Kiwon
05-07-2008, 09:46 PM
Soldier and Korean he rescued reunited after 59 years
By AUDREY PARENTE
Staff Writer
ORMOND BEACH -- A teenage boy ran through the streets of Seoul, clinging in terror to his family as North Korean and Communist Chinese armies invaded his homeland.
As millions of scattering, trampling bodies struggled southward, the boy lost his footing and became separated from his parents and siblings.
He was left alone in the frenzy -- until he looked into the eyes of a young West Point graduate who changed the course of his life by taking him in.
The Korean boy and an American second lieutenant stuck together for several months, but never saw each other again after that -- for 59 years -- until recently.
Earlier this year, that former Korean boy -- now a successful American businessman from Ormond Beach, Phillip Lee, 74 -- began to hunt for his short-time mentor to say thank you for the opportunity to learn about the American dream.
Lee recently found Maj. Gen. (Ret.) John E. Hoover, 84, in Virginia and invited him to visit. The two met Monday at Lee's 18th-floor oceanside condominium in Ormond Beach for a warm reunion.
Hoover had no idea he had made such an impact on Lee's life at the time South Korea was under attack and the country was in chaos.
"I was 15," said Lee, now the father of three children and grandfather of eight. "I lost my family and I was walking alone for 300 miles when I met an American group of infantry landing at Pusan Harbor."
That's when he came face to face with Hoover, once an enlisted man in the Army Signal Corps who was fortunate enough to earn an appointment to West Point after more than a year and a half of military service. He graduated in 1947, commissioned as a second lieutenant, assigned to the 24th Infantry Division.
"When the Korean War started, the 24th Division was the first unit committed to go, and I went on a Japanese ferryboat -- sitting on a straw mat -- into Pusan Harbor, on the morning of July 4, 1950," Hoover said.
As his unit headed ashore, he saw the huddling masses of refugees, but Lee stood out.
"He was obviously completely lost and didn't know what to do in a crowd of thousands of people running from the North Koreans," Hoover said. "Somebody had to take care of him."
Hoover signaled to the boy.
"I was very nervous. I understood a little bit of English, and he said, 'Get in the Jeep,' " Lee recalled. "His driver made me a pup tent and gave me a sleeping bag. And he gave me a Milky Way chocolate bar. Nearly 60 years have passed, and I never forgot the Milky Way. I give them to my grandkids and say, 'You guys don't know how hungry I was.' But I was a survivor."
Lee became a sort of interpreter for the unit and stayed on, working with the Americans even after Hoover moved on, but he remembered one more thing beside the Milky Way.
"He (Hoover) told me to go back to school," Lee said.
When the war was over, Lee reunited with his family, went to a commercial university and joined the Navy, all the time remembering "how much America helped Korea," and how "Americans were gentle and fought for freedom."
Lee married and his wife, Young Lee, who earned her nursing degree from an American mission university operating in Korea, came to America for a year. She sponsored him to come over. They settled in New York and Lee worked pumping gas, became a handyman and then a building superintendent.
He became a naturalized citizen, bought a laundry and then another. He sent his children to college. He bought rental real estate and eventually a small motel in Daytona Beach where he vacationed every year until he moved here permanently.
"But the seasons were short -- car races and Spring Break," he said. He didn't do well with the motel. It was a setback. "I was humbled but started to remember a long time ago, during the Korean War, that I had met John Hoover. I decided I had to do something to help people."
He helped his daughter, a dentist, along with other doctors, lawyers, carpenters and contractors, on a mission to build a hospital in Honduras.
And he helped build a Korean War memorial in Tampa in 2007.
"I got the idea to try to find him," Lee said, and wrote a letter to the 24th Infantry Division looking for Hoover, with the help of a journalist for The Korean American Journal in Tampa, Insook Forget of Palm Coast.
"He said he needed my help," Forget said. She helped create the letter.
"It went to the historian of the division, who sent a copy of the letter to me," Hoover said. "I am not in great shape, but he proposed to visit me."
In February, Lee and his wife went with Forget to Virginia and Forget wrote a story about the reunion. "Everybody said they had goose bumps," Forget said of those who read the story.
But Lee wasn't satisfied. He wanted Hoover to come to Florida, to meet his family and see his success firsthand. So the retired general came with his wife, Mary Jo, and several family members.
"You can't imagine seeing somebody who is a 70-something businessman with a nice family, and the last time you saw him he was a wandering kid in Korea," Hoover said. "It's an example of what can happen if one does the right thing. It's really wonderful to see somebody who has lived the American dream."
audrey.parente@news-jrnl.com
.................................................. .................................................. .
Did You Know?
The Korean War has been called the Forgotten War because it came just after World War II and was overshadowed by the Vietnam War.
· In 1945, the United Nations established a dividing boundary between North and South Korea at the 38th parallel.
· Communist troops invaded the democratic Republic of South Korea and the U.S. became involved because of President Truman's promise of support.
· The two armies criss-crossed the 38th parallel, and when the Chinese feared for their own borders, they joined the North Koreans and the conflict escalated into war.
· The war lasted from 1950 to 1953, with more than 54,000 casualties, compared to 16 years in Vietnam with more than 58,000 casualties.
By AUDREY PARENTE
Staff Writer
ORMOND BEACH -- A teenage boy ran through the streets of Seoul, clinging in terror to his family as North Korean and Communist Chinese armies invaded his homeland.
As millions of scattering, trampling bodies struggled southward, the boy lost his footing and became separated from his parents and siblings.
He was left alone in the frenzy -- until he looked into the eyes of a young West Point graduate who changed the course of his life by taking him in.
The Korean boy and an American second lieutenant stuck together for several months, but never saw each other again after that -- for 59 years -- until recently.
Earlier this year, that former Korean boy -- now a successful American businessman from Ormond Beach, Phillip Lee, 74 -- began to hunt for his short-time mentor to say thank you for the opportunity to learn about the American dream.
Lee recently found Maj. Gen. (Ret.) John E. Hoover, 84, in Virginia and invited him to visit. The two met Monday at Lee's 18th-floor oceanside condominium in Ormond Beach for a warm reunion.
Hoover had no idea he had made such an impact on Lee's life at the time South Korea was under attack and the country was in chaos.
"I was 15," said Lee, now the father of three children and grandfather of eight. "I lost my family and I was walking alone for 300 miles when I met an American group of infantry landing at Pusan Harbor."
That's when he came face to face with Hoover, once an enlisted man in the Army Signal Corps who was fortunate enough to earn an appointment to West Point after more than a year and a half of military service. He graduated in 1947, commissioned as a second lieutenant, assigned to the 24th Infantry Division.
"When the Korean War started, the 24th Division was the first unit committed to go, and I went on a Japanese ferryboat -- sitting on a straw mat -- into Pusan Harbor, on the morning of July 4, 1950," Hoover said.
As his unit headed ashore, he saw the huddling masses of refugees, but Lee stood out.
"He was obviously completely lost and didn't know what to do in a crowd of thousands of people running from the North Koreans," Hoover said. "Somebody had to take care of him."
Hoover signaled to the boy.
"I was very nervous. I understood a little bit of English, and he said, 'Get in the Jeep,' " Lee recalled. "His driver made me a pup tent and gave me a sleeping bag. And he gave me a Milky Way chocolate bar. Nearly 60 years have passed, and I never forgot the Milky Way. I give them to my grandkids and say, 'You guys don't know how hungry I was.' But I was a survivor."
Lee became a sort of interpreter for the unit and stayed on, working with the Americans even after Hoover moved on, but he remembered one more thing beside the Milky Way.
"He (Hoover) told me to go back to school," Lee said.
When the war was over, Lee reunited with his family, went to a commercial university and joined the Navy, all the time remembering "how much America helped Korea," and how "Americans were gentle and fought for freedom."
Lee married and his wife, Young Lee, who earned her nursing degree from an American mission university operating in Korea, came to America for a year. She sponsored him to come over. They settled in New York and Lee worked pumping gas, became a handyman and then a building superintendent.
He became a naturalized citizen, bought a laundry and then another. He sent his children to college. He bought rental real estate and eventually a small motel in Daytona Beach where he vacationed every year until he moved here permanently.
"But the seasons were short -- car races and Spring Break," he said. He didn't do well with the motel. It was a setback. "I was humbled but started to remember a long time ago, during the Korean War, that I had met John Hoover. I decided I had to do something to help people."
He helped his daughter, a dentist, along with other doctors, lawyers, carpenters and contractors, on a mission to build a hospital in Honduras.
And he helped build a Korean War memorial in Tampa in 2007.
"I got the idea to try to find him," Lee said, and wrote a letter to the 24th Infantry Division looking for Hoover, with the help of a journalist for The Korean American Journal in Tampa, Insook Forget of Palm Coast.
"He said he needed my help," Forget said. She helped create the letter.
"It went to the historian of the division, who sent a copy of the letter to me," Hoover said. "I am not in great shape, but he proposed to visit me."
In February, Lee and his wife went with Forget to Virginia and Forget wrote a story about the reunion. "Everybody said they had goose bumps," Forget said of those who read the story.
But Lee wasn't satisfied. He wanted Hoover to come to Florida, to meet his family and see his success firsthand. So the retired general came with his wife, Mary Jo, and several family members.
"You can't imagine seeing somebody who is a 70-something businessman with a nice family, and the last time you saw him he was a wandering kid in Korea," Hoover said. "It's an example of what can happen if one does the right thing. It's really wonderful to see somebody who has lived the American dream."
audrey.parente@news-jrnl.com
.................................................. .................................................. .
Did You Know?
The Korean War has been called the Forgotten War because it came just after World War II and was overshadowed by the Vietnam War.
· In 1945, the United Nations established a dividing boundary between North and South Korea at the 38th parallel.
· Communist troops invaded the democratic Republic of South Korea and the U.S. became involved because of President Truman's promise of support.
· The two armies criss-crossed the 38th parallel, and when the Chinese feared for their own borders, they joined the North Koreans and the conflict escalated into war.
· The war lasted from 1950 to 1953, with more than 54,000 casualties, compared to 16 years in Vietnam with more than 58,000 casualties.