Whenever Waterloo’s Tom Lewis catches a television rerun of “MASH,’’ he can’t help but think about his days as an Army nurse at a hospital in Japan where he treated U.S. soldiers wounded in the Korean War. The popular TV show that fused drama and dark humor to tell the story of doctors and staff at an Army medical...
Whenever Waterloo’s Tom Lewis catches a television rerun of “MASH,’’ he can’t help but think about his days as an Army nurse at a hospital in Japan where he treated U.S. soldiers wounded in the Korean War.
The popular TV show that fused drama and dark humor to tell the story of doctors and staff at an Army medical facility during the Korean War still makes Lewis laugh.
“A lot of the equipment was the same but we didn’t have a distillery or didn’t drink the booze they did. We were more military,’’ chuckled Lewis, a past president of the state chapter of Korean War veterans.
Sixty years ago, Lewis, 83, worked alongside dozens of other Central New York Army reservists at the 343rd General Hospital at Camp Drew, north of Tokyo. This weekend, about 10 surviving members of that Syracuse-based reserve unit celebrated the 60th anniversary of their corps’ activation on Sept. 3, 1950.
Tom Lewis (left) and Bernie Long both served in an Army hospital in Japan during the Korean War. They are holding their unit's banner. (JLC stands for Japanese Logistic Command). They gathered at Brenda’s Diner in Port Byron on Saturday to break bread and reminisce about their time in Japan. Most of the survivors, like Lewis, are now in there 80s and their numbers are dwindling fast.
“Time gets more precious to us all the time,’’ said Bernie Long, 85, of Waterloo, a supply sergeant at the hospital who arranged this year’s reunion.
Long was one of about 30 reservists from the former Willard State Hospital assigned to the Japanese hospital, which was converted from a onetime aircraft factory. He served about a year at the hospital and midway through his tour discovered through the mail – and from his friend Lewis -- that his first wife had given birth to their first child.
“It was during mail call one day and everyone was passing letters hand over hand when I heard Tom yell, ‘Bernie, it’s a boy,’ Everyone cheered,’’ Long recalled.
At one time the reserve unit’s yearly reunion made for a family affair as well for Syracuse’s Don Connor, who worked as an assistant dietician at the 343rd General Hospital. An older brother and sister also served at the hospital at the same time as Connor but have since passed away.
Now 85, Connor served in two wars five years apart. Before his hospital stint, Connor was a machine-gunner/assistant engineer on a B-29 bomber that flew 35 combat missions over Japan in World War II.
This is a snapshot from the Korean War that shows Brnie Long (center) who served with the Willard Unit of the U.S. Army Reserves at the 343rd General Hospital in Japan.“Sixty years, boy, that’s important because they were good friends of mine – every one of them. I can’t think of anyone I wasn’t friends with,’’ said Connor, who spent two years at the hospital.
In the operating room Lewis did everything from help doctors mend head injuries to help surgeons amputate arms and legs. He even delivered a few babies.
“For a while it got to me, but then I got tough as nails. You have to have some feelings but you have to be tough,’’ Lewis said.
Cortland’s Christy Barrow, who is still married to his childhood sweetheart, Arlene, said he used to be called the “baby’’ of the 343rd reserve unit because he was younger than most of his fellow troops. Barrow, 80, did maintenance work at the hospital and moved wounded soldiers from planes onto buses that would whisk them to the medical facility. He liked his time in Japan.
“I’d go back in a minute if I wasn’t so damn old. I was happy, I met a lot of nice people there,’’ Barrow said.
The friendships and memories forged 60 years ago are the bond that serves to reunite this dwindling band of Korean War veterans once a year every September. They don’t want to let go of either.
“The anniversary is important just to keep the relationships going for the few of us left and to reminisce about old times,’’ Long said.
You can reach Scott Rapp at srapp@syracuse.com or 289-4839.