Final mission: Vet’s daughter, granddaughter add to memorial

Carson City resident Val Jensen would have been 91 on April 17. The Korean War veteran died in March, and so his daughter and granddaughter used his birthday to carry out his last mission: laying two new bricks in the Korean War Veterans Memorial in east Carson City.

The two bricks, as shown by their engraving, are “dedicated to the women who served in the military.”

“She (granddaughter Janice Pearson) brought it to her grandfather, and she said, ‘I really want to do this for the women,’” said daughter Cheryl Hanneman. “And dad said, ‘Boy, that is long overdue. We need to have some bricks out there to honor them, women in the military.’”

Jensen was a longtime dentist in the capital city, having moved to the area in 1965. After graduating high school in Utah in 1950, his National Guard unit — the 204th Army Field Artillery Battalion — was sent to the Korean Peninsula.

“Val advanced to the rank of sergeant first class and oversaw the fire control squadron for the three artillery batteries of his battalion,” reads his obituary. “He served 13 months in Korea and then was assigned as a drill sergeant to train other artillerymen at Fort Chaffee, Ark. He was honorably discharged in 1952 after 24 months of active duty.”

According to a 2006 Appeal story on Jensen, he spent time near the 38th parallel. He told the Appeal at the time he saw “a lot of action.”

Hanneman said her father carried trauma from the war, remembering how he had problems sleeping at night.

“Obviously with 18-year-old kids, that just changes your life,” she said.

Val Jensen in Korea circa 1950. (Courtesy) 

Before shipping out to Korea, Jensen returned from boot camp to marry Donna Rae Nelson, whom he’d met at a church dance when they were still in high school.

“He flew home and asked mom to marry him because he said, ‘I’m afraid what if I don’t come back,’” Hanneman said.

Hanneman also recalled seeing a picture of her father from that time and being unsure what to make of it:

“He had taken a couple of pictures when his Guard unit got shipped out,” she said. “He and his buddy had just gotten their heads buzzed, and they went to one of those photo booth things, and they were kind of making funny faces and everything. And I said, ‘What’s the story on that that you were making these funny faces in the photo booth?’ And he said, ‘Because we were scared to death.’”

Despite trauma from the war, Jensen built a life in Carson City. He worked as a dentist, served as bishop of a local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and stayed connected with fellow veterans. He became instrumental in the local Korean War Veteran Association, which spearheaded the memorial at the entrance of Riverview Park on East 5th Street.

Constructed in 2005, the memorial honors Nevada veterans killed in the conflict and includes a replica of a Korean home and a message from the Korean community in Reno.

“Full of symbolism and memories, this memorial park is a way for veterans to remember and reflect upon this time in our history as well as offer the community a place of peace and serenity and to learn of ‘America’s forgotten war,’” reads a description of the memorial from KWVA Chapter No. 305.

Pearson said her grandfather’s continued service after the war informed her own values.

“He taught me a lot about the importance of patriotism, loyalty, service and commitment to family, and I feel honored to carry on these values as a young woman and mother for my family in this next generation,” she said.

She emphasized the importance of honoring women veterans and also women central to military families.

Following passage of the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act in 1948 – and the creation of the Women’s Army Corps in World War II – thousands of women served in the Korean War.

“Just like during World War II, Army nurses served in the combat theater very close to the extremely fluid front lines of the war,” reads a history on the U.S. Army’s website “As a rule, they were the only military women allowed into the combat theater during this war. Nurses served in Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, or MASH, field hospitals, hospital trains, and – during the early weeks of the war – on Army transport ships.”

The Korean conflict also marked the first time women reserve officers were involuntarily recalled, according to the Army.

“I think too often we don’t see behind the scenes,” Pearson said.

She said the brick project was a “co-creation” with her grandfather.

“We ordered those bricks and just got those shortly after Veterans Day, and then it snowed and kept snowing,” she said. “After he passed on March 7, this was just something that came to mind right away, just knowing how important the memorial was to him.”

Hanneman said her family will work with the local veterans group to continue providing memorial bricks, as Jensen wanted.

Both daughter and granddaughter expressed how much they miss him.

“Every day since he passed has been hard,” said Pearson. “It was a great celebration (April 17). I did take some time myself to go over to the Carson cemetery to spend some time with him.”

Hanneman said she’s struggling to make it through the day. Little things, like the phone ringing, can remind her of him.

“He missed my mom so much,” Hanneman said. “My mother died in July and on her headstone, I put, ‘Dad can’t wait till the next dance.’ Apparently, dad couldn’t wait because he left to go dance with mom.

“One of his favorite songs was Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way … I did it my way’… and I guess he did.”