Bronxville resident and author, Daniel Wolfe will discuss his latest memoir, Coming Home: A Soldier Comes Home from Korea on Apr. 14 at the Will Library in Yonkers.
Read the press release below and visit danielwolfebooks.com for further details.
"Everything came late for Danny Wolfe.
At an age when most octogenarians are dangling their grandchildren on their knees and taking long winter naps, Wolfe works out vigorously at a Yonkers gym every other day and looks years younger than his 81 years.
He also exercises his mind. This month, the 10-year Bronxville resident has completed a self-published trilogy of his life that spans some 75 years. It takes him from his youthful adventures of growing up in a tenement, playing with his friends on the asphalt streets of the Bronx, through the military draft and the horrors of the Korean War and his return home. He went on to college under the GI Bill and made a career as a teacher for 35 years.
His latest book, Coming Home: A Soldier Comes Home from Korea, traces his days after returning to civilian life. The journey itself was filled with pain as well as laughter. After retiring in 1995 as a biology teacher from Jane Adams High School in Fort Apache, the Bronx, he moved to Florida. Three weeks later his beloved son David died as the result of an accident.
Shortly after, he received a phone call from his former sergeant, whom he had last seen 45 years before as he lay severely wounded on a a litter. Since Wolfe had helped the guys in his company write love letters to their sweethearts and wives, his sergeant asked him to write a newsletter for the veterans of company L, 15 th Regiment, Third Division. The reunion with the surviving men of his company at Fort Stewart, GA. opened a floodgate of emotions that he had kept bottled up for half century. It also brought back the terror he had encountered as an infantryman in Korea, leading to sleepless and restless nights. A psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration concluded that he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The reunion revisited the entire trauma he had experienced in Korea. “I had never spoken about Korea to my wife or my children,” Wolfe said. “I decided to write about it in order to let them know what I had been through.”
From Florida he and his wife moved to Chapel Hill, NC, where he studied writing at Duke University. In Chapel Hill, Congressman David Price became aware of Wolfe’s heroism in 1952 and submitted the necessary papers from Wolfe’s commanding officer to the Department of the Army. As a result, Wolfe was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor in 1998, 45 years after his heroic action.
Later, returning to Bronxville, he studied memoir writing at Sarah Lawrence College and the Hudson Valley Writers Center, where he began his first book, Cold Ground’s Been My Bed: A Korean War Memoir.
Wolfe recalled, when he was first shown his bunker on the frontline, he asked his bunker buddy, “Where do we sleep?” His buddy pointed to the damp ground. Wolfe replied, “My mattress at home had its springs popping out. My mother put a blanket over it, but this is ridiculous.” The GI responded by singing a blues song by Brownie McGhee, “Rocks have been my pillow, cold ground’s been my bed, the stars have been my blanket, and the blue sky’s has been my spread.” From that, Wolfe collected the title, “Cold Ground’s Been My Bed.”
“After basic training I was sent to the front line of Korea where I was handed a 20 lb. Browning automatic rifle. It wasn’t long before I found that it was the target for the enemy because of its massive firepower. In a few months I volunteered to be a runner. Communicating between the point man and the platoon leader when on a patrol or raid was my new asignment. Now I had a lightweight carbine.”
On one raid, after encountering the enemy, Wolfe saw one of the sergeants lying wounded. On the field of fire, he crawled twenty feet through blasts from concussion grenades, and burp gun fire to drag Sgt. Robert Massengale towards the edge of an 80-foot cliff above the Imjin River. Halfway down, he discovered that the sergeant was dead. Grabbing bushes, he slid down to the river with his sergeant in his arms, and floated him to a friendly position where the Graves Registration collected him. His company commander who saw the action cited Wolfe for the Silver Star, but a mortar round blew up the Jeep carrying the citation. Instead, the Department of the Army awarded him the Bronze Star with a “V” for valor.
“The book was well received,” Wolfe continued. “Prof. Brigit Farley at Washington State University uses it when she teaches The Cold War. It is available for young cadets seeking soldier’s stories, in the West point Library. My wife, Sheila, who has public relations experience, helped me get the word out. We met at Jane Adams High School and have been married for 49 years.” The Wolfes have two married children and four grandchildren.
His next effort was Seabury Place: A Bronx Memoir, a world of “I cash clothes”, The Sweet Potato Man, The Jelly Apple Man, The Knife Grinder, The Lineman and the Organ Grinder. It was a world of the Great Depression. But, it was also a world of children, who found playtime and laughter amid the poverty.
It’s the story of a skinny teenager living with his immigrant parents, a brother and an uncle (to help with the rent). He went to work after graduating high school to help his parents with expenses. While working for the New York Central Rail Road at the West 72 St. freight yard, he received his notice to appear for a physical.
The third book, Coming Home: A Soldier Returns From Korea. has just been published. The Korean War, sometimes called the Forgotten War, is now 60 years old, but Wolfe’s memory has not dimmed. The trilogy is the story of his family and how their lives changed over the course of more than half a century. Above all, it is upbeat, warm and unyielding.
Everything may have come late for Danny Wolfe, but some things are worth waiting for."
