Korean War veterans Dick Nooe (left)
and Richard Young share a laugh in
the office of Nooe’s home Wednesday.
Nooe, who lost his sight during a battle,
counsels veterans dealing with their own
war experiences.
Post-Crescent photo by Kirk Wagner
Posted on 07/27/2003 5:17:13 AM PDT by petuniasevan
Posted July 27, 2003
Fifty years after end of Korean War, one vet looks back
Korean War veterans Dick Nooe (left)
and Richard Young share a laugh in
the office of Nooe’s home Wednesday.
Nooe, who lost his sight during a battle,
counsels veterans dealing with their own
war experiences.
Post-Crescent photo by Kirk Wagner
Despite devastating injury in combat, Neenah’s Dick Nooe says he has no regrets
By Peter J. Adams
Post-Crescent staff writer
Fifty years ago today, the mortar and artillery shells stopped flying in South Korea.
But for Dick Nooe, the war was far from over.
Blinded in a fierce battle near the 38th Parallel, Nooe was lying in a Navy hospital in Japan.
The 21-year-old, so eager to join the Marine Corps, had become a casualty in less than one month of active duty in what would become known as “The Forgotten War.”
“I thought it was going to be a great adventure and glory, but war’s not like that,” said Nooe, who now lives in Neenah. “It’s a horrible thing. Horrible.”
Today, half a century later, Nooe still is coping with his blindness and the deeper scars that can’t be seen. He also is helping other veterans come to grips with their own continuing battles.
In his last moments of sight, Nooe was a witness to the worst mankind has to offer. And yet he insists he’s been blessed.
“I really don’t have anything to regret.”
‘My reveille call’
Throughout the night, Chinese forces had been shelling Nooe’s position with mortars, and there had been sporadic small-arms fire.
“We’d been taking pot shots at them, too,” he recalled. “We were on watch all night, trying to get some shut-eye during the day.”
That morning, however, his outpost and two others nearby were hit hard by mortar fire, including a shell that landed near the bunker Nooe was in.
“It literally blew me right up into the air,” he said. “That was my reveille call.”
The next thing he knew the Marine next to him was a bloody mess.
“We hauled him around to the command post that was dug back into a cave,” Nooe said. “I was amazed at the number of guys that were already wounded and were in there.”
Shelled all day long and into the night, Nooe could see in the distance that the Chinese had taken the other outpost. Not long after that, they came screaming down into the trench leading to his bunker.
“I had a machine gun. I took it out into the trench line and the damn thing didn’t work,” he said.
Nooe and another Marine threw a string of grenades at their attackers. In the crossfire Nooe was shot in the leg.
Thinking to escape through a lookout, he pulled down the sandbags and crawled outside.
“That was when I got hit in the face with something,” he said. “I’ll never know what.”
After the explosion, Nooe drifted in and out of consciousness.
“The next thing I remember is terrible blows to my face,” he said. “I had this horrible pain, one right after the other.”
Some time later he heard the voice of an American saying, “Hey, it’s one of our guys.”
Nooe has only fleeting images of being airlifted out in a basket on the landing runner of a helicopter.
“Keep your feet down!” he heard the chopper pilot yelling.
“I must have been waving them around or something,” Nooe said.
Two weeks later he was at the hospital in Japan.
“That’s when I began remembering.”
And trying figure out what happened.
He was probably hit by another mortar, given that his bunker had been blown up and the Marine that had been with him last was dead.
The pain he felt after that was most likely from being repeatedly hit with the butt of a Chinese rifle.
“I had a lot of wood fragments in my face,” Nooe said. “I also had a couple facial fractures and every damn one of my teeth were loose.”
And he had been stripped of everything but his pants. This, along with mortar burns and the pummeling, had made it hard for anyone to know if he was a fellow Marine or the enemy.
In another two weeks, while he was still recovering in the hospital, a truce was declared.
The war was over.
And Nooe was blind.
‘I’m the one who wanted to go’
When the war began, Nooe had wanted to be a Marine in the worst way, enlisting in 1951 after his first semester at the University of Oregon. Little wonder, given that he had been raised on John Wayne movies and newsreels of the war with Japan.
But instead of being sent overseas, Nooe was stationed on a base near San Francisco for nearly two years.
“I’m the one who wanted to go to Korea,” he said. “I told them. They got so sick and tired of listening to me saying, ‘I don’t want to be here.’”
And then, in less than a month of active duty, his life was forever changed.
Arriving back in the States in August 1953, Nooe eventually was discharged to a veterans hospital in Chicago.
There, he had plastic surgery to reconstruct his shattered face. Then he was transferred to a rehabilitation center for the blind on the grounds.
While at the center he met a young Red Cross volunteer named Sara Scatchell.
“I told my friends, ‘This one is mine,’” she recalled. “He was tall and good looking, better looking than most of the guys there.”
At that point Nooe still had some sight left, but it was the sense of touch that told him what he wanted to know.
“They’d have dances at the center, and that’s how I found out she had a hell of a figure,” he said.
Dating was forbidden, which meant they had to be secretive.
“When we were going out I’d put a raincoat over my uniform so the guards couldn’t see that I was going out with a patient,” Sara said.
Later, when Nooe went back to Oregon to finish his education, their long-distance courtship began.
“I’d type letters to her,” Nooe said, “but she’d send me Dictaphone belts.”
In 1956, they were married, living briefly out West.
That was when Sara was introduced to mountain climbing, a hobby Nooe had taken up again on his return home.
“I had decided that I could do pretty much anything I had done before, as long as I was willing to do it differently,” he said.
After graduation, Nooe pursued a career in social work, which took the couple to Missouri and then Kansas. It was during this time that their daughter, Marikathryn, and son, David, were born.
In 1968, they made a final move to Wisconsin where Nooe accepted a post with the Winnebago County Mental Health Clinic.
He retired in 1993, but has continued working as a counselor for Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
It’s work that has really mattered to Nooe.
“Each and every one of these guys has something going on as a result of being in combat,” he said. “I do. I got stuff. I’ve had sleep trouble ever since I was hit.”
No bitterness
Fifty years ago, Nooe could make out some shapes in bright light. Today, at 71, he sees virtually nothing.
But there isn’t a shred of bitterness in his voice.
“I’ve got a wonderful wife and a wonderful family,” he said.
Nooe never shielded his children from what happened to him, nor was he anything like other fathers in the Neenah neighborhood where they lived.
“Growing up I thought everybody’s dad was blind,” daughter Marikathryn Nooe said. “I felt sorry for them because they could see.”
But there’s more to this than the limited perspective of childhood.
“He played with us all the time,” she said, “organizing games of kick the can and red rover. The other dads were never around.”
Nooe also fixed their toys and taught them to swim, snow ski and water ski. He was a ready volunteer for any and all school projects and outings.
“He’s always told us we can do whatever we want to do,” Marikathryn said. “He’s always loved us unconditionally.”
Which explains her decision to follow in his footsteps as a therapist.
“He’s been my rock, really and truly,” she said.
‘God had a purpose’
Married now for 47 years, Nooe and his wife Sara have forged a fiercely independent partnership.
“We have a different lifestyle,” he said. “We do things differently than other couples.”
Different, but surprisingly familiar to most married couples.
Nooe has been the traditional breadwinner in spite of his disability, even mowing the lawn and making roof repairs over Sara’s protests. She has been the standard homemaker and community volunteer.
The Nooes’ marriage differs from those of other disabled servicemen and their spouses.
“I am not a caretaker,” Sara said. “I have never spoiled him. I just pick out his clothes.”
When Nooe enters a room and searches for a place to sit, Sara says nothing — until a word or two will prevent him from taking a spill.
At a Blind Veterans Association dinner in 1966, every other wife was cutting up their husband’s food.
“She’s never done that for me,” said Nooe, recipient of the Blind Veteran of the Year award.
One essential thing has kept that single fateful day of battle 50 years ago in perspective for Nooe.
“I truly believe God had a purpose when he made me blind.”
May God continue to bless you, Dick Nooe.
Thank you for all you have done for this country.
(I'm still going to complain, though, that's how you get things fixed!)
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