From KXTV News10, Sacramento: Yolo County Korean War hero returns from historic visit to North Korea
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George Warren, KXTV
SACRAMENTO – The Yolo County olive farmer and former Congressman who led a record six bayonet charges in North Korea in 1951 met a North Korean general this week who fought in some of the same battles.
Pete McCloskey, 86, returned to the isolated nation with a non-government-sponsored delegation led by former US Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg.
Gregg told reporters the purpose of the visit, which began Monday, was to “build bridges” between North Korea and the United States.
Although McCloskey had been hopeful the delegation could arrange the release of Korean-American Kenneth Bae, held by North Korea since 2012, Gregg told a South Korean lawmaker that the trip was not focused on any specific issue.
McCloskey’s wife, Helen, said her husband had a “very moving and historic meeting” with a three-star North Korean general who had fought in some of the same battles as McCloskey’s Marine Corps unit, and like McCloskey, had been wounded three times.
“I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am to hear this as Pete has long wanted to journey to North Korea, with the element of reconciliation and shared experience,” Helen McCloskey wrote in an email.
Helen McCloskey was reluctant to attract attention to the trip prior to her husband’s departure from Pyongyang because of the experience of another Korean War veteran, Merrill Newman, who was detained in North Korea for six weeks last year until he offered an apology for his role in the war.
On Friday, McCloskey was on a flight home from Seoul, South Korea and was expected to return to the Bay Area in the afternoon.
McCloskey represented parts of the Bay Area in Congress from 1967 to 1983 and ran against President Richard Nixon in the 1972 primary on an anti-war platform.
He and his wife now grow olives in the Capay Valley and McCloskey is leading an effort to erect a Korean War veterans memorial overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.
From SFGate.com: War hero Pete McCloskey back from reunion in North Korea
John Wildermuth
Updated 3:52 am, Saturday, February 15, 2014
Former Congressman and Korean War hero Pete McCloskey meets with a three-star North Korean general. Photo: Courtesy Pete McCloskey
Los Angeles — For former Peninsula Rep.Pete McCloskey, his return to North Korea after more than 60 years was a trip in a time machine.
In 1951 McCloskey shipped out as a young Marine second lieutenant to join the 1st Marine Division, which had been chewed up in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. When he left Korea less than a year later it was as a hero, with the Navy Cross, the Silver Star and a pair of Purple Hearts.
But it was peace, not war, in his thoughts when he landed in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, earlier this week.
“I feel I’ve had an experience I’ve wanted to have for 64 years, which is to shake hands with one of the young kids I fought against and tell them how bravely they fought,” McCloskey said after landing in Los Angeles on Friday.
The former congressman was in North Korea as part of a delegation from the Pacific Century Institute, an organization that promotes friendship and better commercial ties between the United States and the Pacific countries of Asia, including North Korea.
“I truly believe North Korea wants a better relationship with us,” he said. “They’re very anxious to duplicate the economic success South Korea has had, but need to get corporate leadership they don’t have.”
His meetings with North Korean trade officials weren’t nearly as memorable as his get-together with Ji Young Choon, a retired lieutenant general who fought against the Marines all those years ago.
McCloskey met with Ji at a North Korean war museum, filled with relics of the fighting that included captured American weapons, artillery and even a jeep.
Teary-eyed meeting
Despite the eerie surroundings, it was a tearful meeting on both sides, McCloskey said.
“We saluted each other and then embraced,” he said. “We agreed that we didn’t want our children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren to ever fight in a war.”
The weeklong trip had its disappointments, however.
McCloskey and Donald Gregg, a former ambassador to South Korea who helped organize the trip, tried unsuccessfully to persuade North Korean officials to release Kenneth Bae, a 45-year-old Christian missionary who has been imprisoned in the country for 15 months.
Meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Rhee Young Ho, McCloskey and Gregg asked for Bae’s release. But with North Korean officials unhappy with what they see as unauthorized incursions by U.S. planes into their airspace, the release wasn’t going to happen, the former congressman said.
Since the North Korean government had already rebuffed efforts of an official U.S. envoy to obtain Bae’s freedom, “it was clear that the timing wasn’t right,” McCloskey said.
McCloskey didn’t get to revisit the rugged part of the country where he led his rifle platoon. Like almost all the Americans who visit North Korea, he never made it outside the capital.
Countryside off-limits
“We understood from everyone who’s been there that North Korean officials don’t want you visiting the countryside and talking with the people,” McCloskey added.
His 10 months in North Korea was a baptism of fire for McCloskey.
He saw 58 of the 61 members of the platoon he led either killed or wounded in the heavy fighting.
“I was scared most of my time,” McCloskey said. “But you’re more scared that some other Marine might see that you’re scared.”
But the experience also gave him a face-to-face look at the horrors of war and memories that helped him become the first Republican congressman to come out against the Vietnam War.
“You don’t forget the first time you’re shot at,” he said. “But soldiers who have fought against each other often have a continuing respect for each other.”
Beat Shirley Temple Black
After his service in Korea, McCloskey spent time as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County before opening a private law practice in Palo Alto in 1955. He beat the late Shirley Temple Black in a 1967 Republican primary and was elected to Congress, where he served until 1983.
In Congress, he was known as a maverick, running a no-chance, antiwar campaign against President Richard Nixon in 1972 and becoming the first GOP legislator to call for Nixon’s impeachment after the Watergate scandal. He was a supporter of many environmental issues and was a co-sponsor of the first Earth Day in 1970 and a co-author of the Endangered Species Act.
McCloskey, who now lives on a farm in the tiny Yolo County town of Rumsey, returned to San Francisco on an airplane provided by Burlingame attorney Joseph Cotchett, a longtime friend.
John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com.
Originally appeared at: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/War-hero-Pete-McCloskey-back-from-reunion-in-5237195.php