Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Veterans Day reflections: “Returned from hell,” my father’s story November 8, 2023

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Among my Dad’s papers, etc.: A letter home to his parents, a page of military instructions he carried into war, a newspaper clipping and his dog tag, circling the words “hell hole” in his letter. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2023)

I RUN MY FINGERS across his dog tag, thumb caressing the raised letters and numbers stamped into metal. His name, KLETSCHER, ELVERN A. B blood type. P for Protestant. His Selective Service number, the same number on his Armed Forces of the United States Geneva Convention Identification Card, the laminated card he carried with him into war. Just like the duplicate dog tags that would identify him if he was injured or killed in action.

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.

Seventy-one years ago, my dad was a fresh-faced young Minnesota farm boy fighting in the Korean War as a combat soldier for the U.S. Army. Each November, around Veterans Day, I pull out two shoeboxes filled with photos, letters, documents and more from Dad’s time in the service. And although I’ve looked through the contents many times in the 20 years since Dad died, I still feel the same overwhelming sense of sadness in all he experienced. The death of combat buddies. His killing of the enemy. Orphan children begging for food across barbed wire fences. The cold and hunger and fear. And then the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder he suffered upon his return home to southwestern Minnesota.

My dad brought this 7 x 9-inch cloth “RETURNED FROM HELL” patch home with him after serving for nearly a year in Korea. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

I feel all of that as I touch his dog tag, run my fingers along the short chain like fingers worrying rosary beads in prayer. War is hell.

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

Hell. Dad used that word in a March 4, 1953, letter to his parents and siblings. He criticized the draft board, his anger fueled by the possibility that a younger brother might also end up in Korea. He wrote, in part: “Do they know what it’s like over here? Hell no. Why the heck don’t some of them come over here and look this over? They’d probably come to there (sic) senses…” Not everything he wrote is printable. But his anger and frustration are palpable. And I don’t blame him.

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

War is hell. I try to imagine my dad penning that letter on his 22nd birthday. Missing his family. No cake, no nothing to celebrate. But rather worry about whether he would live to the next day. He had reason to fear for his life. Only a week prior, he was wounded in action at Heart Break Ridge while engaged in mortar firing with the enemy. Shrapnel struck him in the face and he was hospitalized for several days.

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.

Interestingly enough, Dad mentions none of that in his letter home. Rather, he closes with these sentences: “I’m feeling fine and don’t worry about me. I’ll write again soon.” I don’t believe Dad was “feeling fine,” in a place he called a “hell hole” in his letter.

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

As I filter through the shoeboxes holding his military belongings, I pick up a hardcover 4 x 6-inch black book. It’s tattered, bent, dirty, obviously well-used. When I open the cover to read the words Dad penciled across lined paper, the realities of war strike me full force. Here are details and instructions on weaponry—60 mm mortars, submachine guns, tank mines, smoke screens, chemical warfare… He writes about reconnaissance, combat and security patrols and “avoid contact with enemy—may have to fight in self defense.” There are diagrams and fire commands and details I don’t understand, and don’t necessarily want to understand.

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.

But “Conduct on lines” and the details that follow need no deciphering: “1) Hold fire until enemy is within 500 yards. 2) Listening post must have cover and concealment, must have good route for withdrawal…” I expect Dad carried this book into war. Just as he carried deep trauma home from “The Forgotten War,” as the Korean War has been dubbed.

Words imprinted on the Veterans’ Memorial in Northfield, Minnesota. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo May 2023)

War is hell, even if done for the right reasons—to defend democracy and freedom and country. For his time in the Army in 1953, Dad was paid $266.27. It’s documented on his federal income tax return. So little for so much given, not that there’s ever enough payment for a combat soldier.

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

I wish I could wrap my arms around Dad, hold him, tell him how deeply sorry I am for the horrors he endured while fighting as an infantryman on the front lines during the Korean War. Mostly, I wish I could simply listen, sitting quietly as I finger the chain of his dog tag, the beads providing tactile comfort as he talked (if he would talk) about the personal hell that is war.

The Rice County, Minnesota, Veterans’ Memorial in Faribault. This photo and five others I took now grace public spaces in the newly-opened State Veterans Home in Bemidji. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

NOTE: Please use this Veterans Day as a time to thank those who have served our country. But more than thanking, listen, support and encourage. The voices of our veterans need, and deserve, to be heard.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Honoring the memory of my dad April 4, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 11:19 AM
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Elvern Kletscher's 1950s military photo

HIS OBITUARY READS IN PART: From 1952-1953, he served in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict. He served on the front lines, receiving the Purple Heart after being wounded…He enjoyed his weekly visits with his veterans support group. He enjoyed bird watching, making horseradish and tomato juice with his family.

Elvern Kletscher passed away Thursday, April 3, 2003, at the Sunwood Good Samaritan Center in Redwood Falls, Minnesota at the age of 72 years and 29 days.

Yesterday, on the eight-year anniversary of my father’s death, I failed to remember. How could I? How could I forget the day he died, the day I lost my dad? How could I?

It breaks my heart that I would forget. This failure to remember the date of his death seems like a dishonor to the father I loved. He was a man who worked hard tending the earth, who loved his family and God. He was a soldier who served his country and, because of his time on the killing fields of Korea, suffered from a lifetime of demons that at times robbed me of my father.

But in the end, in his last days, I came to terms with the issues that sometimes made life with him difficult and challenging. I saw only the goodness as I stood at his bedside in the Veterans Administration Hospital where he lay dying of cancer and congestive heart failure.

As I held his hand, stroked his thick white hair, held a straw to his lips, I tried to be brave, to cheer him, to comfort him.

But when I couldn’t keep my emotions in check any more, I fled his room, stood outside his hospital room and wept.

Once I pulled myself back together, I returned to his bedside, listened to him tell me he was going to a better place, that he wanted all of us to take care of Mom. And then I cried, right there, holding nothing back because I couldn’t no matter how hard I tried.

Two days later, after being transported back to his home county, into a nursing home, my dad died.

And on April 7 we buried him, deep in the soil, in the hillside cemetery that overlooks his beloved prairie, the place where, except for his time in the military, he lived his entire life.

On that gloomy April day of biting cold wind, I held my mom close, my arm wrapped around her shoulders as she shivered uncontrollably. Together with my siblings we huddled inside a tent, next to the coffin.

As the guns fired in a military salute, as taps sounded their mournful wail, as my mom accepted a carefully folded American flag, I wept.

Today I weep, too, as I remember the father I loved.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Remembering my dad, a Korean War veteran November 11, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:12 AM
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Elvern Kletscher, my dad

 

I’VE JUST PULLED TWO FILES from a cabinet in my office. One’s labeled “Elvern K. (obit, death certificate).” The other is simply labeled “KOREA.”

Then I turn toward a chest of drawers, also in my office, and remove a shoebox from the bottom drawer. It’s tagged “Elvern Kletscher’s Korean pix, etc. Important stuff.” I’ve underlined “Important stuff” twice.

The contents of that shoebox connect to the contents of the files. All encompass my dad’s time serving with the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict.

 

 

Some of the items from my dad's time in the military, stored in a shoebox.

 

Sifting through the files and shoebox brings me to tears as I remember my dad, who fought on the front lines, was wounded on February 26, 1953, at Heartbreak Ridge and received a Purple Heart medal 47 years later. He died in 2003.

My father talked very little of his time in Korea. So other than generalities and a few shared stories, only his black-and-white photos and letters offer me a glimpse of the young man who was drafted and sent into combat.

In letters written to his family, my dad vents his frustrations and concerns. I’ll share snippets of a letter from Korea dated March 4, 1953, his 22nd birthday, and written days after he was wounded.

Dear Mother, Dad & all

Guess you’s have been snowbound for awhile. “Huh” Just got your letter today. Well I’m 22 now. Birthday is past by a couple hours. Sure isn’t much of a birthday. But guess I can’t expect much over here.

Then he proceeds to blast the draft board and politicians after learning that his younger brother, Harold, may be called to duty. I can’t quote everything he wrote, but let me tell you, my father is fuming. He writes, in part:

Do they know what this is like over here? Hell no. Why the heck don’t some of them come over here and look this over. They’d probably come to their senses…

In the third page of his letter, my father-soldier continues:

I didn’t get your package yet, but they will be here soon mail is awful poor in coming through. Nobody is getting any mail. I’ve got 17 points now I think. They pile up fast. Sure wish I had the 36 of them though. I still think I’ll leave Korea in August. So it isn’t too long anymore. I sure hope I get out 3 months prior to my discharge. That’s almost all we talk about in the day time is how many points each other has got and when we think we will leave this hell hole.

Those are two strong words: hell hole.

But the few war stories that my father shared were nothing short of hellish. He told of digging foxholes and praying that God would save him from death, of a buddy blown up before his eyes, of a sniper picking off members of his platoon until my dad picked off the sniper, of being pinned down for days in trenches under constant enemy shelling…

 

 

My dad brought this 7-inch by 9-inch cloth "RETURNED FROM HELL" patch home with him after serving for nearly a year in Korea.

 

Through the attacks, the combat, the deaths of buddies, all through his year in Korea, my dad held strong to his faith. He wrote:

Sure was good to go to church. I had communion. I always try and make every church service they got over here. Once a week the chaplain comes up here on the hill. It’s always good to go. Always makes a guy know he isn’t alone.

In concluding his 3 ½-page letter, my father tells his parents:

I’m feeling fine and don’t worry about me. I’ll write again. Love Vern

Not once in his 87-line letter does my dad mention that just nine days earlier he was struck on the right side of his neck by shrapnel from a mortar round.

 

 

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

 

TODAY, VETERANS DAY, please take time to honor a veteran, remembering all they have sacrificed for their country.

In conclusion, I wish to quote a few lines from a news release issued by former Second District Congressman David Minge on May 12, 2000, the year my dad received his Purple Heart for those wounds suffered on Heartbreak Ridge in Korea.

These two men are a prime example of sacrifice and service to our nation. For fifty years, Norman Kalk and Elvern Kletscher knew the truth that they had earned these medals. I am gratified that we could finally recognize their contributions and acknowledge the debt we can never repay.

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A STORY WHICH I WROTE about my Dad’s service in Korea was published in 2005 in the book God Answers Prayers Military Edition, True Stories from People Who Serve and Those Who Love Them, edited by Allison Bottke. To read that story, “Faith and Hope in a Land of Heartbreak,” click onto the Harvest House Publishers website.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling