Dale Edge has been farming the same 400 acres his whole life. The only “break” he got was in 1968 when he was drafted by the Army and sent to fight in Vietnam.
Like so many Vietnam vets, he’d rather forget his time overseas.
Serving his country
Edge wasn’t eager to fight the war, but he was determined to do his duty.
“I knew probably it was a good likelihood I would get drafted. I wasn’t going to volunteer, but I wasn’t going to run either,” he told Illinois’ KSDK News.
He’s not eager to tell stories about the war, but he does recall the scorn soldiers faced when they returned home after fighting a brutal war. Protestors were peaceful, but that doesn’t mean they were kind.
“There’s guys kissing the ground, glad to be back, glad to have made it. Then, another 30 feet from where they were doing that, people behind a fence started screaming and hollering and stuff that I ain’t going to repeat it,” he recalled.
A tough memory
Over a half-century ago, Edge and his brothers-in-arms came under attack. As they returned fire, an RPG hit the side of a tree they were hiding behind.
Edge came out OK, but fellow soldier Fred Kjorlien wasn’t so lucky. His leg was severely injured.
Before the medics arrived, Edge applied a tourniquet to Kjorlen’s leg and tried to keep him calm. He then helped assist him with getting onto a medical evacuation chopper.
As the two boarded the medical chopper, they could still joke around.
“He said, ‘I’m going to beat you home,'” Edge recalled. “I said, ‘I’ll never forget that Fred.’ And I didn’t.”
Unfortunately, Kjorlien lost his leg in that battle, but he escaped with his life, partly thanks to Edge.
Reaching out
Not long ago, Dale Edge got his first smartphone. It was an easy way to connect to the internet and find some information on the man he met in Vietnam.
He wanted to know what happened to Kjorlien, so he found the information he needed to make the phone call.
But Kjorlen didn’t have the same vivid memories of that moment after his trauma. He didn’t remember Edge at all.
“It’s been 53 years so I can understand that,” Edge replied.
Despite being in the same platoon, they hadn’t interacted much before the fateful day. Kjorlien now works for Great Steps, which makes prosthetic and orthotic devices. As an amputee, he knows what clients are going through.
A new lease on life
While the name Dale Edge didn’t initially ring a bell, the two bonded again after that phone call. It turns out they both still had some healing to do, so they spent weekends talking through their time in battle.
It was a way to heal, especially for Edge, who didn’t have physical injuries but still had plenty of emotional scars.
“It was an answer to a prayer if you want to know the truth. I don’t know how many times I prayed for that man,” Edge said of their conversation.
In 2021, they decided on a real reunion. Kjorlen drove 560 miles from Minnesota to see Edge in Ashland, Illinois.
Speaking to local news channel KSDK, Kjorlien was just as touched by the whole affair as the man who helped save his life.
“It means a lot because I love him,” Kjorlien said with tears in his eyes.
To see more from the two men’s emotional reunion, be sure to check out the video below.
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