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Army buddies reunite after 50 years
VAN WERT — Bill Hughes hadn’t seen his Army buddies in more than 50 years. There had been yearly Christmas cards but little other contact since serving in the 44th M.A.S.H. unit in Korea in 1956-58.
On Saturday, five of his former bunk mates met at the Hughes Inn in Van Wert for a weekend of reminiscing and catching up.
“My children, Tom and Angie, put this together as a Father’s Day present. They told me in June that I would be getting my gift late and about a month ago, they told me that my Army friends were coming,” Hughes said.
Most hadn’t seen each other since their time in the service and many didn’t know each other except for Hughes.
Ken Peterson, 75, of Gilbralter, Mich.; Lou Celone, 71, of Fort West Haven, Conn.; Jerry Vance, 69, of Midland, Mich.; David Lessley, 74, of Burbank, Calif.; and Dewayne Herron, 73, of Wenatchee, Wash., spent the weekend in Van Wert playing yard games, talking about old times and learning what each other had been up to since being discharged from the service.
Hughes is a retire mail man; Peterson was a pharmacist; Celone worked in the music business with such labels at Arista; Vance was a computer programmer; Lessley was a city planner with Los Angeles; and Herron had owned a milk business and worked in the fruit industry.
“The years just melted away. It’s like Korea was just yesterday,” they said after they had spent a little time together.
The 44th M.A.S.H. Unit was quite similar to its TV counterpart. The Mobile Army Surgical Hospital was set up to move at a moments notice and choppers and jeeps brought in the wounded.
Hughes filled the role of Radar because he was the only one in the unit able to type. He would fulfill his duties in the morning and head to the command post in the afternoon to type reports.
Their Major “Hot Lips” Houlihan was Maj. Mahoney.
“We supported the Marines but most of our patients were Korean — farm workers who had stepped on leftover land mines and things like that,” Peterson said.
All the men agreed that Korea — while it provided the backdrop for their meeting and subsequent friendships — was not a pleasant place to be.
“The first think you noticed was the smell,” Lessley recalled. “They used human waste to fertilize the rice paddies. It weeks before you no longer noticed it. Then the Koreans ate this cabbage dish that they would make up in round pots and then bury and weeks later they would go back and dig it up. It was much like our sauerkraut and it was very odiferous. We could always tell when someone had eaten it.”
Life was not easy for the Korean people, either.
“I can remember it was around Easter time and I was dressed in my ‘woolies’ and standing outside. I saw a farmer, he had on a T-shirt and short pants and rubber sandals and he was knee-deep in water planting rice, It’s 40 degrees and I’m in my woolies and he’s standing in water,” Peterson said. “And he was one of the lucky ones who had land and could plant and provide for his family.”
Vance recalls watching two female field workers one morning.
“There were two ladies working in the rice paddies and one was pregnant,” he said. “They worked all morning and then took lunch. When they came back, the one that had been pregnant was no longer and she carried the little one on her back.”
All the men agreed that Army food left a lot to be desired, also.
“We all like milk and the powdered milk was horrible,” Lessley said. “I decided that I would drink it every day and I would become used to it. I did, eventually.”
Vance agreed.
“As soon as I got stateside, I walked into a diner and asked the waitress for six glasses of milk and a burger. When I got back from the restroom, I drank all six glasses right down. It was so good. Then I ordered a Coke to go with my burger.”
“The eggs were no better,” Lessley added with a shudder.
While they all were trained as battle medics, Peterson is only one in the group that kept with the medical field.
Lessley, at one time, thought he might like to enter the medical field. His experience in Korea changed his course.
“After that, I knew at least what I didn’t want to do,” he joked.
The men were proud to serve their country and approached the War in Iraq very carefully, preferring not to say much.
“We just need to find a way to withdraw with dignity,” they said.
As for their time spent in Korea, all agreed that it was not a place they would like to revisit.
The reunion was held at the Hughes Inn in Van Wert, owned by Tom and Sherry Hughes.
Bill Hughes’ Army greens and other memorabilia filled a corner of the sitting room at the inn and his Army buddies teased him about it fitting all these years later.
There was much laughter and camaraderie and promises that it wouldn’t be another 50 years before they were in touch.
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