Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Sunday, June 13, 1999
N. Korean POW kept alive the meaning of the flag
By Eric Ernst
Monday is Flag Day, and this column is a little different in recognition of it. The idea came from Bob O'Donnell of Englewood, who six years ago clipped and preserved an article from the June 14 Cape Cod Times Newspaper.
The piece was written by Jim Murphy, 66, of Falmouth, Mass., a father of six who teaches literature and writing at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy
and Boston College.
Murphy has written two novels about serial killers and two historical romances about Irish immigrants, but O'Donnell respects him foremost for what he had to say about a real-life experience when he was 20.
It was a gray, clammy August day in 1953. The Korean War had ended a week earlier, and the opposing forces were exchanging prisoners of war at a location that came to be known as "Freedom Village."
Murphy was there, representing his infantry regiment, standing at attention as the ambulances and buses arrived from the north. What happened next, Murphy says, changed forever the way he views the American flag.
In his words: "When the remaining Chinese and North Koreans had been herded off to their own vehicles, the UN prisoners were ushered from the trucks and bushes and sent across the bridge to our side. The UN Honor
Guard, combat veterans and observers gasped when they saw the condition of their returning comrades who struggled, hobbled and staggered, gaunt and
emaciated, toward friendly faces. They were Immediately embraced and helped to the awaiting medics and aid stations.
"One after another they came. The next one was in worse condition than the one before. Long lines of dull-eyed soldiers of the 'Forgotten War' inched
their way to freedom, and out of their number, a gray-faced, stick figure of a boy-turned-old man dragged himself along the bridge. His bony arms were
held out like a sleepwalker. He staggered and swayed and one time fell into the wooden railing. Every eye in that village was suddenly trained on that one figure. Even those on the northern side watched the gallant physical effort of the wasted soldier.
"Each tried, inwardly, to help, to urge him on, until, finally, when he lurched forward, an M. P. major, a giant of a man, came up to help. The soldier waved him off with his skeleton hands and arms.
"Looking around at the grim faces, he caught sight of the three color-bearers and shuffled toward them. When he reached the American flag-bearer, he knelt on trembling knees before the flag as though it were
an altar. He reached up and tugged at the flag. The color-bearer, either by instinct or by some infinite wisdom, lowered the flag and the soldier covered
his face with it, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably.
"Other than the clicks of cameras, the village was cemetery-quiet. Tears streamed from all of us. Cotton replaced saliva in our throats. After several moments frozen for eternity, the stillness was broken by the sound of the heavy boots of the M. P. major, who came crunching across the gravel, his cheeks moist and glistening. He bent down and tenderly scooped the soldier up in his muscular arms and carried him off to a waiting ambulance, much as a father would carry a baby.
"There wasn't a dry eye in this silent village, thousands of miles away from Elm Street, USA"
It's something to ponder. Murphy has for 47 years.
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