Korean War veteran shares memories with Lodi City Council
Korean War veteran Verne H. Miller presented Mayor Alan Nakanishi and the City of Lodi with items he obtained while on leave in Japan during the war at last week’s city council meeting.
The Japanese smoking jacket, ornate cigarette box and ash tray will be placed on display in the Carnegie Forum conference room dedicated to Lodi’s sister city, Kofu, Japan.
Miller obtained the items while shopping at the Army base in Japan in 1953. He initially purchased the smoking jacket for his father, who was a smoker.
However, his father refused to wear it because he was afraid he’d burn a hole in it. Miller’s father put the jacket in a cedar chest and it remained there for 64 years.
In the midst of downsizing, Miller thought the mayor, who is of Japanese descent, would appreciate the jacket and the other items he obtained.
After graduating high school in 1952, Miller enlisted in the military with plans to become a mechanic. However, when Miller arrived at Fort Riley in Kansas for basic training, there were too many mechanics and he was told he would be a cook instead.
“You don’t always get what you want when you join the service,” he said.
Miller attended four weeks of cooking school in addition to his basic training. After eight months at the fort, Miller was sent to board a ship to Korea with 4,000 other soldiers.
Once he arrived in Korea, Miller was told they had too many cooks, and he was reassigned as a tank driver. For four out of the six months Miller was assigned to driving the tank, he was on the front lines at the 38th parallel, the boundary between North Korea and South Korea.
“You don’t like to be up there because of snipers. They can pick you off without you knowing it. So you’re inside of a tank and you can shoot back at them but you can’t find them,” Miller said describing his experience on the front lines.
The bulletproof vests they had back then weren’t as effective as the ones they have today, so Miller and the other soldiers didn’t even bother with using them inside the tanks.
While on the front lines, Miller and the soldiers stayed in huts and used sand bags to shield themselves from the enemy.
“They dig trenches and put up sand bags to keep you safe. You have trenches all around you. They dug a deep hole and put sandbags all around the outer edge of it and all that was sticking out was machine gun ports and a cannon,” Miller said.
In those days, the soldiers weren’t provided with ear plugs to cut out the loud sounds of the cannons and the guns, he said.
“If you found some cotton you were lucky,” he said.
Miller says he lost a majority of his hearing during the war, but he has learned to read lips in order to communicate with others. Despite being on the front lines, Miller said he never witnessed any of his fellow soldiers get injured.
Miller also recalled his interactions with the children in Korea.
“In Korea the children were malnourished. They’d be standing at the barb wire with their hands out and all we could give them was candy,” Miller said. “We weren’t allowed to give them food. It was just depressing to see children starving and you can’t give them anything.”
During his time in Korea, Miller was given the opportunity to visit Japan on leave for some rest and relaxation. There he obtained the items he presented to the council.
After his leave, he returned to Korea and was reassigned as a cook. He spent six more months there before returning to the United States. He was stationed in El Paso, Texas, and continued to work as a cook until he completed his service in July of 1955.
After his life in the military, Miller worked 17 years at H&H Robertson as a forklift operator before going to work for General Mills, from which he retired in 1998.
After two previous marriages, Miller married the love of his life, Rodella Fouquettee, in 1990. The two were married for 25 years until her death of leukemia in 2015.
“She was my soulmate,” he said.
Now 84 years old, Miller just spends his time enjoying his retirement and sharing his memories with others.
“I’m just a retired old man,” he said.