The Plutonian Empire
30-10-2006, 12:13
My local paper:
http://www.unioneagle.com/2006/October/26belfiori.html
Posted: 10/26/06
Korean War vet finds closure with autograph
By Joel Stottrup
A Korean War veteran who a half century earlier had watched movie star Debbie Reynolds at a USO show, found closure recently at Mille Lacs Lake.
The war veteran is 72-year-old Conrad Belfiori, a retired Princeton High school math teacher, who still does substitute teaching there.
Belfiori’s closure was getting Reynolds’ autograph on Oct. 12 at Grand Casino Mille Lacs. He had her sign the photo of her on a newspaper clipping from the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, when it covered a USO show she had been in during the summer of 1955 in South Korea.
Belfiori, at the time, was an army PFC stationed in a lonely, desolate, and often inhospitable outpost in the DMZ, or demilitarized zone between South Korea, and communist North Korea.
North Korea had invaded South Korea, also known as the Republic of Korea, on June 25, 1950. The United States and some other members of the United Nations sent in troops to help South Korea repulse the invaders. A revitalized North Korean Army accompanied by about 400,000 Chinese fighters made a second invasion on Dec. 31, 1950.
The North Koreans were eventually pushed back and an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. The total of American service personnel killed in the war was 33,729 and the number wounded was 103,284.
It was a war in which the United States had to accept a peace that was considered less than a victory.
Belfiori enters army
Chisholm-native Belfiori joined the army realizing the Korean War was not a popular conflict but also had felt the military tradition of the Iron Range where he lived.
He also did not want his mother to think that he had enlisted so he might end up in Korea, he said. Therefore, he asked his draft board to draft him.
After basic training at Ft. Leonardwood, Mo., and then advanced infantry training at Ft. Ord, Calif., he was sent by ship overseas.
He was seasick for most of the 17-day voyage, he remembers. But the worst was to come, being assigned to a military outpost as part of Co. K, of the 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division.
The personnel in that division were called Taromen, since the division was called the Taro Leaf Division. The name came from a leaf on the Taro tree since the division was born in Hawaii. It had served in the Philippines during World War II.
About 25 to 30 out of his company of about 65 were assigned to two outposts in the DMZ that were set up at the end of the Korean War. The company was a multinational one, with about 30 percent of it South Korean.
Life at the outpost
To understand how much servicemen at the Korean outpost would appreciate seeing a USO show, you would have to hear what life on the outpost was like.
Belfiori spent 17 months in Korea, of which 12 months were at the outpost lying between the South Korean front lines and the unpredictable North Korea.
The front lines were in heavily fortified mountains just north of the South Korean capital of Seoul. The outposts were about 10 or so miles north of there.
The job at the outpost was to try to discourage North Korean infiltrators from crossing into the south. Also, if there was an invasion, the outpost men had to signal the front lines what was happening. At that point a key bridge was to be blown up to prevent a river crossing.
About a million mines were laid around the DMZ and there were trails in certain mine free places where the outpost men would lie and wait to discourage any North Korean infiltrators from heading south, Belfiori explained.
He was part of a machine gun squad that included a guy from New Jersey, and three South Koreans.
Every once in awhile the counter intelligence corps would suspect there might be an invasion and then Belfiori and his squad had to go up and stand machine gun duty at a bunker.
The winters had temperatures of 20 or so below and the worst part was the outpost had no heat, according to Belfiori. The only thing resembling that were a few candles issued for low light inside tents to write letters. Other lighting wasn’t allowed, he said.
His company was only supposed to spend six months on outpost duty. But the battalion commander, Col. Keith Ware, told some higher-ups that his men “like it there so they can stay another six months,” Belfiori said. Belfiori didn’t know where Col. Ware got that idea, he said, as he had never met Ware nor told him he liked the outpost.
The food was rarely heated, just C and K ration food in cans with dates from World War II.
Besides standing watch at the outpost, the men had to spend four hours each night on patrol, and that is when they would lie on the trails to deter trespassing.
Thankfully, no North Koreans ever attacked when he was there, said Belfiori, recalling the DMZ outposts being a “scary place.”
It was the loneliness and boredom that was the hardest to endure, he said. “There was no communication [with the outside world],” he explained. “It was a real secretive place . . . A week was like a lifetime in that place.
“We were tired all the time. We worked all the time.”
The work didn’t let up either because of the rainy season of about five weeks, or the winter cold, he said.
The work he did beside patrolling, was filling sand bags, building bunkers and digging trenches.
Belfiori wanted to be in the military, he said, because it was the “thing to do” when he grew up during World War II. “Most who graduated went from high school to World War II,” he said. “The Iron Range led the nation in enlistment during World War II.”
Life at the outpost was tense, with passwords required to walk past the guards, he said.
Belfiori recalled one soldier in his company that ended up getting shot by a guard because he didn’t give the guard a password. Belfiori thinks the young man who was shot had a gastrointestinal problem and was rushing to the latrine.
About halfway through his 12 months at the outpost, Belfiori heard there would be a USO show with Debbie Reynolds in the area. He recalled not getting excited about it then because he figured he wouldn’t get to see it.
But one day he was told that most of his company would get to take two hours off and go see the show.
The Stars and Stripes newspaper picture of the men in the Taro Leaf Division watching the USO show, shows them sitting on a slope in front of a makeshift stage. One spectator was atop a utility pole.
A large photo shows Reynolds showing off her new diamond ring she was wearing that she had received from fiance Eddie Fisher.
She told a Stars and Stripes reporter that the tour for the Taro Leaf Division was tiring but the enthusiasm of the men “more than made up for any inconvenience.”
She also said she was concerned about the stoppage of the USO shows to the Far East. “I’ve only been away for about a month and I’m homesick,” she said. “I can imagine how the men feel after sixteen months. USO shows are important. They give the men a chance to see American girls and refresh their memories as to what they look like.
“Shows are like a letter from home, worth any cost.”
She told how Johnny’s Galaxy USO show she was in was free and that not all the shows could be like that. “Most performers aren’t as fortunate as I am and can’t afford to be without work,” she said.
The story continued with how Reynolds got into show business by entering a Burbank Cal beauty contest and then taking a Warner Bros. screen test.
The story went on about her career in movies, including with stars Frank Sinatra and James Cagney. It mentioned her plans to marry Fisher and continue her movie career.
Reynolds was the last one to appear that day on the USO show. Up first on the show were dancer Jeanne Blanche, songstress LaVada Marlow, acrobat Pat Moran, dancer Leon Tyler, Ah Ha comic and guitarist Jackie Lemaire, and vocalists Marcella Rhinehart and Patty Powers.
Reynolds’ act included dancing the tango and a hot Charleston with Tyler. She made her entrance on an A frame carried by Johnny Grant.
The USO show cast later visited men in hospital wards before departing for Pusan.
Belfiori couldn’t recall the songs Reynolds did at the USO show but remembers her doing a little march with his outpost outfit around the grounds.
“She was pretty,” he recalled, but added that she wasn’t a big deal to him at the time as far as being a movie star.
“What it was, was a reprieve [from the military duty],” Belfiori said of the USO show. “You know that outpost was just a bad place to be. We never saw a bottle of pop or beer. We had foul tasting water laced with iodine to kill the bacteria.”
Belfiori said that years later he guessed why maybe the outpost men weren’t given much. That was because “the military leadership thought it would all belong to the North Koreans shortly,” meaning another invasion, Belfiori said.
Belfiori spent his last five months in Korea at the front lines, where he said there was heat and comforts the outposts didn’t have.
But even then, he witnessed some unforgettable images. One was watching one of his best friends there, a Cpl. Larry Lawrence from Ohio, accidentally lie on an old and rusty concussion grenade and it went off.
It’s a grenade that doesn’t throw out metal like a regular grenade, Belfiori said, but explained that Lawrence’s back was one big blister.
“I had a pretty tough night that night [thinking about the incident],” Belfiori recalled. The last he said he saw Lawrence was before Lawrence was taken away in a helicopter bound for a hospital.
Belfiori said he was also pained by the sights of so many poor people in the nearby South Korean village. It was like walking into the last century, he remarked.
He explained that the countryside had been devastated by the invasion and hurt them economically.
When Belfiori got out of the service and was back home, he found it hard to adjust. “You didn’t know what to do with yourself,” he explained. You were just kind of lost. You had lived a regimented life all that time. At home there was nothing to do.”
After some weeks collecting unemployment, he returned to a job in the Sherman open pit iron mine between Chisholm and Buhl.
Eventually he studied to become a math teacher and had his career at Princeton High School.
One thing he pointed out this week about his time in Korea, was that he is not complaining. He said he felt he had a fair deal there and that as a young man at the outpost, he just carried out his duties not thinking at all what the temperature might be. He explained that they didn’t have a thermometer and just didn’t think about the various kinds of weather there.
But he did emphasize that the USO show meant a lot in breaking up the boredom of the outpost. He and his wife Dianne went to Las Vegas some years ago trying to find Reynolds to get her autograph but were unsuccessful.
The Reynolds show from two weeks ago
Dianne had a bridge card game on the Oct. 12 night of Reynolds’ performance at Grand Casino Mille Lacs so she didn’t go.
It was probably good she didn’t, she said, because of what happened when Conrad arrived there. He was talking before the show to a woman at the casino about how he hoped to get Reynolds’ autograph that evening. The woman consequently obtained a ticket for a front row seat for Belfiori. His original ticket was for 12 rows back.
Belfiori sat clutching his Stars and Stripes photo of Reynolds as he watched her begin her act. She was halfway through her first song when she spotted him sitting with the photo. She “did a double take,” he said. Then, after finishing the song, she went to the edge of the stage to talk to him.
She asked, “We were in Korea together, weren’t we?” When Belfiori said yes, she asked how old he was back then and he said, “about 19,” and she answered, “You were just a baby.”
He explained how he wanted her autograph on the photo and how much her performance in the USO show had meant to him in Korea. After she signed it, he thanked Reynolds and then she said, “No, I want to thank you [for serving in the military].”
The audience then clapped.
“I felt so dumb,” Belfiori said.
When he asked for the autograph, she was going to place the photo on the piano and sign it later because she didn’t have a pen, but then Belfiori produced one.
She then remarked that she should have known because his infantry’s motto was to be prepared.
She signed it, “To Conrad, Debbie Reynolds.”
She then gave him a salute.
Belfiori said that his wife was mad when she found out what all happened that night and she hadn’t gone with him to the show.
Belfiori laminated the old worn Stars and Stripes clipping that now had the Reynolds photo signed.
Belfiori had told Reynolds as he stood alongside the edge of stage in the Grand Casino hall that he didn’t think she realized how much her appearance in the USO show had meant to him in Korea.
Her reply, Belfiori said, was, “I do, I had a brother there.”
Belfiori said she made five USO show trips to Korea.
The recent news of North Korea testing a nuclear bomb has also not been lost on Belfiori.
“I always thought that North Korea was our most dangerous enemy,” he said calling many of the North Koreans “fanatics,” and warned, “Do not trust them.”
Some military veterans, when asked if they would ever want to revisit the place where they served in war, say no.
But Belfiori said he would want to go back to visit.
But even if he doesn’t, he may be content with having reunited for a few moments with the person who as a young movie star had brightened his life while serving in an austere place thousands of miles from home.
I've had him as a substitute when I was in high school, a few times.
http://www.unioneagle.com/2006/October/26belfiori.html
Posted: 10/26/06
Korean War vet finds closure with autograph
By Joel Stottrup
A Korean War veteran who a half century earlier had watched movie star Debbie Reynolds at a USO show, found closure recently at Mille Lacs Lake.
The war veteran is 72-year-old Conrad Belfiori, a retired Princeton High school math teacher, who still does substitute teaching there.
Belfiori’s closure was getting Reynolds’ autograph on Oct. 12 at Grand Casino Mille Lacs. He had her sign the photo of her on a newspaper clipping from the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, when it covered a USO show she had been in during the summer of 1955 in South Korea.
Belfiori, at the time, was an army PFC stationed in a lonely, desolate, and often inhospitable outpost in the DMZ, or demilitarized zone between South Korea, and communist North Korea.
North Korea had invaded South Korea, also known as the Republic of Korea, on June 25, 1950. The United States and some other members of the United Nations sent in troops to help South Korea repulse the invaders. A revitalized North Korean Army accompanied by about 400,000 Chinese fighters made a second invasion on Dec. 31, 1950.
The North Koreans were eventually pushed back and an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. The total of American service personnel killed in the war was 33,729 and the number wounded was 103,284.
It was a war in which the United States had to accept a peace that was considered less than a victory.
Belfiori enters army
Chisholm-native Belfiori joined the army realizing the Korean War was not a popular conflict but also had felt the military tradition of the Iron Range where he lived.
He also did not want his mother to think that he had enlisted so he might end up in Korea, he said. Therefore, he asked his draft board to draft him.
After basic training at Ft. Leonardwood, Mo., and then advanced infantry training at Ft. Ord, Calif., he was sent by ship overseas.
He was seasick for most of the 17-day voyage, he remembers. But the worst was to come, being assigned to a military outpost as part of Co. K, of the 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division.
The personnel in that division were called Taromen, since the division was called the Taro Leaf Division. The name came from a leaf on the Taro tree since the division was born in Hawaii. It had served in the Philippines during World War II.
About 25 to 30 out of his company of about 65 were assigned to two outposts in the DMZ that were set up at the end of the Korean War. The company was a multinational one, with about 30 percent of it South Korean.
Life at the outpost
To understand how much servicemen at the Korean outpost would appreciate seeing a USO show, you would have to hear what life on the outpost was like.
Belfiori spent 17 months in Korea, of which 12 months were at the outpost lying between the South Korean front lines and the unpredictable North Korea.
The front lines were in heavily fortified mountains just north of the South Korean capital of Seoul. The outposts were about 10 or so miles north of there.
The job at the outpost was to try to discourage North Korean infiltrators from crossing into the south. Also, if there was an invasion, the outpost men had to signal the front lines what was happening. At that point a key bridge was to be blown up to prevent a river crossing.
About a million mines were laid around the DMZ and there were trails in certain mine free places where the outpost men would lie and wait to discourage any North Korean infiltrators from heading south, Belfiori explained.
He was part of a machine gun squad that included a guy from New Jersey, and three South Koreans.
Every once in awhile the counter intelligence corps would suspect there might be an invasion and then Belfiori and his squad had to go up and stand machine gun duty at a bunker.
The winters had temperatures of 20 or so below and the worst part was the outpost had no heat, according to Belfiori. The only thing resembling that were a few candles issued for low light inside tents to write letters. Other lighting wasn’t allowed, he said.
His company was only supposed to spend six months on outpost duty. But the battalion commander, Col. Keith Ware, told some higher-ups that his men “like it there so they can stay another six months,” Belfiori said. Belfiori didn’t know where Col. Ware got that idea, he said, as he had never met Ware nor told him he liked the outpost.
The food was rarely heated, just C and K ration food in cans with dates from World War II.
Besides standing watch at the outpost, the men had to spend four hours each night on patrol, and that is when they would lie on the trails to deter trespassing.
Thankfully, no North Koreans ever attacked when he was there, said Belfiori, recalling the DMZ outposts being a “scary place.”
It was the loneliness and boredom that was the hardest to endure, he said. “There was no communication [with the outside world],” he explained. “It was a real secretive place . . . A week was like a lifetime in that place.
“We were tired all the time. We worked all the time.”
The work didn’t let up either because of the rainy season of about five weeks, or the winter cold, he said.
The work he did beside patrolling, was filling sand bags, building bunkers and digging trenches.
Belfiori wanted to be in the military, he said, because it was the “thing to do” when he grew up during World War II. “Most who graduated went from high school to World War II,” he said. “The Iron Range led the nation in enlistment during World War II.”
Life at the outpost was tense, with passwords required to walk past the guards, he said.
Belfiori recalled one soldier in his company that ended up getting shot by a guard because he didn’t give the guard a password. Belfiori thinks the young man who was shot had a gastrointestinal problem and was rushing to the latrine.
About halfway through his 12 months at the outpost, Belfiori heard there would be a USO show with Debbie Reynolds in the area. He recalled not getting excited about it then because he figured he wouldn’t get to see it.
But one day he was told that most of his company would get to take two hours off and go see the show.
The Stars and Stripes newspaper picture of the men in the Taro Leaf Division watching the USO show, shows them sitting on a slope in front of a makeshift stage. One spectator was atop a utility pole.
A large photo shows Reynolds showing off her new diamond ring she was wearing that she had received from fiance Eddie Fisher.
She told a Stars and Stripes reporter that the tour for the Taro Leaf Division was tiring but the enthusiasm of the men “more than made up for any inconvenience.”
She also said she was concerned about the stoppage of the USO shows to the Far East. “I’ve only been away for about a month and I’m homesick,” she said. “I can imagine how the men feel after sixteen months. USO shows are important. They give the men a chance to see American girls and refresh their memories as to what they look like.
“Shows are like a letter from home, worth any cost.”
She told how Johnny’s Galaxy USO show she was in was free and that not all the shows could be like that. “Most performers aren’t as fortunate as I am and can’t afford to be without work,” she said.
The story continued with how Reynolds got into show business by entering a Burbank Cal beauty contest and then taking a Warner Bros. screen test.
The story went on about her career in movies, including with stars Frank Sinatra and James Cagney. It mentioned her plans to marry Fisher and continue her movie career.
Reynolds was the last one to appear that day on the USO show. Up first on the show were dancer Jeanne Blanche, songstress LaVada Marlow, acrobat Pat Moran, dancer Leon Tyler, Ah Ha comic and guitarist Jackie Lemaire, and vocalists Marcella Rhinehart and Patty Powers.
Reynolds’ act included dancing the tango and a hot Charleston with Tyler. She made her entrance on an A frame carried by Johnny Grant.
The USO show cast later visited men in hospital wards before departing for Pusan.
Belfiori couldn’t recall the songs Reynolds did at the USO show but remembers her doing a little march with his outpost outfit around the grounds.
“She was pretty,” he recalled, but added that she wasn’t a big deal to him at the time as far as being a movie star.
“What it was, was a reprieve [from the military duty],” Belfiori said of the USO show. “You know that outpost was just a bad place to be. We never saw a bottle of pop or beer. We had foul tasting water laced with iodine to kill the bacteria.”
Belfiori said that years later he guessed why maybe the outpost men weren’t given much. That was because “the military leadership thought it would all belong to the North Koreans shortly,” meaning another invasion, Belfiori said.
Belfiori spent his last five months in Korea at the front lines, where he said there was heat and comforts the outposts didn’t have.
But even then, he witnessed some unforgettable images. One was watching one of his best friends there, a Cpl. Larry Lawrence from Ohio, accidentally lie on an old and rusty concussion grenade and it went off.
It’s a grenade that doesn’t throw out metal like a regular grenade, Belfiori said, but explained that Lawrence’s back was one big blister.
“I had a pretty tough night that night [thinking about the incident],” Belfiori recalled. The last he said he saw Lawrence was before Lawrence was taken away in a helicopter bound for a hospital.
Belfiori said he was also pained by the sights of so many poor people in the nearby South Korean village. It was like walking into the last century, he remarked.
He explained that the countryside had been devastated by the invasion and hurt them economically.
When Belfiori got out of the service and was back home, he found it hard to adjust. “You didn’t know what to do with yourself,” he explained. You were just kind of lost. You had lived a regimented life all that time. At home there was nothing to do.”
After some weeks collecting unemployment, he returned to a job in the Sherman open pit iron mine between Chisholm and Buhl.
Eventually he studied to become a math teacher and had his career at Princeton High School.
One thing he pointed out this week about his time in Korea, was that he is not complaining. He said he felt he had a fair deal there and that as a young man at the outpost, he just carried out his duties not thinking at all what the temperature might be. He explained that they didn’t have a thermometer and just didn’t think about the various kinds of weather there.
But he did emphasize that the USO show meant a lot in breaking up the boredom of the outpost. He and his wife Dianne went to Las Vegas some years ago trying to find Reynolds to get her autograph but were unsuccessful.
The Reynolds show from two weeks ago
Dianne had a bridge card game on the Oct. 12 night of Reynolds’ performance at Grand Casino Mille Lacs so she didn’t go.
It was probably good she didn’t, she said, because of what happened when Conrad arrived there. He was talking before the show to a woman at the casino about how he hoped to get Reynolds’ autograph that evening. The woman consequently obtained a ticket for a front row seat for Belfiori. His original ticket was for 12 rows back.
Belfiori sat clutching his Stars and Stripes photo of Reynolds as he watched her begin her act. She was halfway through her first song when she spotted him sitting with the photo. She “did a double take,” he said. Then, after finishing the song, she went to the edge of the stage to talk to him.
She asked, “We were in Korea together, weren’t we?” When Belfiori said yes, she asked how old he was back then and he said, “about 19,” and she answered, “You were just a baby.”
He explained how he wanted her autograph on the photo and how much her performance in the USO show had meant to him in Korea. After she signed it, he thanked Reynolds and then she said, “No, I want to thank you [for serving in the military].”
The audience then clapped.
“I felt so dumb,” Belfiori said.
When he asked for the autograph, she was going to place the photo on the piano and sign it later because she didn’t have a pen, but then Belfiori produced one.
She then remarked that she should have known because his infantry’s motto was to be prepared.
She signed it, “To Conrad, Debbie Reynolds.”
She then gave him a salute.
Belfiori said that his wife was mad when she found out what all happened that night and she hadn’t gone with him to the show.
Belfiori laminated the old worn Stars and Stripes clipping that now had the Reynolds photo signed.
Belfiori had told Reynolds as he stood alongside the edge of stage in the Grand Casino hall that he didn’t think she realized how much her appearance in the USO show had meant to him in Korea.
Her reply, Belfiori said, was, “I do, I had a brother there.”
Belfiori said she made five USO show trips to Korea.
The recent news of North Korea testing a nuclear bomb has also not been lost on Belfiori.
“I always thought that North Korea was our most dangerous enemy,” he said calling many of the North Koreans “fanatics,” and warned, “Do not trust them.”
Some military veterans, when asked if they would ever want to revisit the place where they served in war, say no.
But Belfiori said he would want to go back to visit.
But even if he doesn’t, he may be content with having reunited for a few moments with the person who as a young movie star had brightened his life while serving in an austere place thousands of miles from home.
I've had him as a substitute when I was in high school, a few times.