News-Info-Alerts

Re: KW POW Recalls 32 Months of Hell

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: November 19, 2002

"Recalling horrors of war

Korean War veteran writes of spending 32 months as POW


By FRED PETRUCELLI Log Cabin Staff Writer

A Mayflower man who writes of his travail as a prisoner of war during the Korean War creates the illusion of immediacy in a book that traces his path of horror.

He writes from an incredibly deft memory, delineating the horror of war that is vulgar and at the same time poignant. He leaves nothing to the imagination in descriptive and sensitive prose that only a warrior who lived through days of blood and guts is able to create.

It's all there in Marion Judson Morgan's book whose prosaic title, "Telling the Folks Back Home," hardly does justice to the personal trials and tribulations he endured at the hands of his Chinese captors as a POW for 32 months.

His account speaks in evocative terms of one man's horrific experiences. Morgan's words are at times angry, pathetic, desolate and sometimes humorous as he takes readers through the morass of the hostile landscape of Korea.

The book's jacket declares that Morgan's tome "gives us a glimpse of the tenacity of the human spirit and the will to survive."

Being a prisoner of war sets up an encounter between good and evil, with evil holding all the cards through endless days of hunger, thirst, ill health, savagery of flesh and spirit.

The book shows a fragile existence rife with ever-present danger, living in filth and disease, and always in lice-infested surroundings with hunger gnawing away at the GIs. Only the hardiest could survive.

Today, on Veterans Day, Morgan will celebrate the occasion quietly with his family in Mayflower. Elsewhere, in many places, the day will be observed with parades, speeches and church services.

A special service will be held at the Tomb of the Unknown in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.

The observance had its beginning in 1919 when, on the first anniversary of the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11 as Armistice Day to remind Americans of the tragedies of war. In 1938, a law made the day a federal holiday, and in 1954 Congress changed the holiday's name to Veterans Day to honor all veterans.

A nightmare begins

Morgan was captured Jan. 1, 1951, and released in August 1953, a period of time which inflicted great misery to his person, alternately starving and freezing, always under threat of being murdered by Koreans and Chinese.

And there were inexplicable times of humor, wry humor at best, but nevertheless funny incidents. One day, he recalls, a tall, slim GI jumped into his foxhole. "He asked me if I was a Christian. And as I opened my mouth to answer, he popped something white into it. Then he jumped out of the foxhole and ran up the hill. He reminded me of a big bird. His body was bent low to the ground. I later found out that he was a chaplain who was administering the last rites to GIs."

Morgan's recollection of being captured remains fresh in his mind. "I got hit before I knew what was happening. I was running, trying to get to the wash. I was stunned, stopped in my tracks. The enemy was about 35 yards from me when I got shot. I felt my head hit the ground. If the bullet had hit my head one quarter of an inch further over, I would have been dead. The next thing I knew, two Chinese soldiers were disarming me."

Morgan was to learn later that if he had run in an opposite direction, he might have escaped. However, U.S. machine gunners were firing in that direction so the likelihood of being hit by his own men was good.

And then the march in bitterly cold weather, moving always at night. Food was scarce. Dog meat was prepared. Morgan passed on that, risking death by starvation.

The food was uneatable, Morgan recalls. The GIs were given a type of food resembling sorghum called "high gear." "We were given three-quarters of a cup of this stuff twice a day. We were also given some kind of seaweed that was in strips about a half-inch wide. It looked like leather and tasted bad.

"We also got a little rice, but it had as many weevils as rice. One of the guys would line the weevils up on his chopstick and you could hear them crack as he chewed."

Recalling another time

The former POW has the facility for recalling events almost from day-to-day. His accounts of living among the dying are poignant. Illness was prevalent and widespread. Death was a constant companion.

An ailment with a colorful name of beriberi (a deficiency disease marked by inflammation of the nerves, digestive system and heart caused by the lack of Vitamin B1) took its toll among the men, actually ballooning their bodies in grotesque ways.

Morgan's story of the war's end and being released in 1953 seemed anti-climactic in view of the agony he endured as a POW.

His book chronicles the life of a sergeant in the 24th Division, 19th Infantry, C Company in Korea. He returned home with a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry Badge, Korean Service Medal, four Battle Stars, Good Conduct Medal, POW Medal, National Defense Medal and United Nations Medal.

Morgan's book gives the reader a glimpse of the resilience and endurance of the human spirit and the will to survive.

"I wrote the book with the help of my wife and daughter," Morgan says, suggesting that he had no thoughts of putting it on the market.

"I wanted to write it for my friends and my buddies who survived the war. I'm 73 and I live the war every day."

(Staff writer Fred Petrucelli can be reached by phone at 505-1256.)"