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By Al Zdon
On October 10, 1951, 19-year-old Ron Gornick was informed that two days later he was to report of the Battalion command post in order to be given a battlefield commission to second lieutenant.
On October 11, Sergeant Gornick led a patrol into the dark hills of Korea to find a sniper that was bothering the U.S. position. It was expected to be a routine mission into the no-man's-land between the North
Korean and American lines.
Instead, the patrol encountered a fortified North Korean outpost. By the time the shelling stopped, Gornick and one other man, draped across Gornick's back, were the only ones to escape.
Gornick spent four and one-half months in hospitals in Japan. He never received his commission. He never set foot in Korea again.
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Ron
Gornick was born Dec. 29, 1931, in Chisholm, Minnesota, and grew up there. His family bought a bottling plant when Gornick was a teenager, and he spent most of his non-school time in the family business.
He did
go out for football for three straight years at Chisholm High School, but despite only missing one practice, he only got to play one game. "I guess I wasn't much of a jock, I was a lover," Gornick said with a smile.
One of the teachers at the high school encouraged the students to join the National Guard, and by fibbing about his age, Gornick was allowed to join when he was still in the 10th grade — he had just turned 16.
"I was the youngest kid in the class."
Gornick said a lot of the guys joined for the uniform or for the prestige, and many joined just to get away from their parents for two weeks each summer. "A lot of guys had
those strict parents, and it was great to get away from home."
Between school and Guard meetings, Gornick delivered the family's pop, Yorg's Beer and Kiewel's White Label to local establishments. The men of
Company C, 136th Regiment, 47th Division trained at the Chisholm Field House on Wednesday nights.
The war in Korea began on June 25, 1950, a year after Gornick graduated from high school.
"I was trying to
figure out whether or not I should go to college. I enjoyed driving the truck. But then the Korean War began, and that changed the complexion of things a little bit."
News started to seep out about federalizing
state Guard units, and the training was stepped up. In December, the unit got the news it had expected. They would be federalized on Jan. 16, 1951.
A train made a loop through Minnesota picking up units along the
way. The train came through Moorhead and Crookston and then across the state to Hibbing where it was supposed to stop at noon.
"We met at the Hibbing Memorial Building, and I remember how cold it was. It was
about 25 or 30 below zero, and we would head on down to the train depot a couple of blocks away to check every now and then. Along the way, we stopped at John Fotopoulos' bar. We told him we were going in the army,
going to war. I supposed all the bars were serving us kids that day. Anyway, by the time the train got to Hibbing at about 9 p.m., we were all blind drunk."
The train continued through the state, picking up
units, and then headed to Camp Rucker, Alabama. "When we got there, nothing was ready. You could tell the U.S. was in some sort of trouble because they just weren't ready for us. The camp had stood empty for
five years, and our first job was to clean it up and get it ready. We were supposed to be the cadre for the division. We were supposed to train the draftees."
The first thing Gornick and many others did upon
arriving in Alabama was to get sick. "I think about 90 percent of us had the flu. I don't think I've ever been so sick. I thought I was going to die."
For Corporal Gornick and the others, the job of training
wasn't an easy one at first. "The draftees were mainly from New Jersey and New York, and a lot of these guys had been in World War II. And now we were going to be their instructors. I had just turned 19."
The
training was hard and with a purpose. The war had escalated dramatically in Korea with the U.S. landing at Inchon and then the invasion of the Chinese troops late in 1950.
In June, 1951, the army began selecting
men by lottery basis to go overseas. "A lot of us guys who were single volunteered to take the place of the married guys who had children and got picked in the lottery.
In the meantime, Gornick took two weeks
leave and went back to Chisholm for a visit. He and a group of Iron Rangers drove back to Alabama and arrived five minutes before midnight on the day they had to return. They were greeted by an orderly who handed
them their orders to be sent to Korea. He also advised them they were being given two more weeks furlough. Back home they went.
"My sister had won a brand new car in a contest, and she let me use it to drive
around Chisholm. I thought I was the king."
By July, Gornick was at Camp Stoneman, California, and he boarded a troop ship for the voyage across the Pacific. The boat landed at Camp Drake in Japan, and the
soldiers were taken across to Korea at Inchon on a smaller boat.
"All I remember about Inchon was a lot of dirt and mud. While I was in the replacement depot, somebody took my boots. I wear size 13, so it took
them a few days to find me a new pair of boots."
While waiting to be sent to the front, word was put out in the depot that a typist was being sought. "I wasn't that great a typist, but I went in there and
volunteered. They gave me the job. But the next day when I showed up for work, they told me that my MOS was an infantry squad leader and they were in desperate need of those at the front. That was as close as I got
to a first-class office job."
Gornick, who was a sergeant by this time, left on a train at daylight, and it was dark when he got to the end of the line. He boarded a truck that took him to the front line.
"There had just been a battle, and they were carrying bodies out by the dozens. That was my first taste of war."
Gornick found that coming from a National Guard background in those days wasn't a plus. "The
National Guard just wasn't respected that much. We had the rank, but it just wasn't accepted. They would put RA for regular army or US for draftees or NG in front of your serial number. When guys saw that, they'd
say, 'Oh, you're National Guard, that's why you've got those stripes.'"
Assigned as a squad leader, it seemed there was no transition period for Gornick. "There was no time to get acclimated. I really don't
remember any daylight at all. It was always dark. We were either standing guard at night or going out on patrols at night. We slept during the day."
The unit was encamped at a place called Chig Ni Ri, near the
38th Parallel.
On one patrol, Gornick's squad was spotted coming around a hill. "All of a sudden there were flares in the air and explosions all around us. We all got separated and tried to find what shelter
there was as the shells came in. I dove into this half-assed cave and waited it out. When it got light enough, I looked at the soldier next to me. It was a dead North Korean. Boy, did I get out of that hole in a
hurry.
"You get old in a hurry."
On another patrol, the squad was caught on top of a hill as a mortar barrage came down on them. "You try to dig in, but the ground was so rocky all you could scrape off is a
couple of inches. So I just laid down and said to myself, 'The hell with it. If they're going to get me, they're going to get me.' I just laid there until it was over."
The Korean truce talks had begun in July
and the war began to slow down, with sporadic fighting, Gornick said. "But the skirmishes continued. You'd be on guard duty at night, and you'd hear those tin cans on the perimeter tinkle, and you knew they were
coming at you. And you'd wonder what was going on. Wasn't there supposed to be a cease fire?"
The company was stationed at the top of the hill, and the chow was distributed at the bottom. "When I first got there,
it seemed like Mt. Everest to me. All that up and down — I have to admit, I skipped a few meals. But as time went by, it began to seem like nothing. I could run up and down that hill."
On one short patrol on Oct.
7, 1951, as the squad neared the company base, the mortars started dropping in on them. "What happened I don't know. I was hit by a mortar. It got me above my right eye and in the back of the head. As I was
stumbling along, I could feel my M-1 move in my hand. I couldn't figure that out. I thought somebody had bumped me."
As it turned out, there were two bullet holes in the stock of his rifle. "I never did find out
if they were from friend or foe."
Back at the camp, Gornick was ordered to the battalion aid station. His wounds were minor, but his clothes were in shreds and they were full of blood. It was his first Purple
Heart.
While there, the company commander invited Gornick to his tent for a cup of coffee and a little debriefing. "He told me I could stay there that night and head back in the morning. He had a bottle of
Canadian Club, and it was kind of nice to have a drink with the company commander."
After returning to his squad, Gornick was informed on Oct. 10 that he was to report to battalion headquarters on Friday, Oct.
12, 1951, at 0900 to receive a battlefield promotion to second lieutenant. He had led 10 successful patrols, and the casualties in that area had caused a need for officers. "We just didn't have many officers left.
The fighting had been pretty intense in that area, and the officer corps had been pretty well annihilated."
Back on duty, Gornick and the rest faced what seemed like a humorous situation at first. "When
people would go to the latrine, and they were bending over the hole, a sniper was taking pot shots at them. Well, then one day a guy got snapped right square in the buttocks."
The commander told Gornick to take
his squad out that night and try to locate the sniper. Squads varied in size, but Gornick remembers that this one had a lead scout, a radio man, a medic and a stretcher bearer with it, and there were probably 15 or
17 men who headed off in the dark at five in the morning.
The men followed the scout down paths and up paths in pitch blackness, heading for the hill where it was thought the sniper was shooting from. The squad
reached the top of the hill just as light was breaking. The scout signaled to move ahead slowly.
Without knowing it, the small group of soldiers moved right up to a North Korean forward artillery observation
post. The enemy soldiers were located in a low, concrete bunker with horizontal slits that looked out over the American position.
"We came across them sleeping. All of a sudden, we could see heads popping up
inside the bunker. We were only a few feet from them. I don't know who shot first, but then all hell broke loose."
Gornick said it was almost too close to aim and shoot rifles. The two sides were throwing
grenades at each other. "They were throwing their concussion grenades, but we were too close for them to be activated. I picked up two or three of them and threw them back."
In a few minutes of furious,
point-blank fighting, the squad was able to silence the bunker, but not before the North Koreans were able to call in an artillery barrage on their own position. Mortar and artillery shells came raining down on the
American squad.
"Everybody was down, and everybody needed help," Gornick recalled. "One mortar came in and it got me, and it got the medic right next to me. I looked at Doc, and he said, 'Can you help me?'
"I'd been hit in the arms, in the back, in the legs. I was all torn apart. I told him I couldn't help him. Somehow I picked up his helmet and put it on his head."
In time, the barrage lifted. "It had only been 10
or 15 minutes, but it seemed like six months."
Gornick looked around. He saw one other soldier still moving. "It was a little Jewish kid from New York. His name was Oscar Viskowicz. He had a big hole in his
middle. It didn't look like he was going to make it. I don't know how in the world I did it, but I grabbed the guy and threw him over my shoulder and headed down the hill. I kept falling and getting up again. I
really felt sorry for that poor guy I was carrying.
"I don't remember much until I got down the hill and was grabbed by a couple of our guys. I was losing it by that time. I didn't have enough blood left in me to
stay conscious."
The next thing Gornick remembers was being strapped into the basket of a helicopter. "They took me to a Norwegian MASH unit and I was treated there. There were all kinds of people wounded that
day, and the place was crowded."
He faded in and out of consciousness. At one point he awoke to find a doctor standing over him. "The doctor said, 'I have some bad news for you. We're going to have to amputate
your legs.' I remember thinking, 'Holy cripes, how had I carried that guy down the hill? My bones had to be okay.'"
An ambulance took him to the airfield, and he was flown to an army hospital in Japan where he
spent three months recovering. His thighs were laid open so deeply that they couldn't put in stitches and the wounds had to close by themselves, slowly. But there was no more talk about amputation. He was moved to
another hospital for rehabilitation.
"While there, a lieutenant from our company came through. He'd been plunked in the foot. All this time, I'd never know what happened to my squad, if anybody had made it out.
He told me that my squad had been all wiped out."
The thought of going back to the front line was not a happy one for Gornick. "I'll be the first to admit that the second time around I was not so eager to
volunteer. But I was prepared to go back."
Gornick's discharge date was just a month off, but there had been talk that all the GIs would be extended one year.
Finally, he was able to talk to an officer at the
hospital who told him his wounds were too severe for him to ever be sent back to the battlefield. A few weeks later, he was on a troop ship to California, and not long after that he was flown to Camp McCoy. It was
March, 1952.
"I got home on a Saturday night. We all went up to the Tibroc Bar and we had a celebration."
Back home, Gornick went back to work on the beer truck. Over the years he was commander of the Chisholm
American Legion and VFW posts and a member of the Disabled American Veterans.
He tried through the years to find out the whereabouts of Viskowicz, the soldier he had carried down the hill. "I don't think he made
it. I can still see that hole in his stomach."
Gornick received his second Purple Heart, but through an odd Army paperwork snafu, he never received his Combat Infantryman's Badge. During the few hours that he
thought he was going to be a typist at the replacement depot, his MOS had been changed to clerk on his papers. No amount of convincing will change the army's mind that Gornick was a clerk and not an infantryman in
Korea, and he has never received the award.
In time he owned his own convenience store businesses in Chisholm and Hibbing, and he has owned several other businesses. One day he made the acquaintance of then State
Senator Rudy Perpich. Gornick worked hard for Rudy's campaigns, and the two became close friends. Perpich appointed Gornick to the Metropolitan Stadium Commission.
From 1983 to 1991, Gornick served as chairman of
the commission and was involved in the process that brought the Super Bowl and the Final Four to the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
Gornick and his wife, Carole, are now retired in Chisholm. They have two sons,
Michael and Joel, and four grandchildren.
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