. When it landed, his clothes were still wet. He took a week off. Then he went back to work.
Saturday morning, Gallmeyer and his Army buddies stood around in the rain again. But this time, they felt triumphant and appreciated. And dry.
It was the second day of the first Korean War Veterans Reunion, and they were laughing and telling stories under a green and white striped tent on Atlantic Avenue. The veterans' parade, scheduled for 10 a.m., had been canceled because of the weather. No one seemed to care. They had white KOREA baseball caps and white KOREA jackets. Their wives were videotaping them, reporters were asking questions, T-shirts and souvenirs honored their feats. For all intents and purposes, it was a day in the sun.
``I went through my whole life not talking about the war,'' said Gallmeyer, who organized the reunion and lives in Virginia Beach.
``None of us ever said anything. And now it's the end of our lives and we want to find our buddies and get a little recognition before it's too late.''
The Korean War began in June 1950 when troops from Communist-ruled North Korea invaded South Korea. Although 16 United Nations countries sent troops and supplies, 90 percent of them were American. China fought with North Korea, and the Soviet Union gave North Korea military equipment. By the time the fighting ended in July, 1953, 54,246 American soldiers, 628,833 U.N. troops and a million South Korean civilians were dead.
Returning Korean War vets were neither celebrated like those who came home from World War II, nor despised like those who served in Vietnam. Instead, they say, they were ignored. Now, as they grow old, they want to find the people with whom they served. They want to talk about the war. They want to be acknowledged.
``When you serve and you share your life with these other guys, you have a need to find out what happened to them,'' said Julia Farrell, who came with her husband, Jim, from Dumont, N.J. ``Like this one guy, Moose Knickory. And this cowboy from Florida. He's always searching for those two.''
``I think we probably want to find each other so they can remember what we had together,'' said Dot Schilling, a former WAC who spent two years in Germany decoding messages during the war.
For some, the opportunity comes too late. A letter to Gallmeyer, from Sandra Sawin of Hesperia, Calif., was displayed inside the tent:
My father was a vet of the Korean War and I know he'd have loved to be there in Virginia Beach with all of you.
He lost his fight with lung cancer on Oct. 9, 1986. His name was Raymond Clyde Moore (just Clyde if you knew him). Tall, redheaded drink of water. . . way of sending him to this reunion. It seems a small thing to do for the man who gave everything to me. I loved him very much.
Many of the vets at the reunion were children during World War II.
For them, Korea was a chance to earn the kind of glory they had seen heaped on soldiers who returned victorious from World War II.
Fred Lane, a retired restaurant manager who traveled to the reunion from Durham, N.C., could barely wait. He signed up as soon as he turned 17.
``I was selling papers on the street in downtown Durham when the Second World War ended,'' Lane recalled Saturday. ``All the traffic was honking and celebrating. And I decided then and there that if I could get my parents to sign I was going to join the Army. I turned 17 in May of 1949. In June I was in Fort Jackson, N.C., taking basic training.''
At 18, Lane found his division surrounded by the Chinese. His captain surrendered and was immediately shot.
Lane, who had been guarding 34 trucks full of wounded and dying soldiers, was taken prisoner and forced to watch as the trucks were doused with gasoline and set afire.
He and his fellow prisoners were then marched north to a prison camp near China. He spent 33 months there.
``For years, I was guilty and ashamed because I wasn't killed,'' he said. ``Because I was taken prisoner instead. But then I figured out that it took three of the enemy to guard one prisoner. And so, by my being a prisoner, maybe I saved someone else by keeping them (his Chinese guards) busy with me.''
Now a skinny 63-year-old with thick glasses and a camouflage jacket sagging with medals, Lane got to thinking about the war last year on the 40th anniversary of the Inchon landing.
Sitting on his back porch in Durham, he wrote a poem: ``Korea . . . The Forgotten War.''
We ask for so little and we ask for no more.
But please remember Korea, the forgotten war . . .
Lane gave the poem to his friend, country singer and car salesman Bobby Pender, and it was set to music.
On July 26, Pender, backed by the choir from his church, performed the song at the dedication of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington.
It was a proud moment for Lane. He loves his song.
Sitting in the back of his Buick in the parking lot next to the veterans tent on Saturday morning, he listened to it again on the tape deck.
Rapt, he murmered the lines before Pender sang them.
``It still makes me cry,'' he said. ``It were God's work. It had to be.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
L. TODD SPENCER
Jeff Immel prepares to re-enact the last hour of the Korean War with
others in the Military Vehicle Preservation Society of Tidewater.
by CNB