Thursday, April 1, 2010

Korea 1951


My father was a soldier in Korea in 1951. This is not a picture of my father, but it looks like him, and it was taken in Korea in 1951. I found it by accident today in a library book and it made me pause, even though I knew it was not a picture of my father. He was 19 in 1951. I was born the next year, after he had been badly wounded in the war and sent back home. Then in 1953 he died at the age of 21. But the soldier in this picture must have had an entirely different fate, and it was probably a happier one, since my father seems to have been exceptionally unlucky. His death had nothing to do with the war. He died in a car crash.