BETHEL — Life has been a true roller coaster ride for Sonny Bean. It’s been packed with ups and perhaps even more downs, but through it all he has exemplified what it means to stay positive and live with the attitude that “someone is always worse off in life than him – that’s helped his roller coaster stay on the right track for 87 years.

Bean’s ride began in 1933 in Colbrook, N.H., where he was born. He spent only a few years there before crossing the border into Maine. His family lived in Bethel for a few years before moving to Portland. There, Bean attended schools all the way through eighth grade before returning to Bethel to attend Gould Academy his freshmen year. Bean was an exceptional athlete at Gould, especially on the football field, where he was a standout.

During his junior year at Gould, things took a turn for Bean. He remembers his history teacher, Robert Scott, calling him out after showing up late for class. Bean had also not completed his homework.

“He told me that there was this country in the far east they call Korea. He told me they were having troubles there and were looking for young people like me to go over,” Bean said. “I think by saying that, he was trying more to tell me that I needed to do what was expected of me here.”

Bean began contemplating Scott’s idea of actually joining the service. He made his first step by leaving Gould to start working around town. One day he was riding in a truck with Tinker Brown, a veteran who was only a few years removed from World War II. Brown explained the benefits of joining the Army to Bean and told him if he was his age again, he would’ve done it all over.

That discussion was enough to officially prompt Bean to travel to Rumford to enlist in January, 1951. And he was not alone when he did this. Four other local boys, who had been on similar paths of leaving school and working in town, also decided to enlist.

Only two weeks elapsed before Bean was on his way to Fort Williams in Portland. He was there briefly, going to Fort Devens in Massachusetts, where he officially signed up for airborne. After that, he was off to Fort Bragg, N.C. He did not sugarcoat his 18 weeks of basic training there.

“It was rough. They taught us how to fight and how to kill,” Bean said.

After pushing through a challenging few months, Bean moved further south to Fort Benning, GA, where he did three weeks of “jump school” as they referred to it.

They had a couple two-engine airplanes soldiers would jump out of. Bean did the six jumps necessary to complete the training. Following his graduation from jump school, he was assigned to the 508th regimental combat team at Sand Hill in Georgia. He signed up for the army football team at Sand Hill. Shortly after the conclusion of football season, Bean was given orders to go to Korea. Before leaving overseas, he had 20 days leave. He then reported to Fort Lewis in Washington, where he was assigned to 187th regimental combat team in Japan. The ride on the USS General M.C. Meigs to Japan took nearly a month. Bean estimated that there was roughly 5,800 men on the boat.

Once he arrived, Bean recalled being lined up, where people came around taking names and other information. It was near the end of 1951 and the United States was not faring well in Korea. Bean was reassigned from the 187th regiment team to infantry. He was sent to Koje-Do, an island off the coast of South Korea, soon after. Bean thought it was occupied by the Japanese at the time, but that the United Nations had charge of it. The island consisted largely of prisoners, and most were living in compounds.

“Our job was to separate these prisoners and put them in their own compounds,” Bean said. “We’d interrogate them and then send them back to the countries they were from.”

Near the end of that year (1952), Bean found himself at Old Baldy. There, they replaced the seventh division off Old Baldy, which was in rough shape. Bean said the seventh division had fought many good battles at Old Baldy, but were hit with many casualties and loss of soldiers who had been sent to Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH).

One of Beans primary jobs in Korea was delivering ammo to different regiments.

“I was what they called detached service,” Bean said.

This meant Bean had been instructed to do other service away from his assigned organization. He shipped ammo to any nearby area that needed it.

While on detached service, another responsibility of Beans was building Abraham Lincoln Bunkers. The logs were already cut to length. All Bean had to do was set them up. He compared the construction of the bunkers to the children’s game “Lincoln Logs,” saying much of what they did was similar to what people do in that game, only a much larger version.

“On a cold night, when I’d be driving spikes through those logs you could hear the echo of the hammer hitting the wood for a long ways,” Bean said.

Bean built these bunkers for two months while still peddling ammo to places on the side.

Bean spent nearly a year in Korea.

“I was blessed to be able to be heading back home,” Bean said.

The ride on the USS General Walker back to the U.S. took about two months, with 5,000 men aboard. Storms slowed the ship down greatly, adding an additional month of time to Bean’s journey back home.

Bean remembers driving into Bethel with his father. It had been 14 months since he’d seen the small town and he was fortunate to be back home.

“I looked to my dad and said I’m not leaving home again,” Bean said.

And he really meant it.

He spent nearly half a century working for Brook Brothers under Don and Dana Brooks. He called the two brothers two of the best people he ever worked for.

Bean had a rather large family, having seven children of his own, some step children and several grandchildren, too. Sadly five of his children and two of his grandchildren have passed away over the years. He lost four of them in the span of two years.

How he got through it? He credits his faith in the lord. A revival he attended in Portland when he was a kid made an impression on him, though he never considered himself a “churchgoer,” until he married his wife Arlene, with whom he spent 48 years until her passing in 2016.

“I convinced myself that people still had it worse than me, even after all the difficulties I’ve experienced,” Bean said.

“There’s a lot of good things that have happened to me, a lot of bad things, too. I’ve learned a lot from all of it. That’s just the way of life I guess you could say.”

 

 

 

 

Copy the Story Link

Comments are not available on this story.