Weiser Korean War veteran receives a Quilt of Valor

At age 90, Ward Sutton can recall with clarity many of the details surrounding his service in the U.S. Army 68 years ago and the tour of duty that took him across the ocean to Korea during the war.
 Sutton was able to finish his bachelor’s degree in agriculture at the University of Idaho before he was drafted in November of 1951. Unlike the young men drafted right out of high school, he was almost 23 years old at the time he had to report for service with the U.S. Army.
 To honor his military service, Sutton, who has lots of family in the Midvale area and has called Weiser home since 1955, was presented with a Quilt of Valor on Friday at the Weiser Senior and Community Center.
 During a short lunch program, Sutton was thanked for his service and given a round of applause by the audience. He was joined by his wife, Joyce. He even brought his old Army shirt with the Thunderbird patch on one shoulder that represented his platoon.

When it was time to report for duty in the fall of 1951, Sutton got on a bus bound for Spokane, Wash., where he was sworn in. From there, he went to Fort Lewis, Wash., for processing and then was sent by train to Camp Roberts in California for 16 weeks of basic training. Camp Roberts was located near Paso Robles and no longer exists.
 “They worked us real hard in basic training, but you came out of that in very good physical shape,” he said.
 Sutton initially enrolled in leadership school after basic training but didn’t like it. He was assigned to a line company, the 45th Infantry Division, a service company of the 180th Infantry Regiment. He was shipped overseas to Camp Drake in Japan and then to Pouson, Korea.
 He worked in a postal service unit that made sure 20 companies got their mail. During his time stationed in Korea, Sutton was promoted regularly and attained the rank of Sergeant First Class at the end of his tour of duty.
 Although the Korean War raged on for two years, Sutton said that “fortunately” he was not involved in the fighting. Their unit was stationed not that far from the 30th parallel.
 Sutton remembers departing Korea in September of 1953. When the ship crossed the International Date Line he and the rest of his shipmates got to enjoy the date of Sept. 23 twice. He was processed and discharged from the Army at Fort Lewis, Wash.
 He came back to Idaho and worked on the family farm. He was born on the Weiser Flat on July 14, 1929, but raised on the land his grandfather homesteaded in 1906 not far from Crane Creek Reservoir.
 A couple of years later, in March of 1955, he went to work at the Consumers Co-op in Weiser and began a career that lasted 36.5 years. For most of those years, he was the office manager and then took over as general manager for 2.5 years.
 Sutton said he was grateful to get the one-of-a-kind Quilt of Valor. His wife, Joyce, said it would go on the bed.
 “I appreciate that they spent a lot of time working on that,” he said.
 The Quilt of Valor that Sutton received was made by Linda Smith, a member of a  group of local quilters that also includes Connie Lang, Barbara Goff and Trina Leininger. It was the 65th quilt created by the group and given to Weiser and Washington County veterans since 2014.      
 Donations are welcome by the Quilts of Valor project in Weiser and 100 percent of the money goes to purchase fabric and materials. Anyone who would like to donate red, white and blue, 100-percent cotton fabric can bring it to the Weiser Senior and Community Center.