War Stories

Remembering my father, and what he remembered

My father served in the Korean War. He was never much for war stories, but I remember some of the human ones. Getting lost in a rough area while photographing on leave in Japan. Threatening to kill a (much bigger) fellow soldier who was bragging about raping a local girl. As a medic, he once had to sever the badly mangled leg of an ‘enemy’ soldier. He used to tell me how he reluctantly but quickly made the final snip, set the limb aside, gave the guy a cigarette. My dad would always choke up when he remembered how the guy looked him straight in the eye, nodded, and simply said, ‘thank you’.