Now we're going to mark 70 years
since the end of the Korean War.
More than five million
Americans served in that war,
with 500,000 of them still alive today.
John Myers is one of them.
At the age of 93,
he is ready to board a plane for
tomorrow's Honor Flight Bluegras
to see his National Memorial.
And it's as if no time had passd
when he sat down with our Brooke
Hash reliving his days in combat
to talk about it. Now it's just
like like it happened yesterday.
His memories are both a blessing and a curse.
They say war is hell.
War is hell.
It's just you see things that you know
you just don't.
I can't say
it no more about it. John
Myers Service began as a young boy during
peacetime following World War T.
This is basic training,
one of the Johnny Army when I was 17.
So my mother and father had a sign for me. He
spent the next year and a half
in the Panama Canal before he
returned home to civilian life.
But it didn't last long.
I just said I'm going back into the service.
That was in 1950. He was assigned to Japan,
having no idea of the war brewing next door.
This is upcoming.
On like Korea was a real shocke.
Sat down in the bunk bed like,
and what? The did I do
it was after World War Two whene
country was divided by the US and the
Soviet Union at the 38th parall.
The two zones acted as sovereign
states until June of 1950 when
North Korea invaded the South. e
smell there was
awful. There was
there was 2 trucks loaded with .
The GIS. I actually don't even
know what the hell was going on.
We had machine gunfire come at .
You couldn't drink the water.
You couldn't bathe in the water.
So we actually washed our cloths
in our helmets, but gasoline
back on the road, they headed n,
making it further than any
other company during the war.
We had airplanes out there that
jets that would drop bombs and.
Sometimes someone go
astray if they land closer.
My tank actually lifted up and
about a foot off the ground.
Miraculously he was never injurd
and we went through all these ts
relying on the hospitality of locals.
The Korean people fed me and
my the crew. I'm with chicken.
It's just crazy. It was it was
a can't believe it happened
that way that was almost like.
Being second in command on the k
a year into battle, Myers was
asked to take command of the
tank but never got the chance.
He was headed home when I
come back to it was it was
Oh well, So what? No, I mean the
was there was no there was no
high five or high doing. 1.7 min
Americans fought in the Korean ,
often referred to as the forgotn
war between World War Two and Vietnam,
more than 36,000 never made it .
If you know what battle is and
what death is, it's a bad thing.
It's just that's that's all I can say
with photojournalist Jessica Fa.
Brooke Hash WHAS 11 on your side
Now Brooke and photojournalist Jessica
Farley are flying out with Honor Flight
Bluegrass tomorrow to go on this trip,
and now in its 16th year of
flying our veterans to Washingtn
DC to see their memorials.
To date, they've flown over 2000
veterans on over 40 chartered
flights from central and Western
Kentucky and southern Indiana.
And always a big event.
You can welcome home the 84 vets
tomorrow night at the Louisville airport.
You are asked to be there at 9:.
It's always an emotional welcome home.