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NILES — Bloodied, wounded and essentially deaf after having Chinese hand grenades blow up under him, Luke Monteforte did what he had to in order to protect his fellow troops.
Monteforte explained he had quite a few close calls during his service in the Korean War.
“I had a couple of close calls. Every day could have been the last,” Monteforte said.
Only nine months after he was drafted in January 1951, Monteforte and others were on patrol and trying to take a hill when they were fired upon. Monteforte recalls not being shot at, but rather having grenades thrown at him.
“The hand grenades were strange. They weren’t like ours. They made them out of tin cans and a wooden handle that had a string on it. They could put their fingers in the string and have the ability to put five of them in their hands,” he said.
To avoid being hit by the incoming grenades, Monteforte took after fellow Korean War veteran and Major League Baseball player Ted Williams — he flipped his rifle around and started swinging.
Read more in Monday’s Tribune Chronicle.