Human Experience

Veteran Story

On Thursday, Nov 23rd, Da Vinci High School hosted Veterans from the Korean, Vietnam, First Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars. Da Vinci hosted these Veterans as part of the "America At War" project. In this project, the Da Vinci Junior are divided into teams of four to five and given one of those wars to study. After studying their respective war each Da Vinci Junior team creates a Website like this one to educate the public on their war and the Veterans that served in said war.

At a young age 17 and 19 Mr. Newsom and Mr. Clark respectively chose to fight in the Korean War. While they don't regret serving, with Newsom saying, "I'd do it again”. They both have an strong opinion on the DQ "Can war, with all of its destruction, be beneficial?" the answer the that "I don't know I don't think so I don't think its beneficial" -Mr. Newsom. "I would change the wording beneficial perhaps too ... When I think beneficial I think positive ... I would say probably as a result of wars and police actions that certain changes come about in society afterwards which are beneficial but who would want to say lets have a war so we can get some benefits?" - Mr. Clark. This sentiment is something both of them shared. Both of them when returning form the war didn't expect to be hailed as war time hero's and when asked about how the Korean war being called the "Forgotten War" effected them Newsom said "I don't think much of it I haven't forgotten it".

Johnny Newsom

Mr. Newsom grew up on a farm in Benton county Tennessee; however, he no interest in becoming a farmer he wanted to be a solider. Growing up he had a Heavily Romanticized view on war with ads being played on TV. The slogan “Be all you can that you be a Marine" stuck with him and that's when he decided, at the age of 17 he joined the Marines. He then fought in the Korean war with his childhood friend. During the war he underwent extreme trauma and suffered from PTSD for many years of his life.

"I picked the little guy up and carried him across the road to a shear cliff and threw him over the cliff and into the Imajin River Koreans eat a lot of garlic and smell like garlic so did I after carrying him at that time I was 17 years of age now I'm 88 now at home if I'm sitting in my kickback chair I kick off my shoes and I watch the news as my wife is fixing supper at times she uses garlic to cook stuff as soon as I get a whiff of the garlic she is using I don't jump up to go into the garage to get my big blade but I do become alert and recall the memories of another time in another place war can be hell on the home front too"

Mr. Newsom went into the war not knowing what he was fighting for and left the same way but many never left Korea.

Richard Clark

Resting Gear Operator later Navy Air Crew Man Mr. Clark also grew up in Ohio as a farmer and wanted change in his life, not wanting to stay in his childhood town he joined the Navy wanting to see the world. He was deployed to Korea and worked there along with participating in Operation Mariner. After the war he stayed in the Military for nine years, something Mr. Newsom chose not to do.

Novel

A historical-Fiction piece on popularizing the experiences of our Veterans

infographic final rea.pdf

The Bridges at Toko-Ri

Author: James A. Michener

Publisher: Ishi Press International

(Hoffman)

"But the pilot could not see him. Focusing his sights grimly at what he knew to be the enemy, he brought his fiery guns a few yards from the faces of the Korean family. For one ghastly moment he thought two of the soldiers might have been children..." (Michener 141).

“But she had stayed home, as navy wives are expected to, and somewhere between the bombing of Pearl Harbor, where she lost one son, and the battle of Midway, where her second was killed trying to torpedo a Japanese carrier, her mind lost focus and she started to drink a lot and forget people’s names until slowly, like petals of apple blossoms in spring, fragments of her gentle personality fell away and she would sit for hours staring at a wall” (Michener 41).

"In the old days this had been Japan’s leading hotel but for the first six years after the war it served Americans only. Now, in the transition period between occupation and sovereignty, it had become a symbol of the strange and satisfying relationship between Japan and America: the choice rooms were still reserved for Americans but Japanese were welcome to use the hotel as before; so its spacious gardens, bent with pine and cherry, held both Japanese families who were enjoying luxury after long years of austerity and American military men savoring the same luxury after long months in Korea" (Michener 54-55).

“Yes, we must. I believe without question that some morning a bunch of communist generals and commissars will be holding a meeting to discuss the future of the war. And a messenger will run in with news that the Americans have knocked out even the bridges at Toko-ri. And that little thing will convince the Reds that we’ll never stop . . . never give in . . . never weaken in our purpose” (Michener 37-38).

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