He’s sorely missed

Every year at this time I miss him the most. He died three years ago at 76.

Clifford Lyle Kinney, my hero, was a veteran of the Korean War. They called it a Cold War conflict, but in his mind it became pure hell.

He was married to my sister, and I remember crying at age 5 that he was going far away, and I even understood he might not return.

He was a young farm kid from a small town. He was 18 and always had a rifle, because then every responsible boy received one at a young age to hunt for ducks, geese, deer – whatever was needed to feed the family. He became a crack shot. Then he was drafted in the Army and was asked to become a scout and sniper.

Clifford was in Korea 18 months, and when he came home he never talked about the war. You never walked up behind him unannounced and put your hand on his shoulder. When darkness came, every light in the house came on, and the weapons came out.

When he showered, a shotgun stood between the toilet and the shower. He slept with a pistol under his pillow. When I got up at night to use the bathroom, from the darkness I would hear, “Who is there?” He was getting hard of hearing, so my reply became louder as years passed, and I would have to shout, “It’s just me.”

As Clifford aged, stories about Korea became a more open topic. I watched a tear run down his wrinkled check as he talked of a North Korean soldier he had shot. He said, “Maybe I just wounded him,” but in his heart, I could tell, he knew the man had died.

He said the cold was brutal and that all he ever wanted was a dry, clean pair of socks.

One day I read that the president of South Korea was giving medals to American servicemen who fought to free his country. My hero got his medal after time and paperwork.

He told me: “My country, I never asked for anything, and yet I received this from South Korea.”

He was becoming very ill and I spent a lot of nights on the floor by his bed listening to his war stories. He called them “antidotes.” One he made me promise to remember.

I don’t know where the seaport was; he didn’t say. It was hot and there were many, many stairs to climb to get to the top.

He was struggling to carry all his gear, and while stopping to rest he wondered how would he ever make it. He said he looked over and saw a small Korean woman – no shoes, feet bleeding, not even 5 feet tall – hurrying by him. Strapped on her small back was the most precious cargo my hero had ever seen, her small, old, unable-to-walk father. He said he stood taller and marched up those stairs. He told me to remember how precious life is and to not forget this “antidote.”

That war is over for him now, and I know he has found peace.

He was asked to fight for people he never even heard of and he did just that. What a price he paid.

To all of you on this Veterans Day, honor those true heroes. Because I knew him, I stand taller.

I will never forget. I promise.