Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Honoring our veterans, including my dad November 11, 2020

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My father, Elvern Kletscher, on the left with two of his soldier buddies in Korea.

Vesta—Pfc Elvern Kletscher, son of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Kletscher, was wounded in action on Heart Break Ridge in Korea on February 24th. He was engaged in mortar firing at the time. A burst of enemy schrapnel (sic) struck him in the face. He spent a few days in the hospital and was released, but has not returned to active duty. Elvern entered service on February 15, 1952 and has been on front line duty in Korea since November 7th.

The above short article about my father published in a rural Minnesota newspaper in the early winter of 1953. I can only imagine how my grandparents received the news about their son, wounded in action in Korea.

On the back of this photo from my father’s collection, my dad simply penned “a letter from home.” I appreciate this photo of my dad taken by an unknown buddy in Korea.

In a letter written to them just days after his February 26, not February 24, war injury, my dad mentioned nothing about the incident. Rather, he wrote of snow, called Korea a “hell hole” and advised his family not to worry. But how could they not worry, realizing that their son was in the thick of battle as a frontline infantryman with the US Army? According to an earlier newspaper article, he was training with the 24th infantry, the first American division to fight in Korea, from Pusan to the Yalu River in 19 months of combat.

U.S. Army Cpl. Elvern Kletscher, my father, in the trenches in Korea.

My dad shared only a few stories about his time in Korea. He talked about the events leading up to his shrapnel wound. Ordered to take out a sniper who, for days, had been picking off fellow platoon soldiers, Dad hunkered inside a trench. A bullet struck his trench. Dad studied the angle of the bullet, angled his rifle up and shot. He heard a “ka-pook,” understanding that he had hit his intended target.

Two days later, when 12 men were sent to retrieve the sniper’s body, Dad stood guard to assure the enemy was not circling behind. Suddenly, 10 small mortars lobbed toward them, one landing near him. Had it gone off, my father would have died. Instead, shrapnel struck his face. “I knew the blood was running,” he said in a 2000 interview with a Minnesota TV station at the time he was awarded a long overdue Purple Heart. He was shaking and scared, but couldn’t leave his post.

This photo, pulled from the shoebox which holds my dad’s military photos, is simply labeled “front line.” That would be “front line” as in Korea, where my soldier father fought.

Eventually, my dad would make it safely back to rural Minnesota, resume his life as a farmer, marry my mom and raise a family of six children. But he was a changed man, scarred by war, dealing with PTSD (unknown back then) and other issues resulting from his time on the frontline in Korea.

The Rice County, Minnesota, Veterans’ Memorial in Faribault stands in front of the courthouse. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

Today, Veterans Day, I honor my father (who died in 2003) and all others who have served and continue to serve our country, whether they have been in direct combat, served in support capacities or otherwise. I appreciate their efforts to secure our democracy, our freedom.

TELL ME: Who would you like to honor today? Or, if you’ve served, please share your thoughts on this important day.

© Copyright 2020 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The importance of Veterans Day to me as a writer & veteran’s daughter November 10, 2017

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 12:16 PM
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U.S. Army Cpl. Elvern Kletscher, my father, in the trenches in Korea.

 

WHEN I CONSIDER Veterans Day, I think beyond a general blanket of gratitude for those who have served, and are serving, our country. I see a face. I see my soldier father, an infantryman on the battlefields of Korea and recipient of the Purple Heart.

 

My dad carried home a July 31, 1953, memorial service bulletin from Sucham-dong, Korea. In the right column is listed the name of his fallen buddy, Raymond W. Scheibe.

 

My dad, Elvern Kletscher, died in 2003. But his memory remains strong in my heart as do the few stories he shared of his time fighting for his country. He witnessed unspeakable, violent deaths. And, yes, he killed the enemy, often telling his family, “It was shoot or be shot.” I cannot imagine shooting someone so near you can see the whites of their eyes.

 

My father, Elvern Kletscher, on the left with two of his soldier buddies in Korea.

 

Atop Heartbreak Ridge, Dad picked off a sniper who for days had been killing off American soldiers. He suffered a shrapnel wound there.

But his wounds ran much deeper than the physical. His wounds stretched into a lifetime of battling post traumatic stress disorder, long unrecognized. He told stories of diving to the earth when a neighbor fired at a pheasant, the sound of gunfire triggering all those horrible war memories. The neighbor laughed. Likewise, guns shot at a small town parade sent him ducking for cover.

 

My dad’s military marker in the Vesta City Cemetery. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

I can only imagine the demons my father fought. You cannot walk away from war-time death and violence unchanged. Only much later in life, as the decades passed and awareness of PTSD grew, did my dad find some comfort in talking to other vets with similar experiences.

 

Soldiers receive The Lord’s Supper in Korea, May 1953. Photo by my soldier father, Elvern Kletscher.

 

Dad’s strong faith also pulled him through his emotional turmoil, during and after war.

Now, as I look back, I wish I had been more understanding, more grateful. But I can’t change that. Rather, I can choose to honor my dad by writing, an expression of the freedom he fought to preserve.

 

I wrote a story (“Faith and Hope in a Land of Heartbreak”) about my dad’s war experiences in this book, published in 2005 by Harvest House Publishers.

 

As a writer, I hold dear the value of my freedom to write. No one censors my writing or tells me what to write. I treasure that. I cringe at the current overriding criticism of the press in this country, the constant allegations of “fake news.” I worry about this negative shift in thought, the efforts to suppress and discredit the media. My dad fought to keep us free. And that freedom includes a free press.

 

 

That struck me Thursday evening as I gathered with 13 Faribault area writers at a Local Authors Fair at Buckham Memorial Library. Here we were, inside this building packed with books and magazines and newspapers and more, showcasing our writing. No one stopped us at the door to check if our writing met government standards. No one stopped us from selling our books. No one stopped us from engaging in free conversation with each other and with attendees.

I am grateful to those who assured, and are assuring, that I will always have the ability to write without censorship in a country that still remains free.

 

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Viewing North Korea’s threats from a personal perspective April 5, 2013

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:31 AM
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HAVE YOU CONSIDERED North Korea and the recent missile threats lobbed against the U.S.?

I have.

U.S. Army Cpl. Elvern Kletscher, my father, in the trenches in Korea.

U.S. Army Cpl. Elvern Kletscher, my father, in the trenches in Korea.

For me it’s personal. Personal because some 60 years ago my father, dead 10 years now, fought as an infantryman in the Korean War. On February 26, 1953, he was struck by shrapnel at Heart Break Ridge. In May 2000, he was awarded a Purple Heart for those wounds. I don’t need to explain Heart Break Ridge. The name tells the story.

Today I reflect on his horrible experiences there and wonder whether that war was worth all the death, all the physical and psychological damage inflicted upon those who fought? Like my dad.

I suppose you could wonder this about any war. Was the war worth the lives lost, the lives changed?

The answer to that question cannot be tidied into a succinct statement, for the response would vary depending on your perspective—perhaps as a soldier, a parent who lost a son or daughter, the daughter who watched her father struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

War is never neat and tidy, but rather complicated.

Did the Korean War halt the spread of Communism? Yes, in the south.

This photo, pulled from the shoebox which holds my dad's military photos, is simply labeled "front line." That would be "front line" as in Korea, where my soldier father fought.

This photo, pulled from the shoebox which holds my dad’s military photos, is simply labeled “front line.” That would be “front line” as in Korea, where my soldier father fought.

Yet, despite the signing of a truce, a definite uneasiness has existed between the two Koreas, separated by a 155-mile long, 2.5-mile wide fortified Demilitarized Zone, for 60 years.

Now North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, has thrown the region into even more uncertainty by his actions and threatened actions. I won’t expound, only note that when I heard mention of North Korean missiles on standby to possibly strike U.S. targets in  Hawaii, Washington, Los Angeles and Austin (Texas), I listened. Anytime a specific place in the U.S. is named, the entire situation becomes much more personal.

I suppose that is part of the strategy, to heighten anxieties. With so much information out there, whom do we believe? Is North Korea capable? Is it not?

This photo from my dad's collection is tagged as "Kim, Rowe, Allen & me, May 1953 Machine Gun Crew." That's my father on the right.

This photo from my dad’s collection is tagged as “Kim, Rowe, Allen & me, May 1953 Machine Gun Crew.” That’s my father on the right.

What would my Dad, who termed Korea “a hell hole,” say about all of this?

What would Teri Rae say about all of this? She was only six weeks old when her dad died. My father witnessed Ray’s death on the battlefield. (Click here to read about Ray.) He never forgot. I’ve never forgotten either the heart-wrenching and horrific story of the Nebraska soldier who never returned home to his wife or his first-born.

These are my thoughts as I consider the unsettling situation unfolding in Korea.

What are your thoughts?

© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Veterans’ Day: Grief in a shoebox November 11, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:22 AM
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IT IS BUT A SINGLE SLIP of paper, creased and yellowing with age. Yet, it is so much more. The words typed thereon, 59 years ago, hold heartache and honor and memories of my soldier father and his buddy.

My father shipped home from Korea into the welcoming arms of family.

Cpl. Ray W. Scheibe shipped home from Korea in a box, to a grieving family.

The third section of the memorial service bulletin my soldier dad carried home from Korea.

It’s all there, on that piece of paper, a memorial service bulletin dated July 31, 1953, Sucham-dong, Korea. My father folded that paper into quarters, carried it across the ocean and across the country and back home to southwestern Minnesota and then tucked his grief inside a shoebox.

A story about Cpl. Ray W. Scheibe, published in the July 23, 1953, issue of  his hometown newspaper, The Wolbach Messenger, Wolbach, Nebraska.

Cpl. Ray William Scheibe lost his life in Korea June 2, 1953, when he was hit by a round of mortar fire, according to information received from a buddy. He was a member of an infantry unit and was on patrol duty at the time of his death.—from The Wolbach Messenger, Thursday, July 23, 1953.

Sgt. Elvern Kletscher, my father, witnessed the horrific death of Ray, who was due to ship out the next day. Back in tiny Wolbach, Nebraska, Ray’s wife, Marilyn, and their 3-month-old daughter, Terri Rae, waited.

The memorial service bulletin lists the names of those soldiers who died, including Ray Scheibe.

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13—scripture quoted in the memorial service folder dated July 31, 1953, Sucham-dong, Korea.

An in-ground marker honors my father, Elvern Kletscher, a Korean War veteran and recipient of the Purple Heart for wounds he suffered at Heartbreak Ridge in Korea. My father did not receive his Purple Heart until 2000.

This Veterans’ Day let us remember, always, those who have served and are serving.

My father, Elvern Kletscher, left, with two of his soldier buddies in Korea.

The cover of the 1953 memorial service folder from Korea.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Remembering Ray November 11, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:51 AM
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My dad carried home a July 31, 1953, memorial service bulletin from Sucham-dong, Korea.

THEY DIED IN SERVICE to their country—Frankie L. Davis, Eugene Jones, Charles Musgrove, Raymond W. Scheibe…

Names. Of soldiers. Men who were remembered during a July 31, 1953, memorial service in Sucham-dong, Korea.

Names, typed onto a service folder that my dad, Elvern Kletscher, carefully folded and carried home to southwestern Minnesota from the killing fields of Korea.

One name—Ray Scheibe—that meant so much to him. A soldier-brother. His 22-year-old friend. His buddy who died, blown apart by a mortar the day before he was to leave Korea and return home to his wife and 6-week-old daughter in Wolbach, Nebraska.

My father witnessed Ray’s horrific death. He never forgot Ray.

Neither have I.

A story about Cpl. Ray W. Scheibe, published in the July 23, 1953, issue of The Wollbach Messenger.

My dad’s been gone since 2003; his buddy since that fateful day during the Korean War on June 2, 1953.

Yet their intertwined lives as soldier-brothers remain forever preserved in black-and-white photos and that service bulletin tucked inside a shoebox stored in my office. Memories of war and of lives lost confined to a box measuring 13 x 6.5 x 4 inches.

This photo, taken by my dad, shows Ray on the left. The photo is dated May 1953. On the back my dad had written: "Sgt. Shibe, June 2, 1953."

It doesn’t seem right, that I should keep these photos and scraps of war in a non-descript box, pushed into the back of a dresser drawer. But that is how my dad kept his war memories, stashed in that shoebox, shoved out of sight, away from family, away from emotions that could easily overwhelm him.

Two years after my dad’s death, I became interested in the contents of that shoebox and began wondering about that baby girl back in Nebraska—Ray’s daughter. I decided to look for her.

After a short search, I found Terri living in Harlan in southwestern Iowa, about five hours from my Faribault home. (Click here to read a previous blog post about finding Terri.) We’ve talked, although not recently, by phone, exchanged e-mails, letters and Christmas cards.

Yet, we’ve never met.

Every Veterans Day, every Memorial Day, every June 2, I think of Terri and her dad and how her dad never came home. And mine did.

Sonny Nealon, Ray's best friend in high school, sent me this photo he took of Ray's gravestone.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

BibleSticks and battle prayers May 28, 2011

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A tattered prayer book carried by my father to Korea, where he fought on the front lines during the Korean Conflict. Touching these pages, I feel the faith of my soldier father.

LAST SUNDAY AFTER SERVICES at my church, Trinity Lutheran in Faribault, we watched a brief video about BibleSticks.

Never heard of them? I hadn’t either, until viewing that clip.

“The Military BibleStick is a digital audio player that is pre-loaded with a dramatized recording of the entire New Testament,” according to the Faith Comes by Hearing website. The organization, dedicated to getting the Word of God into the world, “offers 557 Audio Scripture recordings in 553 languages reaching more than 5 billion people in more than 185 countries.”

Part of that outreach includes the U.S. military. Demand is great for the 3 ½-inch long, less than one inch thick, camouflaged, battery-operated BibleSticks, I learned via the video. For whatever reason, the BibleSticks must be processed through military chaplains.

With a $25 donation, we could give a slip-in-the-pocket, portable New Testament to military men and women.

Although I personally don’t know of anyone who has used a BibleStick, I do understand the importance of access to Scripture, especially for our soldiers.

Flashback to February 1952, when my father, Elvern Kletscher of Vesta, was drafted. Less than a year later, he found himself in the mountains of Korea, a U.S. military infantryman fighting on the frontline during the Korean Conflict.

My father, Elvern Kletscher, preparing to leave his Vesta farm home in April 1952, six weeks after he was drafted.

On February 26, 1953, he was struck in the neck by shrapnel at Heartbreak Ridge. Later, he would be awarded the Korean Service Medal with 3 Bronze Service Stars, the National Defense Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, the Combat Infantry Badge and the Purple Heart.

During those combat days, when my dad feared for his life, when he was forced to shoot the enemy or die, he relied on his deep faith in God.

My Dad's worn copy of God Our Refuge.

And he carried with him a 3-inch by 4 ½-inch black book, God Our Refuge. A gift from the St. John’s Lutheran Ladies’ Aid of Vesta, the book includes gospel readings, devotions, meditations, prayers, hymns and more.

Within the pages of that volume, my dad found solace, hope and comfort in the face of constant death.

Now eight years after his death, I cradle the tiny book in my palm, brush my fingers against the brittle, black leather covers, open the curled pages that are loosening from the binding. I think of my father, how he carried this book in his pocket, how he flipped and read the 144 pages, how he prayed while trapped inside the cold earth of a foxhole, while engaging in battle, while lying inside his tent at night.

The inscription reads: To Elvern Kletscher with best wishes from the Lutheran Ladies' Aid at Vesta, Minn.

As I turn to page 117 of my dad’s tattered copy of God Our Refuge, I feel forever connected to him, my fingers touching the paper he touched, reading the words he read 58 years ago as a young soldier in battle:

“In Thine arms I rest me;

Foes who would molest me

Cannot reach me here.

Though the earth be shaking,

Every heart be quaking,

Jesus calms my fear.

Lightnings flash and thunders crash;

Yet, though sin and hell assail me,

Jesus will not fail me.”

HAVE YOU OR SOMEONE you know used a BibleStick? If so, I’d like to hear about your experience with this audio version of Scripture and what it meant to you.

My grandparents, Ida and Henry Kletscher, posing with some of their children, flank my father, Elvern Kletscher, who is about to leave for military service in 1952. My uncle Merlin is the youngest, standing in the front row wearing the bib overalls.

BEHIND EVERY PICTURE, there is a story, including stories about the images of my father and his family, above.

My uncle, Merlin Kletscher, found these two photos in the winter of 2010 while researching for a family reunion. They were tucked inside a worn copy of The Lutheran Hymnal, copyright 1941, published by Concordia Publishing House. That hymnbook belonged to my grandfather, whose name, Henry Kletscher, was inked in gold on the cover. He had taped the edges and binding of the much-used songbook.

The two photos were sandwiched between song 409, “Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus,” and song 410, “Jesus Lead Thou On.”

The latter was one of my Grandpa Henry’s favorite hymns, Uncle Merlin recalls.

“I have not found any other photos or negatives which leads me to think that these pictures were very dear to him,” my uncle says.

Now those photos are also very dear to me. When Merlin handed copies to me last summer, I teared up. Little did my father know then what horrors awaited him on the battlefields of Korea, how his life and death experiences would forever change him.

And my heart ached for my Grandma Ida, standing there beside her soldier son. I wish I had asked her how she felt, how they all felt. Now I have only these photos to show me the close love of a family sending their boy off to war.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

 

Remembering my soldier-father and Elizabeth Taylor March 24, 2011

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WHEN I HEARD the news on Wednesday of Elizabeth Taylor’s death, I didn’t think of the Hollywood star or the two-time Oscar winner, the stunning beauty with the violet eyes or the woman who married eight times, or even the starlet who struggled with addiction and was a crusader in the fight against AIDS.

Rather, I thought of my dad.

He was smitten with Liz.

He never met the Hollywood actress. But he had seen her on a United Service Organizations stage while serving during the Korean Conflict. That was enough for my Minnesota farmer turned-soldier dad to fall for her. Hard. I don’t recall him ever, in his life-time, talking about another actress. He had eyes only for Elizabeth.

His wasn’t an obsession. Nothing like that. It’s just that he seldom talked about his time on the front lines as a foot solider during the Korean War. He told us about the orphans begging for food across barbed wire fences, the sniper (he eventually killed) picking off members of his platoon, watching his buddy blown up the day before he was to return home to the States, the cold and lack of food, the digging into foxholes for protection…and then Elizabeth Taylor, dear, dear Liz.

I expect that the movie star offered a welcome and pleasant diversion for soldiers who faced death on a daily basis.

My father, Elvern Kletscher, on the left with two of his soldier buddies in Korea.

If my dad was still alive—he died eight years ago at the age of 72—I would ask him about the woman who enamored him with her beauty when she stepped onto Korean soil to entertain the troops. I don’t know details about her USO appearance. I wish I had cared enough to ask him.

I tried to find more information online, but Taylor’s USO tours don’t exactly pop up all over the Internet. She once received the USO Woman of the Year Award and won a USO Merit Award. Otherwise I didn’t find much out there.

And that is dismaying to me. Her time entertaining our servicemen, soldiers like my dad, seems as notable as her roles in Cleopatra or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

For me, Elizabeth Taylor will always be more than just another actress. She will be a reminder of my father, of the young Minnesota soldier who was struck by shrapnel at Heartbreak Ridge in Korea and was awarded the Purple Heart 47 years later. It is his memories of Liz that define her to me, not her beauty, not her accolades, not her anything except the temporary escape she gave my soldier-father nearly 60 years ago from the battlefields of Korea, from the horrors of war.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling