last updated
Louis "Ted" Capuano
My father, The Korean War Hero and Bronze Star Recipient
I'll be 70 in three years and don't know how long I'll be around so I wanted to leave an account of my father, who was a true war hero.
Louis Ted Capuano received a Bronze Star and Purple heart along with other distinctions for his bravery and sacrifice as a soldier in the Army during the Korean war. He was injured three times by the enemy. The third time, after being almost killed in hand to hand combat with either North Koreans or the Chinese, he was saved by an alert medic who noticed his finger twitch, two days after the battle ended, as he lay unconscious among his brothers-in-arms lying dead on the battlefield.
I miss and appreciate him more today than I did as his young son.
+
When I was a kid about seven years old, I saw a big round circle on
my father’s back about the size of a quarter and asked him what it
was. He told me it was from shrapnel that hit him from an exploding grenade. I was
then confused when he continued that if it hadn’t been for someone seeing his
fingers twitch, then hearing his faint heart beat, he might have
ending up in a body bag with his buddies, and I (and my
four brothers, seven nieces and nephews, two daughters, two grand
children - and others) would never had been born!
Many
16 year old Louis Theodore Capuano enlisted in the Army in 1949, during the Korean conflict (the Korean war hadn't yet broke out), trained in New Jersey as a rifleman and was sent to Korea as part of the occupation force. He received a badge for his accuracy shooting. Years later, I recall my Mom telling me about an incident where he said he could hit a bird in a tree with a BB rifle, a bird she could barely see, which he then dropped in one shot.
When the Korean war suddenly started, he was
immediately sent back to Korea where the early fighting was often brutal, in some cases hand to hand.
At one point dad was hit three times in a matter of days, for which he
later received the purple heart and bronze star, among other
Army pins.
In all four years with the Army,
he sent all of his pay home to his parents, I think without even
being asked
After a long recovery, he was sent to another unit and trained in communications. As a result, he later became very good with electronic and mechanical things, even though he never finished 8th grade and grew up in a poor Italian family with parents who could barely speak English. As a kid, he gathered coal from nearby railroad cars after it leaked to the ground from being loaded, which helped his family of twelve stay warm after he shoveled it into the furnace on their Romeyn Street home.
Theodor Capuano, my Grandfather, his father, emigrated from Italy and was later sent a wife in an arranged marriage where he soon started a family, having 10 children; seven boys, dad being the fifth, and three girls.
Grandpa, who I suspect was a heavy smoker, probably including 'stogies', made his own wine, had an Italian garden in his back yard, red roses out front on white wooden lattice, and grape vines over his back yard vegetable garden. Grandpa was a tall man, over six feet, and operated a jack hammer while working construction in the city of Rochester. I was his paperboy for a couple years and remember him waiting out on the front porch for me to deliver his paper early each morning. I remember him on that same front porch, leaning over and gasping for air from the emphysema likely due to smoking, which ended up taking him at age 70, in 1969. His wife and my Grandma, Josephine, had a deep voice, who I remember often yelling with a heavy Italian accent a lot, but also laughed a lot and brightened everyone’s spirits, especially on Sunday’s when she would make a tomato sauce I and many others grew to love. I recall many Sunday afternoons, many uncles aunts and cousins packed in that very small kitchen eating pasta, and later telling stores, heavy smoke in the air, while playing cards and laughing a lot. I think my father and some of my uncles and aunts got their sense of humor from Grandma and her great sauce, the Sunday ritual, and her yelling then making everyone laugh. Most of my uncles and aunts, and even many cousins, are now gone, but those who remain today still enjoy the flavor of that sauce, and those memories. Grandma died at age 84, years after Grandpa passed.
+
Picture of my dad with his eight remaining brothers and sisters (sister Louise passed before this photo). Top row, left to right, Harry, 'Kiki' Frank, Lawrence, Albert, Ted (dad); bottom row, Robert, Eddie, Marge, Betty)
Although his parents were strict and didn’t have much money (I
remember dad telling me three of four little brothers had to share a
bed), and his education was lacking, he always
impressed me with how smart he was. He could work on and/or repair almost anything - cars, houses,
even buildings. He and his brothers framed new homes,
and later, for Ridge Construction of Kodak, he worked as a carpenter
on the construction of buildings in Kodak park. One time, he was hit by a
falling piece of lumber while building an elevator shaft for
building 65 on the corner of Dewey and Ridge, taking out some of his teeth. If it weren’t for a
hard hat and safety glasses it may have been much worse.
He may have cheated death yet again in that accident.
Dad earlier had built houses with his brothers, a self taught carpenter by trade, learned communications in the Army, and was his own electrician, plumber, auto repairman, and fixer of almost anything electric or mechanical that needed repair. Washers, driers, other appliances, body work, engine repair, televisions, radios, furniture - you name it, he could fix it. He also would mend cloths on Singer sewing machines, and was a good cook – he really was a jack of all trades, and he often would engage us, his sons, to help. I used to think he was using us out of convenience, but most likely he wanted to show us how much he knew and teach us through learning from him.
+
Without finishing
the 8th grade he became an expert at many things. He'd show me many carpentry
shortcuts
that struck me as things only an expert would know. Being the
oldest son, I probably helped him the most around home, which
resulted in me being a jack of all trades of sorts myself.
I remember our frequent family car rides, as he scoured the neighborhood junk piles, sending us out to load the trunk with whatever he thought he could repair and sell. He'd take us with him to the Salvation Army and brought home some really strange “stuff”, usually for a few bucks, he would then repair and sell, and I’d help with much of it. He never really needed our help, but was eager to teach us – you could sense he reveled in it! By strange “stuff”, I mean player pianos with pump pedals and rolls of paper and holes for the notes, professional ironing machines with steam, ringer washing machines, old pedal sewing machines, little 45 record players, console televisions and stereos, and many other items that sometimes barely fit in the trunk, and I often had to ask for a description of, as I had no idea what they were.
+
Mainly, he would fix cars and televisions and do home repairs on the side. He'd pull all the vacuum tubes from a discarded TV or radio, put them in a paper bag and send me to nearby Daws drug store to stick them one by one into a tube checking machine, returning with only the good ones, which he'd then organize in home made cardboard drawers like boxes he setup in the basement. He was so organized. He'd then use the good tubes to repair other tv's and radios. It was so impressive to me that without even a high school education and little family support that he learned so much!
+
Just as his sons learned from helping him, he was always there to help us
as well as we grew older.
My brothers and I
learned so much, from knocking down then moving
interiror walls, to dry walling, masking, painting, laying tile, running plumbing and electrical wires, repairing
engines, fixing old televisions and radios, and on and on. He’d take me to a nearby junk yard
called Burpee’s [sic], where we’d walk the yard and get parts he
needed to repair cars that he bought for practically nothing from
the neighborhood's used car dealers. We’d also bring to Burpee’s
scrap metal like copper wiring he collected and got paid for by the pound,
creating extra income from nothing but hard work and his knowledge.
He did so many things well. He’d cut his own son’s hair with
clippers and barber supplies he purchased from the Salvation Army,
cook the greatest meals, sew and dye our clothes, fix our broken
things, build our own furniture, do our household repairs, and help
us with any repairs or offer great advice as we got older. He
often seemed to know how to do things we didn’t. It was highly
unusual for a young man with an eighth grade education to know so
much! I'm sure he learned a lot of this from his military exeriences,
along with his work life, but he also had an exceptional gift for
utilizing what he already knew and learning more from reading and
study. He spend lots of time at the library and read many many
paperback books, often on history. He was creative and artistic as well. I’ll never
forget him making meals, especially breakfast, taking whatever there
was in the cupboards and refrigerator to concoct
something that most often was very good. His pancakes were always
delicious, and always had something different in them, from
chocolate chips to bananas, to nuts, strawberries or other fruits,
and on and on.
He did a lot of side jobs for extra income, and I remember helping
him fix old apartments, learning carpentry, electrical work and
plumbing by watching and helping. I remember helping him strip wires and wood moldings
from old deserted
houses, like those to be torn down for the ‘new’ 490 expressway near
our apartment on Orange St. in Rochester.
He was a confident guy, never afraid to back down from anyone, but also had a great sense of humor. He was almost always joking and making those around him laugh. It seemed everyone liked him. He stood out. To this day, I’ve never met anyone with the same combination of a great sense of humor and shine who could change on a dime to make people fear him if he wanted to. He couldn't always pronounce his words correctly - he used to say 'yalevin' for eleven, but others were generally impressed with him nonetheless which made him popular. We very often had a lot of company over our house because of him (and my Mom too) - they were such a warm, funny and inviting couple to visit. They truly were. Much of his family, my uncles, aunts and cousins were the same way In this regard. Where most more affluent families would sit at a meal quietly discussing the day's events and the news, to the point you could hear the clang of silver wear against dishes, my family gatherings were of people loudly yelling out their jokes or funny experiences, with smoke filling the air, and occasional vulgar language. Uncles, aunts and cousins were so full of life, their humor was infectious and everyone had a smile, with plenty of belly laughs.
Maybe because my father was overly strict, often going overboard with his first and oldest son, I was insecure and didn't fit in, and I've never got even close to being as charismatic in my own adult life, turning out sort of the opposite in many regards. My father was fearless - even though he had so little to work with. I've had so much more material and education but ended up shy and mundane in comparison.
Even with all of dad's skill, grit and charisma, although he would often stretch the truth, (to this day we don't know for sure if he actually received a bronze star as we have seen the purple hearts and numerous pins, but not that - if not, in my heart he was worthy of it) he would seldom brag about anything. I remember a great boyhood best friend of his, who he kept in close touch with and visited often, who we would call "Uncle", often bragging about how he was always kicking someone’s ass, or about to, and he would just sit there and listen and nod. Although I always respected this man and grew to love him, I sensed skepticism in my father when he listened to him bragging. This happened on many occasions. I knew dad had stories of his own, but other than the the war stories he told us about, he'd rarely brag, and I suspected intuitively that he had probably kicked this friend’s ass as kids and was the dominant one of the two. They claimed they were both the school bullies in grammar school and that's how they met, first as foes, then becoming friends, but I knew my dad was THE Alpha male. That uncle would often brag on my father with stories about their youth. We came to love that Uncle and his wife as well, and we called their kids our cousins, even through no relation.
+As I said, when he got mad, people knew it, but most of the time he was fun to be around and a great father, even though he probably had little example to learn from in his upbringing. He was very strict with me as his first child, and went overboard on many occasions, one time landing me in the hospital, but mellowed out as my younger brothers came along, becoming more compassionate and understanding along the way. He wanted us to be tough and successful, which I'm sure came from his strict upbringing, followed by the regiment of military training. Besides, people and things were so different then, especially for the poorer classes in the 50's and 60's. They truly were. Considering what little dad had to available through family and lack of education and money, in hindsight, I see how great a man, and father, he turned out to be! It's miraculous to me. Many people feel similar ways about their parents for similar reasons, but my father was truly something beyond - truly special and gifted. +
Our father wanted us to be strong. I remember one time at around eight or nine years old, I was teased, challenged face to face, and then sucker punched and knocked out by a local bully who was bigger than I was. When I came to, the kid was gone. I feared telling my father, because I knew he’d put me in the car and track the kid down, even though a part of me wanted to find him. Dad wanted me to be strong and tough, like he was I think, as almost any father would. Unfortunately, someone witnessed the event, told him, and sure enough, he loaded me in the car and off we went searching, with dad telling me to kick the guy’s ass when we found him. He’d say, ‘is that the one… is that him…?”. He promised to watch from the car and not get involved and just wanted me to 'beat his ass'. I was scared, but ready. We never found the kid, so I can't say what would have happened but I'm confident he would have been hit hard at least once. Another time, I told him a customer asked me, his paperboy, if I was a puerto rican when collecting for the paper. Later, I said "dad, do I look puerto rican?" which I had to then explain when prompted for details. Mistake. It wasn't a big deal to me but dad was steaming. I wished I hadn't asked him. He immediately had me jump in the car and directed me to the house in question. As I watched from the car window, I saw him grab a hammer from under the seat, walk to the front door, past the guy and his big barking German Shepard, into the house and out of sight. My heart raced as I envisioned mayhem taking place inside, thinking it was my fault, and pictured my father later in jail and behind bars. When he came out of that house though, he seemed relaxed, but in a little bit of a hurry to get in the car. I asked what happened and all he said was the guy wouldn’t bother me anymore. He wouldn’t say anything else. I was relieved. It's funny now, but scared the hell out of me then. I never found out what happened, but the next time I went to collect from the guy for the newspaper, I was happy he came to the door and was still with us, and he was very respectful, and had a fear in his eyes, always giving me more money in tips than he had before.
+I think dad's sons took after him, but in different ways. I think we were all more 'quietly' confident. I took Judo and wrestling and competed in tournaments across New York State and Canada, and my other brothers played football, boxed, and always excelled at what they did. I remember my parents cheering me on as I competed in Kodokan Judo matches, once in Canada, and once on the Charlotte beach sand in tournaments. I remember a rolled up old 20x30” black and white poster of me pinning a guy in a match on the matt over the Charlotte beach sand. Wish I had that poster today.
I went to a high school that was 80% minority, in a tough neighborhood. I joined the wrestling team, played soccer, and my best friend Leonard and I started taking Judo lessons after school. I remember fighting that same bully that knocked me out years before, in a school hallway, after hearing him calling me a name, charging him, punching him, then knocking him into a wall until a teacher pulled me off. In another incident, in the parking lot coming home from Madison high, another 'tuff guy' from grammar school called me a name and I charged him, but slipped on the ice, hitting my head, and he then kicked in the teeth while holding my foot as I tried to get up, knocking me unconscious and chipping a front tooth. When I came to, my friends were in a circle looking down at me, and I then got up and ran to try and find him, which I never did. Never saw him again. I was later in a fight with a black kid who cut in front of me in the cafeteria line and pushed me out of the way and having to go the principal's office. All this desire to overcome my fears came from my father's influence. I never got more than some speeding tickets throughout my life though, in 67 years of life. I was always that same little scared shy and respectful kid but I learned from my dad that when pushed to the edge, at some point, it was better to face bullies head on, and quickly learned how it usually turns the tables.
I remember my youngest brother Ted, who played Pop Warner football and boxed, driving an opponent back and knocking him down in a boxing ring, and the second oldest, Louie, playing football on both offense and defense for Madison High School, winning the city catholic championship against Aquinas at a packed 20,000 seat Holleder stadium! I'll never forgot the cheers. It sure didn’t seem like a High School football game. Nothing like the scale of that in Rochester today, or so it seems. +
Brothers Teddy and Kenny, played in championship Pop Warner games and won so many of them. My brother Kenny always seemed the best and smartest player on the team, I think playing for Bishop Kearny high school. Dad had five sons, which he dreamed would happen while in Korea, and he made us something to be proud of. Along with a great saint of a mother I might add.
+Earlier, w
hen I was about five, my father packed me and brother Lou into a beat up old car, and with a trailer full of furniture in tow behind, drove to California and started a new life. At one point the car lost third gear, so he had to drive miles in 2nd gear to a repair place where he traded and left the car, trailer and furniture in place of another used but running jalopy to drive the rest of the way. In those days a drive to California was a much bigger deal, especially without air conditioning and having to drive through Death Valley for a hundred miles without a gas station along the way.Dad was in a hurry to leave Rochester for reasons I'm not fully aware of and I won’t discuss here, so after just a week or so of selling what in the house he could, took what was left and headed to Los Angeles, where a couple uncles had already moved. With no advance preparation and very little money, we lived in a large attached room used as a chicken coup for a bit until he found a job and a place to stay, eventually buying a brand new small home for eight thousand dollars, in a new development in La Puente, California. (I drove back to that house about twenty years ago and what was a beautiful large home in my 4 year old mind, was then a tiny house in a very run down area!)
We
all eventually had to come back to Rochester for Mom’s mother, in an
infirmary with Parkinson's for many years, due to taking a turn for
the worse and the call for her to return, so we finally left California for good
and came back after a couple years of fond memories there.
I remember both 8mm Bell & Howell and Kodak wind-up movie cameras, that dad probably got from the Salvation Army, and I’ll never forget the movies he accumulated, which he had ME shoot some of the time. They included scenes of our new home there in California, then in later years in Rochester. He appeared in many of the home movies as a result of me doing the filming at a very young age, one of my vivid memories. Filming was often indoors with a heavy top mounted bar of four very hot, large floodlights. Everyone would wince when they had to turn and look at the camera as the floods were so bright. I remember later watching the films with uncles, aunts cousins and friends many times. In those days, dad would wait for each 50 ft roll to be developed, then splice them together in 200 or 400 foot rolls after editing them using a beat up but working editor, probably from the salvation army, and I vividly remember helping. It had two motorized reels on either end, and you could adjust the speed and direction while watching the footage on a screen in between, with a cutter/slicer underneath that you'd use tape and/or a glue, I remember the strong smell of,to splice together after cutting out bad sections of film. Often, while watching the finished movies on the old projectors, the film would jam on those splices and you'd see the projected still frame melting on screen, so you'd have to turn the lights on to do a quick splice with the a special tape and a smaller splicer before resuming the movie.
The films were of family events, and of things he built, like a wooden train set and wooden airplanes we could sit in out in the backyard, to a wishing well out in the front yard. He was creative. He’d make movies and edit them with that old splicer and he also made many audio recordings on an old reel to reel tape recorder. I still have some of those recordings with our voices as kids, as well as his Californian friends and relatives visiting. He’d do mock recording sessions with people acting out scenarios with laughter and fun in between. Maybe these recordings came about from being in Los Angeles and the influence of nearby Hollywood where dad's brother Harry I was told worked as a carpenter building sets for Universal Studios.
Dad built us a little soap box derby car I and I think my brother Louie raced down a nearby hill in Glendale, which we later watched many times on the home projector. Unfortunately, we lost that footage, along with hundreds more of those 8mm home movies in one of our many moves from apartment to apartment, which pains me to this day. So many happy fond memories, and there were plenty of them, were lost with those paper bags of many reels of spliced and edited film neatly organized and labeled by my father and placed in metal tins. From dad's influence, I myself later accumulated hundreds of my own Beta, VHS, 8mm, and min-DV recordings I shot of my immediate and extended families over the years. I've yet to gather and edit them all. There are some great memories I will be able to share with friends and family, soon I hope. +
As I've been making clear, dad was super creative and always had something new he thought of doing. He seldom spent leisure time laying around, until much later his life when the oxygen tank and his shortness of breath slowed him down. I’m sure he had thirty or more cars as we moved at least ten times before later in his life when he bought his first two houses in Rochester, first on Mohawk Street, then on Traver Circle. Most of those places have degraded into bad and troubled neighborhoods but they seemed much nicer at the time. He had some great old cars that’d be worth thousands today. One of those was a car, he may have borrowed, that ended up in a photo and D&C newspaper article, in which he and his brother, my Uncle Bob, got married to two sisters , Mom and my Aunt Vinnie. The photo was of the four of them, driving down Main Street Rochester in front of the old Sibley department store, before or after one mom and dad's marriage ceremony. I think that car may have been a 1929 Ford model A, like the one below, and I think my Aunt and Uncle were sitting, elevated, in a rumble seat in back.
+
I also remember dad taking me to the local
betting parlors, which he called the 'bookie joints', leaving me in
the car, sometimes for very long periods, as he went inside,
sometimes to play cards, placing bets, and getting parlay sheets for
himself and the friends he passed them out to, to later collect to place their bets through him. One time,
I remember him running back to the car out of breath as the place
was about to be raided.
Often I remember he’d come home with
winnings, and even though he was never a compulsive gambler, he was a
good handicapper and from what I saw, he seemed very lucky as well.
To really know my father, you’d have to know what it was like to be with him, and you’ll get an idea of that from these recollections:
Dad was often embarrassing to me, with his
sense of humor, and loved pretty girls, everywhere! While driving
around with his boys, and my Mom often in the front seat, if he saw
a pretty girl, I’d wince in advance, because I knew what was coming.
He’d roll the window down, beep the horn so a girl would look over,
and yell, loudly, something complimentary but often what seemed
inappropriate to me. I can't think of the exact words,
but they were unique and often very funny, something I could
never have thought of. Often, the girls would smile, then
turn away. I was surprised by the fact most often they'd
smile and turn, and not ignore him or scream something back a
vulgarity! I
imagine he got an even more favorable response when he was alone, especially
when he was younger
He was a
real ladies man. He was a good looking guy in his early youth, from what everyone would
say. With his looks and sense of humor and charm,
women liked him and that was easy to see. I remember as a kid
walking into his bedroom while he was asleep, snoring, uncovered and
in the raw. Without
realizing he was in there, and seeing one of the things that made him such
a hit with the ladies! My father may have been unlucky in money and opportunities, but he was lucky
in ‘other ways’ - beyond what I would thought, and that is, let us
say, in a non-aroused state!
He was always clowning as well. The same way he’d beep the horn,
roll down the window and yell out to pretty girls, he’d often do
to surprise just anyone, as a kick. And
we always knew it was coming. While stopped at a
light right or a corner with car in the adjacent lane, he’d begin by rolling the window down.
As soon as he’d hit
the gas, he’d beep and yell out a vulgarity facing forward, usually something really
embarrassing or unintelligable, resulting in cringes and smiling or laughing out loud. We'd turn and watch
people looking around for
'who
said what', while we watched out the back window. Sometimes he’d just yell out gibberish,
sounding like a combination of Italian and Japanese, but sounded real
enough for the target to looked confused as they tried to figure who
said what! If
was often awkward to me, and
many times upset my Mom, but my brothers or friends who happened to
be with us would sometimes get belly laughs out of it. Mom would
sometimes get visibly upset and yell at him. She was so used to it though
that she’d usually just roll her eyes, and
sometimes laugh. Anyone who knew my father knew he was like that,
and I never met anyone in my life that did
that same type thing, to this day! I had mixed feelings then. Now I
realize he really was a "one off" - in a good way. And I miss it now.
One time, as my brother Louie reminded me recently, he was driving down our little narrow street in front of our apartment on Orange Street, and there was only a single lane because cars were parked on both sides. Another car was coming towards him so both he and dad stopped, bumper to bumper, and they both started beeping their horns. My dad and the other guy were yelling, ‘back up’, and ‘no, YOU back up', until my dad told the kids to get out with him, leaving the empty car right in the middle of the street, and walk into our apartment. From the front window it played out just as dad had planned - the other guy still pissed, but surprised, finally backed up all the way down the street. That was a great laugh then and still today That was my father's toughness, and quick, confident, wit, that I feel to this day was unique and a cut above.
My father would often send me to the corner store for cartons of cigarettes or for grocery items, where he had a line of credit, and I remember the old Italian lady ringing up the sale on one of those vintage adding machines with a crank and roll of paper, tearing off the printed receipt for me, then writing the total in the book to keep track of the total owed. Those cigarettes were Lucky Strikes, Pall Malls and Camels, never with filters, which he chain smoked, eventually giving him the same emphysema his father had, and even though he quit in his sixties, likely a large part in taking him from us years too early.
Dad was a good teacher and coach in multiple
ways, and was active in our sports throughout our lives. In spite of his strict upbringing and the Army,
and with little education, in hindsight, he was an extreme over-achiever, and a
great father. He coached others in sports. He was
mostly self taught. I remember him always falling asleep with a book
in his hand and was always reading, always absorbing. He
amazed us with the facts he knew, especially regarding history. To
this day, I seldom read books, like he did, instead spending hours
reading magazines, and now web pages. Dad had a passion for
learning, maybe due to the fact he knew he wasn’t afforded the same
opportunities he saw around him. I often think how successful he
would have been if he was born to a privileged family and was
afforded the opportunities that go along with that, college, etc. I
think he would have been amazing with a college degree!
I also remember him telling me that he joined the service around 16, even though he was too young, by having someone, other than his parents I believe, sign for him.
Anyway, my father was a true hero, who often predicted the future.
He told my Mom before they got married that he had a dream and was going
to marry her and have five boys. According to my Mom, he said it
several times before and after their marriage and even wrote it in a
letter to her. He often would predict the winner of elections,
current events and political events.
Today, my father is gone, and I’m 67 and possibly not far behind. I have four younger brothers, just like in his dream. My father did so much with so little, from money and education, to opportunity. I never realized when I was very young how special he was, and although he was sometimes too strict with me and went overboard, causing resentment then resulting in much of how I viewed him then, today, I miss him very much and see him in a very different light! I miss him sitting at the kitchen table, helping him with computer and audio video technology he grew with, as he got older, all the while still impressing me with his knowledge and with so much laughter, but mostly by just being a great father! I didn't visit every weekend, and my younger brothers, Kenny, and especially the youngest, Ted, spent much more time with him in his later years, but if he were still here today, I think I'd be there a lot!
Which brings me to the miracle that happened early in his life, which as I said, if it hadn’t, a lot of us, including me, wouldn’t be here today. An Army medic or corpsman, recovering the bodies to zip in body bags after a bloody Korean hand to hand battle, saw my fathers finger move, and then listened and found a faint heartbeat, bringing him ‘back from the dead’! He was unconscious for a week or two after that and then spent about over a month in a hospital, before he was transferred for communications training and then finally able to come home, marry and start a family.
Here is the article that appeared in the Sunday Democrat and Chronicle on September 30th, 1951, two years before I was born, that says it all. To make it easier to read, I've type it out word for word from the article, which is further below.
Title of D&C Article Sept 30, 1951 –
“Saved as from Dead, Korea Veteran Returns”
They say Ted Capuano of 50 Romeyne St., leads a charmed life. And maybe they're right. He's home from Korea with one of the most amazing stories of the peninsula battle.
Ted, a husky young man of 20 who wears corporal's stripes, was hit
three times within four days in the bloody hand-to-hand fighting
around Taegu a year ago. The third time he fell unconscious among
the bodies of comrades who had been killed in the struggle for Hill
223.
He lay there two full days. Soliders from the Army's Graves
Registration Section were preparing the bodies for evacuation and
ultimate burial when one of them noticed Ted's hand twitch in the
involuntary motion of a comatose person.
"Only for that.......," he says, meditatively. And his mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Capuano Sr., six brothers and three sisters can't help nodding their heads in solemn agreement.
Joins Army at 16
Ted enlisted int he Army when he was 16, was overseas and in the
Korean occupation force in 1949, then was shifted to Japan in 1950.
When the Korean war broke out he was with the 2nd Cavalry Division
as a rifleman in B Company, 5th Cavalry Regiment.
They were among the first units committed to the Korean battles.
On Sept. 13, 1950, B Company and other 1st Battalion units of the
5th, were detailed to take Hill 223, held by a fanatical band of
North Koreans. They fought for every inch of ground and in one rush,
Capuano was felled with grenade shrapnel in his thigh. He was
evacuated to a hospital, the metal was removed and he was getting
around fine when an order came down to return all walking patients
capable of holding up in the lines! Ted was among them.
On the 15th, he got nicked again, though not badly. The battalion took Hill 223, but a wild counterattack was launched by the North Koreans and it dislodged the UN forces from their shallow positions. The withdrawal attached a heavy shower of enemy artillery and at the base of the hill, to which the dead had been moved, Capuano was hit a third time - a piece of shrapnel the size of a quarter lodged in his back close to his right lung (and heart).
Recovers in Hospital.
That knocked him out and
he remained unconscious until he was treated in a rear echelon base
hospital. The doctor said they could not remove the shrapnel
(because it was close to his heart) and he was release after 42
days. This time however, he received a transfer to a signal corps
outfit.
"That was lucky, too," Ted says smiling. They
taught me quite a bit about communications.
"I had thought I might stay in the service - after all, I've got
four years to my credit," he said. But when I got back home "and
found out what I've been missing all these years I changed my mind."
He holds the Bronze Star Award, the Purple Heart and the Combat Infantryman's Badge. (Note: and many other metals from the Army.)
.
With air and artillery support, men of Company C, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, advance on "Hill 45" near Ichon, Korea, after three days of bitter fighting for the objective. January 29th, 1951.
Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, on 19 October and was the first American unit to do so.[15]
Captain J. W. Finley of Hazelhurst, GA., Co. F, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, although suffering from severe neck and face wounds as a result of an exploding Chinese grenade, braces himself upright between two Jeeps and refuses to leave until he has finished directing first aid treatment and evacuation of wounded men of his company. 22 February 1951.