Home Is the Harabaji

Borne on a friendly tail wind, the big, potbellied C-97 reached the California coast nearly an hour ahead of schedule. The pilot radioed ahead for instructions, and the word came back: slow down. By the time the plane touched ground at Travis Air Force Base and taxied into the television and newsreel lights one night last week, everything was in readiness. Air police tried to hold back a cheering crowd of 500. As soon as the ramp was lowered, a beaming woman hurried up into the outstretched arms of her husband. There, in the relative privacy of the big plane, Major General William F. Dean and his wife embraced. When they emerged, smiling, a few moments later, the crowd broke ranks and surged around them. The most famed prisoner of the Korean war was home at last.

In the confusion of the flashbulbs and the frenzied greetings, two-year-old Robert Dean Williams was shoved into the arms of the grandfather he had never seen. The child started to cry. There were tearful hugs from the general's 73-year-old mother, his daughter and other relatives. Someone in the swarming crowd plucked a silver star from his shoulder, and by the time he was led to the waiting room of the terminal for a press conference, Dean looked bewildered and happy.

A Challenge for Rocky. As he faced the press, General Dean seemed to have some trouble keeping his emotions under control. "I'm overwhelmed by this welcome," he said in a halting voice. "It has been a great surprise to me to have this accorded me at every stage of my trip from Panmunjom to my final destination, my home." Then his thin voice took on a parade-ground tone. "I want a few things understood," he said. "I was not a hero. I was a prisoner of war because of unfortunate circumstances. Other prisoners of war had it rougher than I had it. I have talked to a great many of those men, and there are real heroes among them . . .

"I didn't see another American from July 27, 1950 to Sept. 3, 1953, and I want you to know what it means to be an American. It's something more valuable than anything else you have. And get it out of your head that I'm a hero. I'm not. I'm just a dog-faced soldier."

Under the photofloods, Dean showed the marks of his ordeal. The brown hair his family knew had faded to frosty grey.

A deep tan could not cover his haggard P.W. look. But he had a quick smile for the welcomers. "I feel like a million dollars," he said. "I almost sent a challenge to Rocky Marciano, I feel so good."

A Cable for Rhee. Afterward, Dean drove to his hillside home in Berkeley, which he had never seen, with his sleeping grandson on his lap. Next morning, the general ate breakfast in his patio and received a procession of reporters and relatives. Occasionally a feminine voice--his wife's or daughter's--called from the window to ask whether he wanted bacon or sausage with his eggs, or what he wanted to do with his laundry. His two grandchildren crawled in his lap, and he tried to teach young Dean Williams to call him "harabaji," which is Korean for "grandpa."

Later, there was a family party at his mother's and a big welcome from the citizens of Berkeley. At week's end, Dean got off a cable to Syngman Rhee, asking clemency for the two South Koreans under indictment for betraying him to the Communists, and began to answer a three-foot stack of mail--most of it from parents of soldiers still listed as missing in action. For the hero of Taejon, it was the end of a long and harrowing journey.

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