ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 30, 1996 TAG: 9604300067
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FLINT, MICH.
SOURCE: JONATHAN BOR THE BALTIMORE SUN
IT'S NOT DRAMATIC STUFF, the frostbite that claimed the fingers, toes and limbs of many who served in Korea. But as the vets age, their pain increases.
Thousands of men who limped home from the Korean War, hurt not by bullets but by relentless subzero cold, are making painful discoveries four decades later. Frost-injured limbs unexpectedly are getting worse with age.
Most of the afflicted are veterans who fought and froze on the windblown mountains above North Korea's Chosin Reservoir - scene of a disastrous battle in which Allied forces were overwhelmed by invading Chinese and by temperatures hovering near 30 below zero.
``I always had problems, but I never paid too much attention to them until I got older and I started getting worse and worse and worse,'' said Ernest J. Pappenheimer, a former Marine gunnery sergeant who lost all his toes to frostbite and today leads a national advocacy group for cold-injured veterans.
``Any front-line soldier or Marine has got to have a problem. And I was probably more fortunate than most of the victims.''
Pappenheimer, 68, spends winters in Louisiana to escape the cold, returning each spring to his home in Michigan. Even now, at his lakeside house near Flint, his feet burn at night when the temperature dips below 50.
Year-round, his stumps and heels are prone to dangerous infections and wounds that won't heal. And his joints ``crackle like Rice Krispies,'' a reminder of the deterioration caused by 45 years of walking on stubby feet.
The battle at the Chosin Reservoir lasted about a week toward the end of 1950, ending in retreat. It is assumed that nearly all the 18,000 Allied soldiers and Marines who fought there suffered frostbite or some ``cold injury.''
But the victims were scattered by time and place, their symptoms poorly understood until a group of men who fought under the same extreme conditions came together.
It happened in a San Diego hotel in 1985. Several hundred veterans were gathering for the first meeting of a national organization called the Chosin Few. The former Marines and soldiers had met to reminisce. But as they looked around, they were dumbfounded.
``Everybody was having problems walking, getting up,'' Pappenheimer said.
They complained of excess sweating, malformed toenails, infected stumps, skin cancer and cold sensitivity. Many had moved south to escape cold winters.
The revelation that cold injuries were revisiting so many veterans mobilized the Chosin Few.
Pappenheimer helped organize a committee that educates veterans and doctors about the latent effects of frostbite and cold injury.
Frostbite occurs when ice crystals form inside tissues, destroying cells and blood vessels as the crystals expand. Although less extreme, cold injury is an insidious condition in which prolonged exposure constricts vessels - cutting off circulation like a tourniquet. Extremities can die from lack of blood flow even though they don't actually freeze.
In either case, surviving tissues are often left with damaged blood vessels and nerves. The natural forces of aging, such as impaired circulation, can make once-manageable ailments intolerable. No doubt, the phenomenon has been experienced by other frostbite victims - from veterans of ancient wars to children lost in snowy woods.
The Chosin Few sent delegations to Washington, lobbying and finally persuading the Department of Veterans Affairs to change its outlook toward ex-servicemen disabled by the cold. The government is now approving about 600 claims a year, many of them filed by veterans of Korea.
The Chosin Few contend the message that claims are being approved has not filtered down to VA hospitals and claim centers. They say doctors know little about delayed symptoms and have unfairly dismissed complaints as psychological - even if the veterans fought at the frozen reservoir. This, they say, has led to many benefits being denied unjustly.
Pappenheimer, a farmer's son, wanted to make a career of the military. But in late 1950, five years after he enlisted, it was his misfortune to take part in the disastrous drive to the Chinese border - a move that drew half a million Chinese troops into the war and thrust Allied troops into the region's coldest winter on record.
Nowhere were conditions worse than at the Chosin Reservoir. U.N. troops were encircled for more than a week, beset by nighttime ambushes and piercing cold.
``It was a living hell for those troops,'' Pappenheimer recalled. ``Warming tents? What warming tents? Hot food? What hot food? You know, if you built a fire on the front lines, it would give away your position exactly.''
Inside sleeping bags, a person's exhalations would condense and freeze zippers shut. Trapped, some Marines and soldiers were bayoneted where they lay. Others used the bags as blankets and slept directly on frozen ground.
In the nearby village of Hagaru-ri, Dr. Stanley I. Wolf, who now has an allergy practice in Montgomery County, Md., was a young Marine doctor at a first-aid station. Many of the wounded arrived strapped to the hoods of jeeps or to the sides of artillery.
``We had multiple gunshot wounds and frozen feet and guys with half their heads shot away,'' he said, stopping to compose himself. ``It was probably the most difficult time of my life.''
Pappenheimer was shot through the neck. Later, he broke a rib when men carrying his stretcher stumbled and dropped him over an embankment. He was evacuated in a crowded helicopter, his feet dangling outside. They froze like bricks.
Once discharged, he spent a year healing and learning to balance on shoes outfitted with steel and cork inserts. A job servicing vending machines led to a career as president and part-owner of a novelty ice-cream company.
He has battled pain since he was injured at 23, but says his troubles escalated in his 50s.
His extremities are so sensitive to cold that he can't tolerate an air-conditioned car in the summer. His gait is uneven - even tipsy - until he gains momentum.
When Pappenheimer talks about being ``fortunate,'' he is thinking about people like Donald F. McAlister of Stockbridge, Mich.
An Army corporal, he was shot twice, beaten and left for dead. When he revived, he staggered to safety across the frozen reservoir on feet that felt like ``a couple of chunks of ice.'' He lost toes, heels and four fingers.
For years, he drove bulldozers and backhoes equipped with fans that blew heat onto his legs.
``I gritted my teeth until 1990,'' McAlister said. That year, an infection that had festered in scar tissue on his right foot entered his bone - forcing doctors to amputate below the knee.
Pappenheimer, whose disability was recognized shortly after the war, receives about $1,000 a month in compensation. He now helps others navigate the claim process.
In his Michigan home, he keeps files on more than 300 veterans. Many have spent years seeking benefits.
The government compensates about 30,000 people, including veterans who survived the prison camps and battlefields of World War II, for disabilities resulting from frostbite and cold injury, according to the VA.
Despite progress, Pappenheimer is facing a deadline. Some of his files bear gold stars signifying those who died. ``Let's face it,'' he said. ``Time's running out on this group.''
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