Re: Researcher Finds korean War MIA Buried in Kansas

Date: June 04, 2004

"Des Moines, Ia. - Although much attention this past Memorial Day weekend was paid to a striking new World War II memorial in Washington D.C., John Shimko and scores of other Iowans were quietly toiling behind the scenes to create a different kind of monument.

It's a tribute constructed of words, not marble or limestone or bronze.

It's the voices of men and women who served and sacrificed for their nation at times when service and sacrifice mattered most.

Shimko is Iowa coordinator for the Veterans History Project - a nationwide effort to collect veterans' personal narratives in their own words.

And Shimko, a Vietnam-era veteran, is racing against time.

An estimated 1,500 World War II veterans pass away each day, he said, and many are taking compelling, untold stories with them. Shimko's own father served during World War I, Word War II and the Korean War. But the stories his father once told Shimko as a child decades ago have now faded from memory.

"I wish I had the stories written down," said Shimko, who works for the Veterans Administration in Des Moines. Collecting stories and traveling the state to drum up interest in the project is his full-time job.

"Instead of just reading a paragraph in the history book, the next generation needs to know the truth of what war is about...so they can understand the price of the freedoms that they have," Shimko said.

Shimko has heard dozens of heartbreaking, harrowing and inspiring stories.

He recently interviewed four Iowa men who served and survived aboard the USS Pennsylvania. The battleship was docked at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese sprang their surprise attack.

An 850-lb torpedo ripped into the ship during the attack. One of the men, a cook, scrambled to man an anti-aircraft battery. They even remembered peanut butter sandwiches being handed out after hours of battle - "the best meal they ever had."

"(At the beginning) I asked the most stupid question of all, 'Do you remember where you were on Dec. 7?' Shimko joked. "They just looked at me like, how dumb can you be?"

He's interviewed veterans who served in Korea and Vietnam as well. He's collected stories from former prisoners of war. Shimko found a Vietnam veteran in Marshalltown who rode the lead horse in President John F. Kennedy's funeral procession.

Shimko's research helped one family discover that a loved one declared missing in Korea was actually buried in a military cemetery in Kansas. He's helped reunite soldiers with long-lost comrades.

"There's a lot of closure that comes about by doing this," Shimko said.

"I'll collect stories from anyone who wants to stop and talk with me."

But Shimko is not alone. Libraries, schools, museums and colleges across the state are pitching in to chronicle veterans' owns are collecting stories. Shimko has found that many veterans are eager to pass their stories on to a new generation.

"They love to be able to tell their story, to know someone will hear it," he said. The effort, Shimko said, is being funded almost entirely through donations.

Veterans receive a taped copy of their interview while a second copy is sent off to the Library of Congress. The library is already making extensive selections from collected stories available on the project's website www.loc.gov/folklife/vets

Veterans with stories to tell can contact John Shimko at (515) 699-5999 ext. 4669 or at johnshimko@med.va.gov

Todd Dorman is Statehouse bureau chief for Lee Enterprises newspapers.
©Winterset Madisonian 2004 "