For nearly five decades after he was discharged in November of 1951, Brainerd resident Don Pederson rarely talked about his hand in the events of the Korean War.
"When I left the service, I wanted to forget everything about Korea, but it wasn't possible," he wrote.
Pederson threw away his uniform and most of his memorabilia. He had taken four photos while on the front lines, and these stayed mouldering in a box.
That changed in 1998, when he joined a veterans group organized around the 2nd Infantry Division.
It was then he started researching the fate of William "Cliff" Brown, his best friend who was killed the same day Pederson was wounded. The battle and subsequent retreat near Hoengsong in February claimed the lives of scores of men in Company B, 38th Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, including Brown.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Brown and I were friends from the time we left the States until Feb. 12, 1951, when I was wounded and (he) was killed in action," he recalled.
Bonded through fire
Pederson and Brown were bonded through fire.
"I could not have found a better friend," he said. "Though only 18 when he died, he was in every respect a man."
Because Brown's body wasn't recovered until the Americans retook the area a month later, Brown's family didn't know he was dead for weeks after the battle at Hoengsong. No official word came from the Army, but they suspected something was wrong because the letters they sent to him kept coming back unanswered. They got word eventually, but never knew the whole story.
Decades later, Brown's sister, Sue Woodard, searched for someone from his unit who could add any detail about Cliff.
"I needed to know if there was anyone from Cliff's company still living and who remembered him," she recalled.
She wrote a letter to seven random surviving members of B Company. The sixth person to respond was Don Pederson.
ADVERTISEMENT
He told her what it was like to know Brown, who had transferred jobs so he could serve as Pederson's assistant squad leader. He told what the two of them went through together in B Company during the war, and what happened the day her little brother died.
The story, Woodard said, "was like an answer to all the questions in our minds." She struggled to describe just how much it meant to the family, to know that Cliff had a friend during the war that cared about him.
"He was just a child," she said.
That spurred Pederson on to doing more research and contacting more families of the men in B Company, giving them information, pictures and closure. He owed it to them to go back into his horrible memories of war and tell them what had happened.
He gave photos and stories to the widow of Gene Archer, who had survived the war after escaping captivity as a POW but died in the 1990s.
He gave some to the widow of Howard Hughes, B Company's jeep driver, who drove a truckload of wounded GIs through an enemy roadblock despite being wounded himself.
He gave some to the daughter of Lawrence Packer, who escaped from captivity after being captured during the Feb. 12 battle.
Pederson also put together lists based on U.S. Army data, detailing what had happened to each casualty of his larger unit - hundreds of men who were killed, wounded, captured and injured, but gave up because there were just too many of them to account for.
ADVERTISEMENT
His real rank
However, the same closure he gave to the families of B Company was denied to him by the Army.
He was promoted to the rank of sergeant first class two days before being wounded and has an army report corroborating the promotion.
However, he wasn't told he had been promoted, so when he left the Army he signed discharge papers as a sergeant. It wasn't until much later he found out he was a sergeant first class.
He applied to the Army Review Board to correct the mistake, but was denied.
The Crow Wing County Veterans Service Office fought on his behalf, trying to get the Army to change its decision. Kim Jensen, VSO staffer, wrote an impassioned letter asking the board to give Pederson his proper rank. The Korean War is known as "the Forgotten War," whose soldiers are generally ignored by posterity. By refusing to recognize Pederson's rank, the Army made that shunning personal, she wrote.
"The denial of the Army Review Board further reiterates this in the mind of a soldier who valiantly served his country without question," she said in the letter.
Still, he remained a sergeant.
Pederson can still get his real rank, but at this point it would likely take the intervention of a member of U.S. Congress, Veterans Service Officer Bob Nelson said.
ADVERTISEMENT
Pederson appealed to the constituent service staffers at the office of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, but to no avail.
Still, Pederson has a Purple Heart and a Combat Infantry Badge denoting he served on the front lines. The medal that gives him the most pride is a large medallion given to him on behalf of the the South Korean people. To them, and to the families of the men he served with, he is a hero.
Part one of this series appeared online and in the weekend Dispatch. Part two appeared Monday.
---
Brainerd veteran works to remember the forgotten war - Part 1
http://www.brainerddispatch.com/news/3765359-brainerd-veteran-works-reme...
Remembering the forgotten war - Part 2 - Massacre Valley:
http://www.brainerddispatch.com/news/3766533-remembering-forgotten-war-p...
---
ZACH KAYSER may be reached at 855-5860 or Zach.Kayser@brainerddispatch.com . Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ZWKayser .
