FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

by Major Kelly Strong

I watched the flag pass by one day.

It fluttered in the breeze

A young Marine saluted it, and then

He stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform

So young, so tall, so proud

With hair cut square and eyes alert

He’d stand out in any crowd.

I thought, how many men like him

Had fallen through the years?

How many died on foreign soil?

How many mothers’ tears?

How many Pilots’ planes shot down?

How many foxholes were soldiers’ graves?

No, Freedom is not free.

I heard the sound of taps one night,

When everything was still.

I listened to the bugler play

And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times

That taps had meant “Amen”

When a flag had draped a coffin

of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children,

Of the mothers and the wives,

Of fathers, sons and husbands

With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard

at the bottom of the sea

Of unmarked graves in Arlington.

No, Freedom isn’t free!!

Veteran’s Day is always very special to me. In years past, I’ve attended a reunion of local men that served in the 45th Division during the Korean War. It is often called the Forgotten War; however, the fact is that it will never be forgotten by those that served there.

More than 35,000 Americans were killed in the Korean War including 601 Oklahomans. Countless others were wounded and many of those were never able to enjoy a normal life ever again.

Kenneth Schechter wrote about his experience in the Korean War. It is one of the most moving stories I have ever read, and I wanted to share it today.

Blind and Alone Over North Korea

I was blind, stunned, in pain, bleeding profusely and very much alone. At the controls of my Navy Skyraider attack plane over Wongsang-ni, North Korea, I was climbing, inexorably, toward a solid overcast at 10,000 feet -- from which there could be no return.

It was March 22, 1952.1 was just 22 years old. Dawn found me on the flight deck of the USS Valley Forge in the Sea of Japan, warming up my Skyraider. As a pilot in Fighter Squadron 194, the “Yellow Devils”, I was the standby in case one of the eight planes scheduled for the morning’s flight became inoperative. One plane lost its hydraulic system and I was launched in his place. This would be my 27th mission bombing North Korea. Today’s targets were enemy marshalling yards, railroad tracks and other transportation infrastructure.

On the ninth of my planned fifteen bomb runs, at 1200 feet, an enemy anti-aircraft shell exploded in the cockpit. Instinctively, I pulled back on the stick to gain altitude. Then I passed out. When I came to, sometime later, I couldn’t see a thing. There was stinging agony in my face and throbbing in my head. I felt for my upper lip. It was almost severed from the rest of my face.

I called out over the radio through my lip mike (which miraculously still worked), “I’m blind! For God’s sake, help me! I’m blind.”

Lieutenant (jg) Howard Thayer, in his own Skyraider nearby, heard the distress call. He saw my Skyraider, still climbing, heading straight towards a heavy overcast at 10,000 feet. He knew that if I entered those clouds, he couldn’t help me. No one could help me.

He called out, “Plane in trouble, rock your wings. Plane in trouble, rock your wings.”

I did so.

Then came the order, “Put your nose down! Put your nose down! Push over. I’m coming up.”

Again, I did as he said and pushed the stick forward.

He climbed and flew alongside my plane and radioed, “This is Thayer -- this is Thayer! Put your nose over farther!”

I complied. Howie Thayer was my roommate on the Valley Forge. Hearing his name and his voice gave me just the psychological boost I needed.

He continued, “You’re doing all right. Pull back a little. We can level off now.”

Thayer could see that the canopy was blown away and that my face was a bleeding mess. The crimson stain on the fuselage behind the cockpit turned dark and blended with the Navy Blue of the Skyraider as the blood dried in the slipstream. He was amazed I was still alive.

Without the canopy, the two-hundred-mile-per-hour slipstream and unmuffled engine noise made sending and receiving our radio transmissions difficult.

Despite these obstacles, I began to think clearly — in my moments of consciousness — and began to try to help myself. I managed to pour water from my canteen over my face. For a fleeting instant there was a sight of the instrument panel, which disappeared immediately. I was blind.

Howard kept up a stream of conversation, “We’re headed south, Ken. We’re heading for Wonsan (a port and prime target on the Sea of Japan). Not too long.”

The throbbing in my head was getting worse, and the blood running down my throat nauseated me. I hurt, but I was unable to get the morphine from my first aid kit.

I radioed, “Get me down, Howie!”

“Roger. We’re approaching Wonsan now. Get ready to bail out.”

To which I replied,

“Negative! Negative! Not going to bail out.”

All too often, our pilots had drowned or died of exposure after their planes had been crippled by enemy anti-aircraft fire and they had ditched the aircraft or bailed out into the frigid waters of the Sea of Japan. I had personally witnessed this. In my case, I would have had to successfully evacuate the Skyraider and enter the water blind, with the probability of a tangled parachute harness and my rubber immersion suit, pierced by shell fragments, unable to offer protection from the freezing ocean. To my mind, bailing out meant certain death.

I would not bail out. Howie understood my decision. He would get me back behind the front lines into friendly territory -- or I would die in the attempt. We turned and headed south.

Thirty miles behind the front lines, on the coast, was a Marine airfield designated K-50. This was our destination. I wasn’t sure whether I could make it that far, as I kept drifting in and out of consciousness.

Then Howard spotted a Navy cruiser shelling enemy positions and knew that this was the bomb line. South of the bomb line was friendly territory.

The instructions continued, “We’re at the bomb line, Ken. We’ll head for K-50. Hold on, Ken. Can you hear me, Ken? Will head for K-50. Over.”

“Roger. Let’s try.” It was an effort to speak.

“Can you make it, Ken?” “Get me down, you miserable SOB, or you’ll have to inventory my gear!”

(In case of an aviator’s death, a shipmate must inventory his personal belongings before they are shipped home -- not a welcome chore. Howard and I had designated each other for this function.)

I continued to follow Thayer’s directions. But he could see that my head kept flopping down from time to time, and he doubted I could made it to K-50. He was probably right. He decided to get me down right away.

Immediately behind the front lines was a 2000-foot deserted dirt airstrip named “Jersey Bounce” that the Army used from time to time for its light planes that did artillery spotting. Thayer decided to have me land there.

“Ken, we’re going down. Push your nose over, drop your right wing. We’re approaching ‘Jersey Bounce.’ We’ll make a 270 degree turn and set you down”

“Roger, Howie, let’s go.”

“Left wing down slowly, nose over easy. A little more. Put your landing gear down.”

“To hell with that!” was my instantaneous reply. I had seen this field on earlier missions and could picture it in my mind’s eye. In was rough and short, and with wheels down, too many things could go wrong. It was much safer to land on my belly.

“Roger, gear up,” Thayer concurred. This was onetime when we wouldn’t follow the checklist.

Ahead lay the most critical part of the flight — landing, a complex maneuver requiring precision and skill. As challenging as my flying wounded and blind had been up to now, a sightless landing on a tiny dirt strip would be infinitely more difficult. One slip would spell disaster.

From his plane, flying twenty-five feet away from mine and duplicating my maneuvers, Howard’s voice was cool and confident, but the underlying tension was palpable. “We’re heading straight. Flaps down. Hundred yards to the runway. You’re fifty feet off the ground. Pull back a little. Easy. Easy. That’s good. You’re level. You’re okay. You’re okay. Thirty feet off the ground. You’re okay. You’re over the runway. Twenty feet. Kill it a little. You’re setting down. Okay, okay, okay. Cut!”

The shock wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. Some forty-five minutes after the shell blew up in my cockpit, my plane hit the ground, lurched momentarily and skidded to a stop in one piece. A perfect landing. No fire. No pain, no strain. The best landing I ever made.

Thayer elatedly said, “You’re on the ground, Ken!”

After cutting the switches I clumsily climbed out of the cockpit. Almost immediately an Army Jeep with two men came, picked me up, and took me to a shack on the edge of the field. A helicopter picked me up and flew me to the Marine airfield, K-50, where doctors at their field hospital started to patch me up and give me pain killers.

Thayer flew back to the carrier. I found out later that when he landed, a crowd was there to greet and congratulate him. He wondered how they knew what had happened and was told that most of our transmissions had been picked up on the USS Valley Forge.

Meanwhile, back at the Marine airfield, they felt I needed much more medical expertise, so I was transported to the Navy hospital ship, USS Consolation, where I underwent immediate surgery. Both of my eyes were bandaged for two weeks, during which time I wasn’t sure if I would ever see again.

But the possibility of a lifetime of blindness was a minor issue compared to just being alive. Eventually, however, I regained sight in my left eye. My career as a Navy carrier pilot was over. My life was not — because, although I was blind that day over North Korea, I was not really alone. Howard Thayer had been my eyes. Together we’d created a miracle.

Today, still living on “borrowed time”, I am thankful for every moment of each and every day. Kenneth A. Schechter

This is just one story and we know there are countless others. While we don’t know all of them, we do know that our veterans deserve the respect and admiration of every one of us, not just on Veterans Day, but every day of our lives.