Howard Schuette bears a scar on his right leg, where a bullet ripped into his ankle on Dec. 1, 1950, on Hill 1221 near the Chosin Reservoir in Korea.
He also bears a few other scars that are a little harder to see.
"I think about the Korean War all the time, although I don't know why," Schuette said at his home in Plato, Minnesota. "Sometimes I think about what the big brass did and why. I suppose they had their reasons, and I suppose that's what happens when you're sitting at a desk and you're not on the front lines.
"To me, the whole idea of the Korean War was a waste of time. And the same thing in Vietnam. If you can't finish them, don't start them.
"Although I suppose I'd do it all over again."

Schuette's most vivid memories of Korea revolve around a few days near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. Like many other Chosin survivors, he wonders about the American military strategy that went into the military disaster around the large, frozen reservoir.
"They just didn't know how many Chinese there were, I suppose. There were just thousands and thousands of them. We didn't stand a chance."
Schuette was a regular army soldier whose unit had landed at Inchon earlier in the year and fought through Seoul.
He had enlisted in the army in 1949 after graduating from Glencoe High School. "I was looking for action, just wanting to get away from home."  He trained at Fort Riley, Kansas, and was in preparation for Officer Candidate School when the needs in Korea took precedence.
After a month training at the base of Mt. Fuji, the troops left for Korea.
As they headed north into Seoul, they got their first taste of action. "We were trying to clear out an old monastery, and the bullets were flying around. They were snipering at us."
At one point, Schuette encountered a North Korean soldier. "You just start shooting, it's actually pretty easy. It's you or him."
As the enemy troops fell back north of Seoul, the Seventh Division was loaded on a train and taken south to Pusan at the tip of Korea. There they were loaded on ships and taken up the coast to Iwon where they landed unopposed on Oct. 29.
The men marched the 64 miles to the city of Hagaru, on the southern tip of the Chosin Reservoir, without encountering the enemy. The reservoir was built by the Japanese to supply Korea with electrical power.
Schuette's Able Company, part of Task Force Faith, worked its way up the east side of the reservoir and was dug in north of one of the bays of the reservoir. At first it was quiet, but on Dec. 1 at about 4 in the morning, the attack began.
"The Chinese knew more than we did, and they really set us up. We didn't know much about them, but they knew all about us. I could hear the bugles and the troops were yelling 'Rotation Able Company. Rotation Able Company.' They knew exactly who we were."
Schuette carried a 47-lb. recoilless rifle with him, and served in the company's heavy weapons platoon. The platoon was held further back than the other platoons, and he was spared some of the overwhelming force of the attack.
At one point, Schuette had his weapon lined up on a Chinese tank only 300 yards up the road, but his commanding officer refused to give him permission to shoot it because he might expose their position. "I lugged that thing all over Korea, and that was the only time I had a chance to shoot it, and he wouldn't let me. I had that tank right where I wanted it."
What was left of Able Company retreated back to a perimeter near an extended bay of the reservoir. With their backs to the water, the GIs made a stand. "By this time, most of the first, second and third platoons were completely wiped out. The CO was dead, the command post had been hit by a mortar. There were 50,000 Chinks around us."
In his foxhole, Schuette hunkered down to escape the constant mortar attacks from the Chinese. At one point he noticed something had happened to his helmet, although he hadn't heard anything.
He took off his helmet and discovered that a piece of shrapnel had entered the back of the helmet, leaving about a one-half inch hole, had gone through the air space and the liner, and had exited in the front of the helmet. The shrapnel never touched his head.
They stayed there all that day and all that night and then headed south again in a convoy, with scores of wounded loaded in the trucks. They had received additional ammunition earlier from an airdrop into the perimeter.
The only other air support ended in a tragedy. Two American planes came in below the low hanging clouds, and dropped napalm on the American positions. "They also were strafing our guys. They just couldn't see what they were doing. I saw Col. Faith shoot two men who were on fire. There was nothing that could be done for them."
On the long walk down, under continuous firing and shelling from the enemy, Schuette at one point helped a wounded GI into a truck. By this time, Schuette only had a hand gun for a weapon, and he traded the pistol for the GI's rifle and a bandolier of ammunition.
"As we walked along, one of my buddies was hit. I gave him my first aid kit, and he just told me to keep going. He was such a big guy, I couldn't carry him."
As the convoy headed south, the Chinese blew up one of the bridges. Trapped in an open area, the Chinese began to decimate the American line.
The Chinese had 50 caliber machine guns set up in the higher ground near the road. "They shot the drivers first."
When the trucks were stopped, they were sometimes overrun by the Chinese troops. "The trucks were burning and you could see the Chinese all around, stripping the clothes off the bodies and taking the boots."
Schuette made it across the river on foot and headed south, trying to get over Hill 1221.
"I was just getting over the top when I slipped on the snow." His feet went flying and he ended up on his back. "It probably saved my life."
Just as he slipped he encountered a Chinese soldier just a few feet away. The Chinese fired at the sprawling Schuette, but only hit him in the leg. "I fired back and he didn't fire at me anymore."
The bullet had gone through Schuette's boot, his overshoe, two pairs of socks, long underwear and two pairs of pants. The layers may have prevented the bullet from doing more damage. As it was, the bullet had entered in his ankle and had lodged six or eight inches higher in his leg.
"It just felt like somebody had slapped my leg. There really wasn't much pain at first, and I was able to walk on it. There wasn't much bleeding. It's sort of like when you shoot a deer and he keeps on running for a while."
In a short time, though, the leg began to get very painful, and Schuette's rifle became a crutch. "By this time I was out of ammunition anyway.
"There was no organization by this point. None. Everyone was dispersed. I think everyone realized it was every man for himself."
Schuette and a couple other GIs first hid out in some cattails alongside the water's edge, and then headed out on the frozen reservoir to get away from the Chinese attackers. "We were a quarter mile out, and they were still shooting at us."
After a hike down the reservoir, the GIs were met by Marines in a jeep. They asked if anyone was wounded, and Schuette, unable to walk by this time, was given a seat in the vehicle. He was taken back to Hagaru and eventually airlifted to Japan.
Of the 3,200 men in the two task forces on the east side of the reservoir, only 1,000 escaped death or capture and only about 320 were able to fight when they reached Hagaru. They faced a grueling and dangerous walk to the sea to be evacuated.
After two months of recuperation, Schuette rejoined his unit in February and fought for another eight months or so on the Main Line of Resistance. He served a total of 14 months on the line.
"When I got back to Able Company, I was the only one left from the guys who had gone up to the reservoir. It was all new guys."
After the war, Schuette spent most of his working career farming. He retired in 1985, and now spends as much time as possible on the golf course.