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Soldier finally to
get his Silver Star,
54 years later
It's taken more than a half-century, imprisonment for nearly 30 months as a prisoner of war and intervention by U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka for retired Master Sgt. Clarence Young to finally get his Silver Star.
Akaka will pin the medal on Young's chest during a pre-Memorial Day ceremony at the National Cemetery of the Pacific at 10 a.m. tomorrow for covering the retreat of his men in a North Korean rice paddy in 1951.
Young, 79, said a lot of his buddies who fought with him in the 5th Regimental Combat Team from Schofield Barracks thought he had been killed.
"They never knew that I had been held for 30 months in four North Korean prison camps," Young said yesterday.
The story came full circle only through the efforts of Arsanio Vendiola, who wrote to Akaka in February 2004 recommending that Young be awarded the Medal of Honor for trying to save his platoon until his vehicle was knocked on its side by an explosion.
Vendiola was in the same platoon with Young but had left the halftrack to get more ammunition when he heard the explosion.
"He thought I had been killed," Young said.
In March the Army wrote back to Akaka, downgrading the request to the Silver Star -- the Army's third-highest medal for valor.
Retired Brig. Gen. Irwin Cockett, who served with Young in the 5th Regimental Combat Team, described him as "a very, very humble man."
Young was serving as a platoon sergeant assigned to Company G, 2nd Battalion, on April 25, 1951, when he was ordered to cover the withdrawal of portions of the 24th Infantry Division from Chongpyong.
Young had been ordered to hold his position "at any cost."
With the enemy less than 100 yards from his platoon, Young saw a halftrack on the road and told his men to get the wounded on the vehicle and drive it into a roadside bank next to rice paddies.
"I looked up the hill," Young added, "and I saw the North Koreans and Chinese communists coming down off the ridge."
He climbed into the turret of the halftrack that held a .50-caliber machine gun, and began firing into the hillside, emptying the ammunition can in less than a minute.
"I ran out of ammunition," Young said, "and I asked Vendyn to get more but all he could find was smaller, .32-caliber ammunition.
"Then the artillery or heavy mortars started to fall. I think it was the third blast which hit the halftrack and tossed me out of the turret."
His nose and ears were bleeding.
He gathered about a dozen members of his platoon and ran across the rice paddies, taking refuge in a deserted village and spending the night in a large house.
The next morning, they were surprised by North Korean soldiers.
"All the wounded GIs -- about five of them -- were shot as they lay before us. ... What saved us was a group of Chinese soldiers who ventured into the village and saw what had happened. They ordered the North Koreans to stop and took us into custody."
Young, who was drafted when he was 18 after graduating from Saint Louis High School in 1945, said he was shuffled through four prison camps. When the cease-fire was ordered on July 27, 1953, Young was imprisoned near the Manchurian border, and was one of the last prisoners of war to see freedom two months later.
Young retired from the Army in 1966, then went to work for the Navy at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard as a welder for 21 years.
Cockett said Young now devotes much of his time to talking to military service members, especially younger ones.
"I try to tell how to survive," Young said.
"Don't think about your family or your loved ones -- that will drive you crazy. Forget about your family, your loved ones, but live one day at a time.
"If you can't do that, you only make yourself homesick, and you will end up dying. ... Just think about surviving."
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