3. Luke Kline in Korea, Europe, and Vietnam
Having first fought in Africa and Europe, Luke Kline next saw combat in Asia, when the communist North Koreans invaded the south. The way Kline remembered it, fighting in the cold of the Korean Peninsula was far more unpleasant than his experience of combat in North Africa and Italy. After the fighting ended in Korea, Kline remained in the Army, and was posted to Germany from 1956 to 1960. There, he served on detached duty with the CIA as a courier for sensitive documents, escorting people around Germany, and running safe houses for spies.
Kline next served in the US, until 1966, when he was sent to Vietnam. Posted to Ban Ma Thout, in the Central Highlands, Kline supported special forces as they trained Montagnard tribesmen to resist the Viet Cong. He frequently accompanied his colonel as he was choppered around the region, in daily inspections of the special forces teams in the bush. They were hairy rides, and Kline usually sat on his flak jacket, because his helicopter was often fired at from below. He was not safe on the ground, either: on one occasion, his compound was overrun by the VC, and Kline earned a Purple Heart for wounds sustained while fending off the enemy. Luke Kenneth Kline recovered, and lived to be 93, before passing away in 2018.
