Comments & Curiosities -- Peter Buffa

Sad news this week. Col. William Barber passed away on April 19. If

you ever met Bill Barber, consider yourself lucky. If you knew him,

consider yourself honored. If he was a friend, consider yourself

privileged.

Bill was a friend and a mentor for many years and supported me every

time I ran, which was early and often. It sounds like a cliche straight

out of Reader’s Digest, but Bill Barber really was one of the most

extraordinary people I’ve ever met.

The official file reads something like this: “William E. Barber, Col.,

USMC (Ret.) -- career officer who served with honor in World War II,

Korea and Vietnam. One of the best known and most respected Korean War

veterans, Col. Barber received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his

extraordinary heroism at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in 1950.”

But as remarkable as his record of military service was, it just

doesn’t tell you enough about Bill Barber.

He was a true Southern gentleman, born in West Liberty, Ky. in 1919,

though he looked and sounded much younger than his years.

When you’re training to be a military officer, you spend a lot of time

studying something called “command presence.” To a large degree, it’s

what makes a leader a leader, but it’s hard to define. It’s a certain

something in how someone looks and sounds and acts that makes other

people willing to follow them.

I’ve had the privilege of chatting it up with presidents, generals,

billionaires and a veritable boatload of big shots -- from Mickey Mantle

to Maggie Thatcher. Very impressive, but Bill Barber had more command

presence than all of them combined.

The one thing for which Bill Barber had no talent whatsoever was

talking about himself, which is typical of combat veterans. People who

have a lot of stories about what they did in the war usually didn’t do

much. And people who saw and did the things that no one should ever see

or do usually have no stories to tell. Bill Barber followed that model,

almost to a fault.

Ironically, in Bill’s case, it didn’t matter. If Bill Barber had spent

his life running a small coffee shop in the smallest town in Kentucky,

instead of being one of the most respected military veterans in our

history, everyone who met him would be just as bowled over. It wasn’t

Bill’s rank or his medals that made people want to follow him. It was

Bill. When people run across his name in the history books now and

forever, they won’t find much under “Bill Barber,” but they’ll find

plenty under “Col. William E. Barber, USMC.”

Col. Barber enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1940. He received a

commission as a second lieutenant in 1943, was promoted to first

lieutenant in 1944, and was soon in the thick of it of the Pacific

campaign as a platoon leader in the Battle of Iwo Jima.

When his company commander was wounded, Bill took over and led his men

through one of the fiercest battles of the war in the Pacific. While

trying to rescue two wounded men under heavy fire, Bill was seriously

wounded himself, for which he received the Silver Star and a Purple

Heart. But it would be six years later, in Korea, that Col. William

Barber’s place in American military history would be secured.

By November of 1950, Capt. Bill Barber was commanding Company F, 7th

Marine Regiment 1st Marine Division. The Battle of Chosin Reservoir --

“Frozen Chosin” -- was underway, just south of the Yalu River that

separates North Korea from China.

Frozen Chosin was one of the most hostile environments that American

forces, or anyone else’s, had ever endured. The cold was brutal and

unrelenting, with air temperatures from five to 20 degrees below zero.

Just moving and breathing required enormous effort, let alone fighting.

On Nov. 27, more than 120,000 Chinese troops came roaring across the

Korean border in one human wave after another. Col. Barber’s Fox Company

was ordered to push forward and secure a narrow pass that would be the

only escape route for the thousands of Marines around Chosin Reservoir

had they been overrun.

Col. Barber and his 220 riflemen withstood five days and nights of

relentless assaults by Chinese regulars, even though they were

drastically outnumbered and miles from the nearest friendly force. When

the situation seemed hopeless, Col. Barber ignored repeated orders to

fall back and continued to rally his men, which is when a bullet tore

through his thigh and shattered a bone in his leg.

Bill had two of his men strap him to a stretcher and pull him from one

position to another so he could direct his men in the firefight, during

which he continued to fire his own weapon.

When the fight was done, only 82 men in Fox Company walked away, but

many military historians feel that thousands of Marines around Frozen

Chosin might have been lost without their heroism and Col. Barber’s

leadership.

Not long after, President Truman draped a Congressional Medal of Honor

around Bill Barber’s neck. Bill was proud and appreciative and, of

course, embarrassed by the attention.

Col. Barber answered the call again in the Vietnam War, and was

awarded the Legion of Merit for his service there before retiring from

the Corps in 1970.

On Friday morning, many of us gathered to say goodbye to Bill Barber,

most importantly his family, and the other Medal of Honor recipients in

the area, like Walt Ehlers of Buena Park, all of whose stories of heroism

and self-sacrifice deserve to told time and time again. There you have

it. That gives you just a small idea of who Col. William E. Barber was.

God speed, Bill. We are all in your debt. Forever.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays.

He may be reached via e-mail at PtrB4@aol.com.