Answering the call of duty: Dick Leckbee – Korean War

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Dick Leckbee is a veteran of the Korean War and is vice commander of St. Charles VFW Post 5036. (Sandy Bresnner – sbressner@kcchronicle.com)

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ST. CHARLES – By the time Dick Leckbee landed on the Korean Peninsula in January 1955, the shooting had long since ceased.

But as he rode in the back of a U.S. Army truck through the South Korean countryside, his mind had settled on one disquieting thought.

"I just knew that I would never go home and see my mom and my dad ever again," Leckbee said. "I was sure that this is where I was going to die."

And that is why Leckbee, now 73 and of St. Charles, still tears up as he remembers the very early morning 18 months later that he knocked on his parents' door at their home in Quincy.

Upon graduating high school in 1954, Leckbee had promptly declared his intent to enlist.

Though just 18, Leckbee, like other Americans of that era, had an idea of the conditions he might face as a soldier in the U.S. Army.

His brother had only 11 years earlier returned from World War II after fighting in Italy.

And from 1950 to 1953, Leckbee had heard of the horrendous conditions endured by American forces fighting in Korea to repel an invasion by the Communist government of North Korea.

More than 54,000 Americans died during the conflict, which ended in a cease fire agreement when the two sides stalemated.

U.S. troop presence in the years following the war remained strong, however, as South Korea continued to fear a renewed invasion.

And that, said Leckbee, was what led him and a great many others in his unit to believe that Korea would be their last stop on Earth.

"We had that concern all the time," Leckbee said. "We had the ceasefire signed, but what did that mean? You never knew if this was the night everything goes to hell all over again."

Initially, Leckbee was assigned to a quartermaster unit stationed near Seoul. However, he soon transferred to a guard detail, where he played a role in foiling a theft of goods from the base by impoverished villagers.

To protect him from villagers who might seek vengeance, Leckbee was immediately transferred north, where he worked as a subsistence clerk supplying American and allied soldiers at the demilitarized zone with food, clothing and fuel

And it was in that role that he was hitched a ride north with a British unit to see the DMZ.

"It was something, how close both sides were," he said. "It took me a long time to stop thinking that I was going to die there."

Finally, in 1956, his tour of duty ended.

And a few days later, after 17-1/2 months in Korea, a boat ride across the Pacific Ocean and a train trip from Oakland, Calif., Leckbee knocked on his parents' door in Quincy at 4 a.m.

To this day, Leckbee has no regrets about enlisting.

"It was a way for me to serve, to be a part of the defense of this country," Leckbee said. "I had a good tour, all in all."

But when the light came on in his parents' kitchen that early morning half a century ago, Leckbee had never been happier to be home.

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