The Graybeards - Korean War Veterans Association

Sister Remembers Brother Killed in Korean War
Above, Gernilee Carter walks along the long,
black polished black granite wall that features
25,000 images of support troops during the
Korean War. Photo by Rudi Williams.
At right, Gernilee poses by a photo of her late
brother, Army Pfc. Donovan “Don” Carter. She
affixed the photo to the shiny, black granite
wall of the Korean War Veterans Memorial.
Photo by Rudi Williams.
By Rudi Williams
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 14, 2003 -
Gernilee Carter, 58, was only 5 years old
when her brother, Donovan “Don” Carter,
then 18, became one of the first casualties
of the Korean War when he was killed on
July 12, 1950.
Some 50 years later, July 27, 2003, she
made her first journey to the Korean War
Veterans Memorial on the National Mall
for DoD’s anniversary of the signing of the
armistice ended fighting.
Carter attached a black and white photo
of her brother to the memorial’s shiny,
black granite wall. She said there hasn’t
been a day in more than 53 years that she
hasn’t thought about the death of her
beloved brother.
His “little sister,” and the youngest of
five siblings, Carter said she and Don were
close. She remembers him as “big, handsome,
cuddly, loving and happy.”
“He adored me. He was my first love,”
Carter said.
“He ‘lied about his age,’ as the saying
goes, to join the Army in 1948,” Carter said
she found out after she got older. “His date
of birth was Feb. 28, 1932. He wrote upon
enlistment that he was born in 1930.”
On July 5, 1950, Task Force Smith, the
1st Bn., 21st Inf. Regt., 24th Inf. Div., was
the first U.S. unit to engage the North
Koreans, she noted. And her brother’s unit
– Co. M, 3rd Battalion, 21st Regt., 24th Inf.
Div. — followed “immediately,” she
added.
According to the information on the
Web site for DoD’s commemoration of the
50th anniversary of the war, most of the
men were 20 years old or less; only onesixth
had seen combat. The Americans
were vulnerable to enemy flanking attacks,
lacked the means to stop enemy tanks and
were without reserves. Carter’s extensive
research indicated that her brother’s company
was “totally surrounded by the North
Koreans armed with Russian-built T-34
tanks. The result was not wonderful and
I’ve never forgotten him for a day.”
“I have an individual personnel file that
tells exactly where his remains were, where
they took them temporarily and what they
were wrapped in,” Carter said. “I know
everything, even every wound he had.”
The remains of Army Pfc. Donovan
“Don” Carter were brought home to his
family about three years after his death
on the Korean battlefield. They were
buried in a cemetery across the street
from where the family lived in
Northumberland, Pa.
“Mother couldn’t handle that, so we
had to sell the house and move away,”
Carter noted. The family moved across
the Susquehanna River, “for my mother’s
peace of mind.”
She said no one else from her family
came to DoD’s recent 50th anniversary
recognition or to visit the Korean
War Veterans Memorial, “because they
found this all too painful.”
Carter didn’t attend the dedication
of the memorial in 1995, but said she’s
active on the Internet with the Korean
War chat line. On Aug. 1, she attended
a “Tiger Survivors” dinner in
Northumberland. They are a group of men
who survived harsh treatment by the North
Korean major who American prisoners of
war called “The Tiger.”
She e-mailed a message that day saying
she was “quite excited and nervous” about
talking with her brother’s Company M
comrades who “were with him in battle
when he died.”
Carter said she also stays in touch with
others who were in the battle with her
brother. One, Jack Higdon, whom she said
miraculously survived, went on to earn the
Silver Star Medal for valor in Vietnam.
“He says Vietnam was a piece of cake
compared to Korea,” Carter said.
“Death affected the family profoundly
Continued on page 69
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