Two Korean War veterans are reunited after 57 years

By William K. Alcorn | June 25, 2008 at 12:10a.m.

AUSTINTOWN — Fifty-three soldiers from the Army’s 5th Regimental Combat Team went up an unnamed Korean hill on a night patrol just north of Seoul, and ran into a Chinese ambush at about 1 a.m.

Just 13 made it down the hill alive out of that chaos of wounded and dying men, gunfire and explosions.

Among that lucky baker’s dozen were Pfcs. John T. Pariza, then of Youngstown, and Ralph Yovino, then of Long Island, N.Y., and now of Montgomery, Texas.

Pariza was shot in the leg during the fighting and could not move. Yovino’s helmet was blown off by a grenade or mortar shell explosion, he isn’t sure which. Shrapnel ripped a gash in his forehead, blew out his right eardrum and injured his right eye, damaging his sight.

Yovino had put the medical dressing from his first aid kit on his forehead, and while making his way down the hill, came upon Pariza and stopped to help him. He put Pariza’s first-aid patch on the wound on the front of his leg, picked him up and carried him down the hill.

“I don’t think I got hit right away. It was scary. If Ralph had not carried me down that hill, there is no doubt I would have died. The Chinese did not take wounded prisoners,” Pariza said.

“Americans don’t leave their buddies behind,” Yovino said.

It was March 23, 1951, and the Korean War was in full swing. The war got under way 58 years ago today, June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea,

Pariza and Yovino spent the rest of their time in Korea together in the same unit, I Company, and even came back to the states on the same ship, the USS Private Joseph P. Martinez.

They were sent to Fort Lewis, Wash., and from there to separate duty stations: Pariza to Camp Polk, La., where he trained new recruits and from where he was discharged in August 1953, and Yovino to Camp Kilmer, N.J, from where he was discharged.

Then the two men, friends who had met on the front lines in Korea in 1951 and had depended on each other for survival in battle, lost track of each other.

Pariza, 75, of Austintown, formerly of West Middlesex, Pa., fresh in the United States from Romania, had dropped out of Hayes Junior High School in Youngstown and joined the National Guard. A year later, he enlisted in the regular Army and arrived in Korea in August 1950.

He has three daughters: Jill Pariza of Austintown, Janice Pariza Bender in Colorado, and Terri Simpson of Youngstown. His fiancee is Beverly Poidmore of Boardman. He worked several years at Republic Steel Corp. in Youngstown, and then 30 years at Wheatland Tube Co. in Wheatland, Pa., retiring in 1993.

Yovino, 79, served on active duty in the Army’s 3rd Division in 1948 and 1949 and was in the Army Reserve when he was called back to duty during the Korean War. He arrived in Korea in January 1951. Yovino and his wife, Nancy, have two children and four grandchildren.

“I’m bad on remembering names,” said Pariza, explaining why he could not find Yovino when he tried. “I remembered Ralph, but not his last name. I called the regimental association to get a roster, but our records had been destroyed in a fire in St. Louis, Mo.”

More than half a century went by, and Yovino was attempting to get benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs but did not have a record of his wounds suffered in Korea because he hadn’t gone to the hospital for treatment.

“I told the VA John Pariza could verify it, but I was never able to find him because I had his name spelled wrong. I thought he was Italian and I spelled it ‘Parrissa,’” Yovino said.

Then something happen that brought the two men back in contact with each other, leading to a reunion on May 10 at Cleveland International Airport and a visit to the Korean War Memorial in Wickliffe Park in Austintown.

“He hugged me and kissed me at the airport,” Yovino said of Pariza.

“It felt so good to get together with him. If it wasn’t for Ralph, I wouldn’t be here,” Pariza said.

How did they find each other 57 years after coming home?

A friend of Yovino’s, using the Internet, found a name on the 5th Regimental Combat Team Web site that sounded like the one for which Yovino was looking.

“It was the same company and everything, so it had to be him,” Yovino said.

The 5th RCT Association called Pariza and told him: “This guy is looking for you.”

Excited, Pariza called Yovino, but he wasn’t home, so Pariza left a message.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing on my message machine. I choked up. I called him back the same day, and we began making plans to meet,” Yovino said.

Yovino flew here from Texas for their May reunion, but stayed only a couple of days because his wife was recovering from an illness at home. They were interviewed during their visit to the Korean War Memorial in Austintown.

“We put the memorial here so the Korean War is not forgotten,” Pariza said.

From June 25, 1950, to July 27, 1953, when the cease fire occurred, the U.S. military suffered 54,246 total deaths, including 36,574 in-theater, of which 33,739 are combat deaths; 4,549 missing in action; and 1,891 captured and declared dead.

Since their reunion in May,Pariza and Yovino have spoken many times by telephone, and may get another chance to reminisce this coming weekend.

Yovino is planning to return to Youngstown for a ceremony Sunday at the memorial in Austintown, where Korean War Veterans Chapter 137 will conduct a Laying of the Roses ceremony in honor of the 120 veterans killed in action whose names are inscribed on the memorial.

Also that day, Chapter 137 and the Tri-State Marine Corps Detachment Honor Guard will unveil and dedicate a new plaque placed at the memorial in honor of Marine Pfc. John D. Kelly, who was killed in action in Korea in 1952 and was awarded posthumously the Medal of Honor.

Kelly was born in Youngstown on July 8, 1928.

Returning to their talk about the war, Pariza said he spent eight weeks in the hospital in Japan recovering from his leg wound before going back to Korea.

Yovino said, “John jokingly told me I almost killed him. I had put his patch on the front of his leg, but didn’t have anything to plug the hole in the back of his leg. He told me he almost bled to death,” Yovino said with a laugh.

Yovino said he never went to the hospital with his injuries. It was the same with Pariza when his elbow was damaged by shrapnel earlier in the war. He said he didn’t report it because he wanted to stick with his outfit.

“That happened a lot, thousands and thousands of times,” Yovino said.

alcorn@vindy.com