Marine POW honored with statue

By Kevin McClintock
Carthage Press
Tue Jan 13, 2009, 02:59 PM CST

CARTHAGE, Mo. -

In the frigid hell of North Korea, 79-year-old Carthage resident John S. Graham was shot in the jaw and hip, slashed in the arm by an enemy bayonet, and held prisoner for 22 months before escaping 200 miles on foot into friendly arms. And he did all this for roughly $2 a day.

During a ceremony Monday inside the Leggett & Platt headquarters, dozens paid tribute to the man who helped define the United States Marines’ finest hour more than 50 years ago.

While Graham was too sick to attend the ceremony, his son — long-time Leggett & Platt employee John H. Graham — was on-hand to receive a five-foot-tall eagle statute from Carthage artist Larry Glaze.

“If he’d been here today, we’d all be crying right now,” Glaze said of the North Korean veteran. He admitted he fought back tears upon researching Graham’s wartime feats, including losing fingers to frostbite from 30-below temperatures. The two men hadn’t met until the younger Graham unintentionally brought them together. “There’s not a lot of people left today from the Korean war.”

During the 17-day Chosin Reservoir battle — by far the war’s bloodiest — Graham garnered a number of medals, including Bronze (bravery) and Silver (gallantry in action) Stars, and three Purple Hearts (wounded in battle).

John H. Graham, a 22-year-employee at Leggett & Platt, described his father as a “constant but firm motivation” in his life.

“He’s always been a firm presence in my life — he’s pushed me to be who I am today. He’s a person who likes to do the best he can. “He’s also a very particular man, very quiet, and doesn’t like any attention. Some people do jobs and some people do wonderful jobs, and he did his job to the best he could. But now he just wants to forget about the war.

“Just like today,” Graham continued. “I just told him today about all this, because I knew not to tell him beforehand about this because he would get mad at me. But he just looked at me and said, ‘you know, I was being paid $2.30 a day to do a job — and that’s what I did.’”

Glaze’s bronze creation — “The Warrior” — is an impressive work of art, dominated by an eagle perched on a stump. Alaskan moose antlers serve as the eagle’s wings. Glaze is famous for taking basic elements of nature and forming them into beautiful pieces of art. The eagle’s head is shaped from clay and the eyes are made of glass. Even the stump from which Glaze’s eagle sits is considered special — it was dug up and polished by Graham’s son, Justin, a budding artist himself who happens to work for Glaze.

Said Graham, “I’ve always loved eagles, and my dad is an eagle fanatic — he just loves them — so I thought (Glaze’s art) would be the ultimate eagle for my dad.”

Initially, Glaze and the young Graham came together to talk about the Eagle and its price. Glaze even gave Graham a discount, thinking it was a gift for Justin.

“But then he asked me who this was for and I told him it was for my dad. He called me up a day later and told me he couldn’t take my money — he couldn’t take money from a veteran. He said, ‘No, you’re daddy’s a hero — he’s a war hero and I can’t accept (money).’

The sculpture took about four months to complete, Glaze said.

Jasper County Sheriff Archie Dunn, Leggett & Platt dignitaries and Carthage Mayor Jim Woestman were on-hand to honor the war hero.

During the ceremony, Woestman read a proclamation naming Jan. 12, 2009, as John Graham Day, “in honor of all that he’s done for his country.”

“It means a lot to me,” the young Graham said after the ceremony. “It’s very humbling and very touching.”

Ellie