LEGACY
BOOKS
War Veterans' Memoirs
The Legacy Books is proud to submit its work
for preservation to The Library of Congress
archives in Washington, D.C.
Every year men pass away without telling some of the greatest stories of their generation and of their family history. Some of these stories may be devastating, some might surprise you, and some might change your life, or humble you or just make you think...
The aim of the War Veterans' Memoirs is to record the stories of the men who fought a war in 1950, thousands of miles away from home. As they walked through fields of Mugunghwa, with the intent of defending the worlds freedom, lives were lost and stories were found in the midst and complexity of war. This path enabled them to realize the complexity of their own destinies while watching new and old chapters of their lives open and close.
We rode trains in South Korea...There was an open gondola in front of the engine and an open gondola at the back of the train. They had sand bags piled up. There was an open box car and we had 30 caliber machine guns.. then sometimes... we'd go through these tunnels and the smoke would get that bad that the trains were usually overloaded and they'd go so slow you would think you were suffocating... going through these tunnels... A lot of them got destroyed, those tunnels, and for a long time it was just one railroad going north and south. But It was quiet, especially at night, so quiet you thought you were the only man on the train...In Korea, there, everyone there was riding a bicycle. They would haul pigs and chickens and everything on bicycles. I never saw anything like it. The women were always dressed up in all of these colors. It was a different place than I had ever seen. I was just a farm boy and had never been out of the United States of America, so I had never seen people like this, places like this, everything was new, everything was new to me...
We were afraid to sleep. When we sailed off the Port at Hungnam, some of the guys just collapsed on that boat, on the deck and went to sleep. We had an out post right beside the 3rd Infantry Division and one night they were really doing a lot of shooting and the next morning we saw bodies and some of these North Koreans and Chinese, it looked like they died instantly. I never thought I'd see a man die instantly, but their legs were under their back. Never thought I'd see a body disheveled like that, there was no man left, just a body. They just fell backwards and that was it.
-The Legacy Books
sinks talons into our hearts.
This we call memory."
~Tim O'Brien from "Tomcat in Love"
Share Your Story
The War Veterans' Memoirs Project is interested in helping Veterans through the journey of storytelling. We are proud to connect Veterans with healing retreats and centers, a way that the Veterans can take their stories further, if they so choose, and find a community, not just Legacy Books, to see and understand the great value of their stories and life experiences. Please fill out our Contact Us form below, or contact us directly by phone, (717) 572-4948 or via e-mail, [email protected].