Most men Harold Simmons’s age spend their mornings in a recliner with the news on and a cup of decaf nearby. Harold spends his lacing up his boots. At 91 years old, the Korean War veteran from Beaumont, Texas, has done a lot of things people said were impossible. But the walk he completed last spring may be the one that defines everything.
One hundred miles. On foot. Over eleven days. In honor of the 36,574 Americans who never came home from Korea.
“People keep calling it brave,” Harold told a reporter midway through the journey, pausing to catch his breath on the shoulder of a country road. “It’s not brave. Brave is what those boys did over there. This is just walking.”
Harold served in Korea from 1951 to 1953 as part of the 7th Infantry Division. He was 20 years old when he arrived and 22 when he came home — older in every way that matters. He lost eleven men from his unit. He remembered all of their names, all of their faces, and he thought about them every single day for the next seven decades.
“You don’t forget,” he said simply. “You’re not supposed to.”
The idea for the walk came to him last winter, when he saw a news report about the Korean War being called “The Forgotten War.” The phrase hit him like a fist. He went to bed that night unable to sleep, and by morning, he had made up his mind. He would walk from Beaumont to the Texas Veterans Memorial in Austin — 100 miles, one mile for every year of his life, rounded up, and one for good measure.
His doctor told him it was inadvisable. His daughter told him it was crazy. His neighbor — a 45-year-old marathon runner — told him it was the most incredible thing he’d ever heard and immediately signed up to walk every step beside him.
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