By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
As a young boy, I was often held spellbound while listening to my father’s stories about his time in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War Conflict.
The accounts he shared were compelling, despite the fact that he wasn’t called on to serve in the war zone overseas. He was married and stationed at Camp Pendleton, in California, and two months before his military stint ended, I was born at a naval hospital in Corona. Our family matriculated back to Northern Kentucky, where I was raised.
Eric “Rick” Lee, now living in Harrodsburg, also listened with interest to the military-related stories — especially those of World War II -— told by his father, relatives and others while growing up in Chicago. Not only that, he was fascinated with seeing them in uniform and, he recalled, “sensing the uniqueness that surrounded them.”
Lee is a Gulf War veteran and also has worked in the corporate world, including a stint at Corning Inc., in Harrodsburg, and currently with Hobart. His life is a full one these days. He lives his passion for America’s WW II veterans, and in 2013, wrote a book about them, called Tribute to Valor and Courage: Narratives of American Service Men and Women During World War II. He also is a speaker, sharing many of the stories included in his book, and he is a member of the Central Kentucky World War II Roundtable, which meets in both Richmond and Berea.
One of the fascinating narratives told in his book is about Frank Buckles, one Lee called “an American doughboy.” He interviewed the 108-year-old Buckles a few years back, reporting that the elderly man was the last known living World War I veteran at the time.
Lee found Buckles to have experienced an extraordinary life. At age 15, young Frank traveled ahead of his family while they moved from Missouri to Oakwood, Oklahoma. His mode of transportation was horses and a boxcar. He met up with a banker there and was hired as a bookkeeper at the bank before his 16th birthday. At 16, Buckles lied about his age and joined the U.S. Army, and in 1917, rode on the Atlantic Ocean aboard the RMS Carpathia, the ship used to rescue survivors from the sinking of the Titantic in 1912.
His unit eventually was assigned to Winchester, England, and his first assignment was as an ambulance driver and escort for visiting dignitaries. Later, Buckles spent time in France as an officer’s escort and also escorted German prisoners of war. He stayed in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) after the war ended in 1918, finishing his term and sitting foot back in America in 1920. He counts meeting the noted General Pershing as one of his highlights of being in the service.
As a civilian, according to Lee’s book, Buckles worked in the steamship business, and he traveled across the world. On an assignment in 1941 to Manila, in the Philippines, Buckles became trapped there during the Japanese invasion a day after Pearl Harbor surprise attack. Lee noted that the former soldier had served in WWI had now become a civilian captive in WW II.
He endured incarceration at two prison camps on the island of Luzon until the end of the war in 1945, when an American rescue force of paratroopers from the 11th Airborne Division freed him and his compatriots. Buckles, said Lee, “survived near starvation and sickness coupled with overcrowding and rapidly deteriorating circumstances.”
Lee concluded his words on this amazing man by calling him “the bridge between two wars.”
It’s collecting those kinds of stories and sharing through the written word and speaking engagements that consume Rick Lee in his rich and full life. He self-finances his trips to meet veterans by some money from book sales and small honorariums as he speaks; he also has used yard sales to support his work. His love for Americans who have served their country is the motivation for his efforts.
“I’ve got to do this,” emphasized Lee. “I’m afforded the opportunity. When I think I have my toughest days, it skims the surface of what some of these people went through.”
What Sandy and Ann Klein went through validates Lee’s words about the need to share these stories. He tells of the romance between the two Jewish Hungarians that started when they met over 80 years ago in an elementary school some 60 miles from Budapest.
They continued as sweethearts in high school, but with a growing unrest in the country -— especially for Jews — as a result of Hitler’s rise to power, Sandy’s family had their son sent to the United States, where he joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 as WW II raged. Ann stayed in Hungary with her family, but she would be departing the land to undergo a hellish experience.
The events involving both families living in Hungary proved chilling. Sandy, Lee reported, said: “They killed her parents, my parents; everyone’s parents died.” Ann survived the gas chamber at Auschwitz only because at a checkpoint, the infamous “Angel of Death,” Josef Mengele, pointed her to the left, leading to harsh treatment in the prison though escaping death in the chamber.
Amazingly, Ann miraculously survived the Auschwitz prison camp. In 1946 and after the war, Sandy made contact with her after an unrelenting search. They had not seen each other since 1938. Soon, they were married and moved to the United States.
Sandy eventually received a doctorate degree from Indiana University, and he practiced psychology in Louisville until retiring at age 80. He and Ann have been married for over six decades, with a wealth of shared remembrances, both before and during their married life.
There are a couple dozen stories like these in the book, and Rick is working on another, which will include his own father’s military account.
On the far western tip of Kentucky, another passionate advocate for America’s veterans, Sandy Hart, duly respects the work of Rick Lee.
“Rick Lee is a young man who touched my heart with his devotion toward the veterans and their stories,” she said. “He traveled to Wickliffe, Kentucky, to see the Kentucky Veteran & Patriot Museum and me and get the ‘story behind the story.’ Once hooked, the search for heroes is all-consuming, but fully rewarding.”
If you have a story to share with Rick, desire to have him speak to your group, or would like to buy a copy of his book, visit the web site at rickslee.net or email Rick at rick@rickslee.net, or by mail: Rick Lee, P.O. Box 232, Harrodsburg, Ky. 40330.
Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of six books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and five in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. Steve’s “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #4,” was released in 2015. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly NKyTribune columnist and a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)