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Wally Johnson (above) is a veteran of the Korean War. He served for two years and achieved the rank of sergeant as part of the intelligence force for the Army. At his home in Saratoga, the American flag constantly hangs in his front yard to honor the nation he served from 1951 to 1953. Here, he remembers a Thanksgiving spent serving in Korea.

“My older sister used to send me a lot of goodies when [I] was in Korea —
cookies that were all crumbled by the time I got them. I remember one time she sent me a ham — a little canned ham. There [were] eight of us to a tent, and we said, ‘Let’s save that for Thanksgiving so weíll have a special Thanksgiving.’ We scrounged some food from the chow line. It was way before Thanksgiving so we buried it outside our camp so nobody else could find it. And then when we went to dig it up it was gone. It was one of our biggest disappointments. We lost our ham for Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t think an animal took it, there [weren’t] any animals alive. If there [were any animals], the Koreans ate ’em up, ’cause there wasn’t much food [around] you know.”