Richard Kimbrel

Dear Friends,
It is with a heavy heart that I greet you today. My dad, Richard E. Kimbrel, Sr., passed on last night (Oct. 26, 2019) at approximately 9:30 MTN time.
I was at the Rose Bowl, covering the game that my dad taught me to love. My dad graced this planet for 89 years.
Before his 21st birthday, my father’s life forever changed on a frozen battlefield in North Korea. Marines know the place as the Chosin Reservoir. My dad was given last rites on that battlefield, but it was so cold (-39 degrees) that his wound coagulated and stopped the bleeding. Thankfully he lived.
The poor corpsman, because he thought my dad was a deadman, didn’t take off his boots or changed his socks. Gangrene set in, and all his toes had to be amputated. All the young dreams of 20-year old playing sports at a higher level ended in a hospital in Korea.
My dad earned his second Purple Heart because of this wound and was honorably discharged.
He rarely talked about his experiences in Korea, as a matter of fact, I didn’t even know what the Chosin Reservoir was until the mid-1990’s when having dinner with my friend Michael O’Shea who explained the horror of that battle to me.
I called my dad the next day and asked if he was at the Chosin Reservoir, he said, “Rick, where do you think I lost my toes?”
To give some substance of what my dad and his brothers went through. General S.L.A. Marshall, a prominent Army Historian of the Twentieth Century, said the following about the battle my dad and his brothers fought, ”The fighting at the Chosin Reservoir was the most violent small unit fighting in the history of American warfare. No other operation in the American book of war quite compares with the show [the battle of the Chosin Reservoir] by the First Marine Division [and attached U.S. Army and British Royal Marines].”
This was just a small sampling. It was hell on earth, but these men, while taking on the Republic of China, helped evacuate countless Korean families to the south and from what would become North Korea. I read one such family were the ancestors of the current President of South Korea.
My father returned to the states to try and make some sense of this thing we call life. He had seen the worst of humanity in war. My dad once said to me, “they call the Korean War, the Forgotten War, I have been trying to forget it my whole life.” He paused and in the silence traveled back to a Godforsaken place that only those who were there could understand.
The VA recently told our family my dad went through his whole life from the age of 20, suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome (PSTD).
Even though dad was dealing with demons, not of his making, he lived a life and was a positive influence on many and well-liked.
My dad loved sports and coached all the kids in the neighborhood when we were young. Once again, making a difference in young people’s lives.
When my dad grew older, the marine had the nickname of "coach" because he was always analyzing games as a coach would much to the joy of the people he was watching the games with him.
Once while I was in high school, I was having lunch with my dad, he was in a reflective mood. I asked what he would think about when he was in Korea. Dad said, “Son, I would look up at the stars at night and wonder if I would ever see them again.”
Thankfully he lived and though far from perfect. He was a decent, kind man, and did his best.
I have made my living covering sports — the one thing my dad and I had so very much common.
Dad, I will miss you. I hope you travel well, and are now whole, no scars from wounds suffered long ago. Know your memory will dwell here safely in my heart.
Semper Fi!