HOUGHTON – When John Martin went into battle in Korea in 1950, he was just 17 years old, not old enough to fight legally in the U.S. Army but caught in an emergency deployment when orders changed aboard a ship headed to Japan for training.

Now 82, he still hasn’t quite left Korea and his time as a North Korean prisoner of war behind, still sometimes suffering the survivor’s guilt that comes with wondering why he lived when so many comrades died. Of 328 U.S. soldiers he was imprisoned with, Martin said, only 18 survived captivity, a death march and an eventual slaughter of prisoners.

“Eighteen came out alive, and four have since committed suicide,” Martin said. “I had a lot of problems, mental and emotional, for years afterward.”

A few years ago, Martin and co-author Vince Kennedy wrote a book, “One Blade of Grass,” about Martin’s experience in Korea, and about coming to terms with it back home.

Almost immediately on his arrival in Korea, Martin said, he was sent to the Battle of Hadong, where U.S. troops on what they’d thought was a simple mission were ambushed and 392 were killed.

Three days later, he was serving in a rear guard as U.S. forces retreated from the area. The rear guard was trapped in foxholes, cut off the main U.S. force and overwhelmed. Believing he was alone, Martin flipped a box of matches like a coin to decide whether to go down fighting or lay down his gun.

“I flipped the matches, it came up blue, I surrendered,” he said.

That began 90 days of captivity, including a long, malnourished trek to the 35th parallel, the original border between North and South Korea, and Pyongyang.

“On that march, we lost just over 100 people,” Martin said. “If you were wounded or sick and couldn’t keep up they shot you. I don’t know for sure how many made it to Pyongyang. I was sick with dysentery.”

With U.S. troops still advancing, the remaining prisoners were loaded on a train headed north, but the train then stopped in a tunnel for two or three days, Martin remembered, probably pinned by U.S. aircraft.

Eventually, guards started walking prisoners out of the tunnel in small groups, and those left behind could hear small arms fire. When Martin’s group was walked outside, he saw dozens of his comrades’ bodies dead in a ditch, executed.

“They fired again, and I dropped,” he said. A soldier named Frenchy dropped on top of him, told Martin to lay still and bled to death, his blood serving as Martin’s disguise.

The North Koreans were more interested in making their escape than checking bodies, Martin said, and “three or four of us got out of the ditch alive.”

After hiding for about a day, Martin and the others were rescued by U.S. forces. He checked into a military hospital weighing 118 pounds, and remained in hospitals for nearly 10 months, getting help mainly for physical woes.

“They didn’t know what PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) was in those days, but I had a case,” he said.

Martin re-enlisted, but his demons drove him to alcoholism, erratic behavior and an eventual dishonorable discharge from the Army, though that classification was later removed from his record and veterans’ benefits restored.

Eventually, after being abandoned by his wife Joyce and moving to Florida with three children, the kids provided him with the inspiration he needed to turn his life around. Martin had promised them he’d quit drinking, but after quickly finding a job he was relaxing with a few beers his first weekend off. He heard a noise from the kitchen and went to investigate.

“My ten-year-old and my seven-year-old were dumping my beers down the sink,” he remembered. “They said “If you’re going to quit you have to stop.’ It really hit me, and I went to a 12-step program.”

Martin said he’s now been dry for 44 years. He reunited with Joyce and the couple moved to the Copper Country before she passed away a few years ago.

Along the way, Martin testified before U.S. Senate Korean War Crimes hearings.

“In the beginning, they asked if we’d be willing to testify against our guards,” he remembered. “They did capture some, but it turned out the war crimes hearing was just bulls–t, part of McCarthyism. It was nothing but propaganda.”

Still, these days he’s not sure if he’d really want to see his guards punished.

“I’ve always wondered if I were retreating, my cities were being bombed, we were losing badly, what would I do if ordered to shoot prisoners? I don’t honestly know,” he said. “They were kids, just like us, most of them.”

His experiences in Korea and after have led to other strong opinions.

“There was no real reason for the Korean War,” he said. “I think what we should learn from war is not to engage in it, unless it’s in self defense. But to engage in wars for corporate interests, Halliburton, no. I learned next time we have a war all the politicians should go fight it.”

Martin said his children had been asking him to write his story for years when he met retired Canadian Brigadier General Vince Kennedy, who’d already penned a few books. They published the first edition of “One Blade of Grass” in 2012, and the process was good for his emotional health, Martin said.

“I kind of forgave myself for a lot of things, like being afraid in combat, and not dying in glory like John Wayne in the movies.”

The book also shined a light on the humanity of those around him in Korea, both comrades and enemies.

“Some of the North Korean soldiers were extremely humane under the conditions,” he said. “Of course, others were very cruel.”

“One Blade of Grass” can be purchased online at the blurb.com bookstore, or checked out at the Portage Lake District Library.