Korean Honor Roll

The next stop in the Honor Roll is the Korean Conflict and my Dad.
Jim served in the US Army. He was inducted on Oct 30, 1952 and was discharged Aug 25, 1954 at Ft Sheridan IL. He served over seas in Korea for 1 year and 4 months. While in the army he was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, United Nations Service Metal and the Purple Heart for Pyrone wounds he received on 14 July 1953. He was promoted to corporal (+) on April 16, 1954 and previous to discharge he was promoted to Sargent First Class. This is the basic story of his time in Korea. Here's some of what I've learned since gathering information for these posts. I started my search on the Korean War Project Site, looking for information on my Dad's injuries. I found that, plus a bonus find, one of my Dad's army buddies, “Frenchie”. Frenchie has been a great find, he's filled in a lot holes. One of the more interesting things, was finding out my Dad's group was hit by “friendly fire”. They lost three men and all of their possessions. Frenchie has told me that the 8219TH artillery was what they called a “Bastard Outfit” – “Just a bunch of Nomads wandering all over Korea scrounging for meals”. From what Dad told us, his unit was basically forward observers, Frenchie explained it like this: “Three crews went out every day (one in reserve) to different locations all over Korea depending on what Artillery Unit (U.S or Korean) had to be moved to a new location. We were told the night before what area we would be working in. The Metro Section would tell us what three mountains we were to climb and set up our equipment. This is what they called “Triangulation” so the Artillery Units would know the height of the mountains and distance to their targets. It had to be perfect or it could mean missing a target by a mile or so.” Several of Dad's friends from Korea, remained friends for life, Frenchie, Bill Borman (who one of my brothers were named after) and Harry Berth (who, along with his wife were my godparents).

In Memory
Pvt Rodney Forrest Graff, Pvt John J Jurmu, Pvt Robert G. Wight
(KIA 14 July 1953)