CHS students honor vets for sacrifices made

As Korean War veteran Albert Walton finished up a short speech early Tuesday morning about his terrifying minutes spent in combat half the world away, the entire Carthage High School population rose to its feet and gave the Carthage resident a spirited standing ovation.

Afterwards, the outpouring of gratitude from the student body had left its emotional mark on Walton.

“It was wonderful to see,” he said, though he admitted with a grin the ovation “embarrassed the heck out of me.

“It sounded like they really appreciated it,” Walton said. CHS Principal Kandy Frazier later said the ovation had been a spontaneous action by the students; in other words, it wasn’t something pre-planned by faculty. 

“It was unanimous for them to stand up and do that — (and) it was appreciated,” Walton said.

The CHS ceremony was scheduled to take place during the Veterans Day week but was bumped back to Tuesday. Just outside the school, mini-American flags set around the walkway waved in the wind. Nearly 40 veterans were in attendance in chairs in the middle of the CHS gymnasium, flanked on all sides by high school students. 

Asked if it’s important for veterans to educate young people about past conflicts, such as the “Forgotten War” on the Korean Peninsula, he adamantly nodded. 

Scanning printed words inside a historical school book is one thing — seeing and listening to a man who held a rifle and spat back fire at the faceless enemy is something teachers simply can’t pass on to their students.

“They should know what happened, yes,” Walton said. “They should know it’s not a game when the bullets are flying.”

Walton landed at Wanson on Nov. 14, 1950, and on the morning of Dec. 3, he and his men were ambushed by a large group of Chinese. A day later, he killed his first enemy.

A Chinese soldier “threw back a mat with snow over it right in front of me and behind the other people of my squad. He didn’t see me but was getting his rifle ready to shoot when I jumped at him. He didn’t see me but was getting his rifle ready to shoot when I jumped at him, he swung the gun around on me and I had to knock it away to one side, striking him in the throat with my bayonet. About this time, I realized that he wasn’t over 15-years-old. This was the closest I had been to a Chinese that I had killed.”

He and another man managed to slay a second Chinese soldier that jumped from a ledge and landed on his back.

“I could hardly talk because I was so scared.”

His trials and tribulations in Korea would have made a great Hollywood-spawned movie of war. 

He was initially shot in the heel, and later a mortar shell landed nearby, “and shook me like a dog would a bone.” He suffered a broken left arm, lost the vision of his right eye, shattered his tailbone and his left leg chipped in four places. 

He lay on his side in the snow when a Chinese soldier rolled him over and pointed the barrel of his machine gun down at him. But the 18-year-old never pulled the trigger, leaving him for dead. The cold weather froze his blood from his wounds, saving his life. About an hour later, another Chinese soldier, thinking Walton dead, speared him in the meat of the calf with his bayonet to roll him over onto his stomach. He went through all my pockets, taking what he wanted. At one point he grabbed his wallet and stole a picture of a blonde American girl, discarding the wallet. The Chinese soldier also paused and, compassionately, fastened some of the buttons of his field jacket, sweater and shirt.

“He must have felt sorry for me — we were about the same age.”

Walton crawled away, following tank tracks in the snow. Soon, the tracks split. He followed one. It led to safety and, eventually, a plane home. Had he followed the other tank treads, he said, it would have led him into a minefield.

“I knew the man upstairs was stuttering on my name,” Walton said.