Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 17, 1994 TAG: 9409200032
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By CLAUDINE WILLIAMS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But when he was captured by North Koreans one cold winter night in 1950, Gray was condemned to a prison he never would forget.
A ceremony held in the Veterans Administration Medical Center chapel in Salem on Friday helped Gray remember the friends who suffered with him in prison camps throughout Korea and others who still are missing.
"If you were wounded it is terrible," Gray said. "But when you are held as a prisoner of war, and are later called free, you learn you are never really free. You can forgive but you can never forget.
"People say to just forget it, but you can't. They say to just accept what happened to me and to just move on. For the sake of the future, I have to remember."
Although sympathetic family members and friends say they understand the way Gray feels, he says that only the men who were captured with him know what he went through.
The ceremony honoring ex-POWs and MIAs featured a brief round of speakers and a choir. It was capped with a trumpet's soulful moan of "Taps."
All the way through, Gray's mind conjured up faces of friends and acquaintances imprisoned with him in North Korean work camps.
There were many names, Gray said. He spent time in more camps than he can remember. The North Koreans constantly moved prisoners in order to prevent friendships and organization among them.
He can't put names to some of the faces. For others, he can remember only partial names, or a funny story.
There was the man everyone called Johnstown, because that was his Pennsylvania hometown. Others were known around the camps by only their last names: Suarez, Calvery, Richmond.
Gray smiles when he remembers Tinsley, a soldier who worked in a movie theater and talked incessantly about all the movies he'd seen.
The North Koreans released Gray in 1953. He married and returned to Roanoke to raise a family. The VA Medical Center became an intricate part of his life.
Gray's daughter, Robin Layman, grew up to become a registered nurse. His second daughter, Jennifer, became a therapist. Both women attended clinical classes at the center.
Gray's son, John Robert, always wanted to join the Navy, and is now an officer.
Gray says he does what he can to help veterans still suffering from the war.
"I cannot forget the past," he said as ex-POWs filed out of the chapel, "but I have learned to accept it and to move on."
by CNB