Interesting story. Some people have amazing resilience. Here is the story:

Walter Dixon had been married for just five days when he shipped off to Korea for his second war deployment.

About a year later, at age 22, he was declared dead. When his obituary was published in the local paper, his wife back home in Waynesville, Mo., had no way of knowing that the news was premature.

In reality, Dixon was alive behind enemy lines.

In an interview at StoryCorps last month, Dixon, a 90-year-old veteran of three wars, spoke to his son Russ Dixon about how, after a case of mistaken identity, he returned home to find that his world had moved on without him.

Dixon was serving in the Army's 38th Infantry Division when, he says, he was captured while trying to aid his fellow troops.

He was about a half-mile from his post when he saw five men from his unit get shot down by an artillery round. "One of 'em's legs were both broken, so I took my field jacket and wrapped around his legs to hold them together," he says.

When he returned to his weapon, Chinese forces supporting the North Koreans came up behind him.

"When I got captured, those guys in that hole with my field jacket there, they just got blown all to heck," Dixon says.

When the bodies were later found, Dixon's jacket, which carried letters from his wife in the pockets, was the piece that mistakenly linked him to a deceased fellow soldier.

"I'm sure that's why they reported me dead instead of captured," Dixon says.

For the next two and a half years, he was held prisoner in a North Korean camp.

It was a harrowing experience, Dixon recalls. To stay warm, he would go searching for wood to burn and, at times, cooked rats as sustenance. One day, a guard thought he strayed too far.

"I started to make better headway and this guard hollered for me to halt, but I didn't," he says. "So, he stuck me with his bayonet. Kind of a rough time right there."

Dixon escaped five times, but each time he was caught, and punished. When fighting came to a halt, the Red Cross came to the camp and notified the prisoners of their release.

Back home, because Dixon had been reported killed, his wife had moved on. She remarried and had a child with another man.



'It Was So Much About Finding My Peace'
At the time, Dixon says, he didn't have much to say.

"I can't blame her. I was dead. Then she found out I was alive. The only obvious thing to do was to divorce one of us."

Dixon and his wife would divorce. But he couldn't resent her, he says.

"Anger don't do you any good on something like that, you can't do nothing about it," he says. "You just gotta handle it the best way you know how."

Despite everything he experienced, Dixon chose to stay in the military. It's a decision that his son Russ still wonders about.

"It was my life," Dixon said. "After you go through all of that, you ain't scared of nothing."

Russ said he is proud of his dad, who went on to serve in Vietnam. "I tell a lot of people about your seven Purple Hearts and all that, and I brag about it just about every day," he told his father.

As for Dixon himself, he says he couldn't care how others remember him. It's enough for him alone to know the sacrifices he made.

"I can remember me," he says. "I don't have any wants or needs of memory. I just enjoyed my military service ... I'd do it again. And I'm proud of it."

As for that local obituary writer? Dixon ended up marrying her and having three children together, including Russ.

LINK: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/27...-moved-on-without-hi

Remarkable individual! I have great respect for those that serve (dad was USN WW11)....but this guy stands above the rest.

One just can't make up something like that. Remarkable.

Truly amazing. God Bless him.

The smiley face is for the last couple of sentence's.

Wow - Who needs fiction when you have truth like that.

That's a real American, the best of the best. I'm not worthy to comment. Just Amazing.

Great story, but it irks me that the writer didn't know, or didn't care, about the difference between the 38th Infantry Division and the 38th Infantry Regiment. Only one of them fought in Korea.

quote:

Originally posted by mesabi:
Great story, but it irks me that the writer didn't know, or didn't care, about the difference between the 38th Infantry Division and the 38th Infantry Regiment. Only one of them fought in Korea.

Get over it and enjoy an awesome story.

Similar to what happened in the movie "Castaway"

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by mesabi:
Great story, but it irks me that the writer didn't know, or didn't care, about the difference between the 38th Infantry Division and the 38th Infantry Regiment. Only one of them fought in Korea.

Get over it and enjoy an awesome story.

Damned Skippy. If Walter Dixon could "get over it" again and again, can we not let a small oversight, go?

Had it not been for the writer, I would otherwise, not know of this man's humility and sacrifice.

So many sacrifice in battle, and then sacrifice the rest of their live's, in silence.

May God bless those we know not of.

This is why I believe God gives us stuff that we can handle. I would have crumpled up even months before this story starts.

The wife worked really quick, especially for that time period. Already re-married, and with a baby, only 2.5 years later.

Hero!

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
The wife worked really quick, especially for that time period. Already re-married, and with a baby, only 2.5 years later.

That's common in the military. There was a funeral for a KIA in my unit. The wife already had another guy.

V.

Incredible story!

Brought back to mind, the plot in "Mad Men" regarding Don Draper switching dog tags with the dead Captain. Turning him into Don Draper.

I'd imagine misidentifications as well as someone taking an others identity, may happen more than we imagine in war time.