The late William Dewey Freeman Jr. was forced to march 1,000 miles as a prisoner of war during the Korean War in the early 1950s.
Today, his 9-year-old great-grandson Evan Murrer is embarking on a trek of his own to honor his memory and raise money for other POWs and veterans.
Freeman, who was known as Bill — or “Wild Willie” among his army pals — died on May 27 at the age of 93.
“My grandfather had walked 1,000 miles in three months in the POW camp,” said Evan’s mother, Renee Murrer. “So Evan and I decided that, as a family, we were going to walk 100 miles in 30 days.”
They’ve logged 78 miles so far.
On Feb. 12, 1951, Freeman, an infantryman, was captured by a Chinese battalion during the Hoengsong Massacre, according to his memoir published on the Korean War Educator website.
He was released several days later but was later recaptured and spent 930 days enduring death marches and awful camp conditions. He was released on Aug. 19, 1953, according to his obituary.
When Evan, a fourth grader at Spout Springs Elementary, gets tired from the walking, he said he reminds himself of the tribulations his great-grandfather endured as a prisoner of war.
“When our feet get tired, what do we try to remember?” his mother asked him.
“We try to remember that his feet got tired when he was in the POW camp,” he said.
In the United States, the Korean War is sometimes called the “Forgotten War.” But the Murrer family wants to make sure that the soldiers captured during that war — including the ones who never made it home — are not forgotten.
That is why Evan started “Operation Never Forget” with the goal of raising $3,000 to donate to the Georgia chapter of Rolling Thunder, a national nonprofit group that advocates for POWs and soldiers missing in action.
“I feel like this is really helping my heart and helping all these veterans,” Evan said.
He met his $3,000 goal on Tuesday and is upping his goal once again.
Evan has also come up with creative ways to get others in the community involved.
“He’s telling the story to the kids in the neighborhood, (and) they’re walking with him,” his mother said. “He hosted an event for his baseball team and he made them all black ribbons on my grandfather’s birthday, and for every run they scored, they logged a quarter mile towards our goal.”
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