Screams from the Trees, LLC

Screams from the Trees, LLC The Life and Misadventures of Ford Granada

September 4, 1950. Amid the violence along the Naktong River, where US Marines were fighting to hold the Pusan Perimeter...
10/03/2026

September 4, 1950. Amid the violence along the Naktong River, where US Marines were fighting to hold the Pusan Perimeter and the port of Pusan, this North Korean soldier sits on the hood of a military police jeep, a “PRISONER OF WAR” tag hanging from his neck. The original caption states he was treated according to United Nations rules of warfare.

This is why war photography is so important. The camera captures something words don’t; something histories fail to convey. Something more intimate. For one suspended moment, the war has a face — the war becomes human.

These and other poignant images will be featured in Johnny’s Korean War Letters.

The boy’s name, at least the one history kept, was “Number One.”Photographed in Inchon, Korea, on June 6, 1951, this you...
10/02/2026

The boy’s name, at least the one history kept, was “Number One.”

Photographed in Inchon, Korea, on June 6, 1951, this young boy had been taken in by an American motor-pool battalion and nursed back to health. The Navy’s caption described him as a Korean orphan, informally “adopted” by the servicemen who cared for him.

The image captures an act of compassion amid war — but leaves much of his story untold. The archival caption gives us no Korean name, no age, and no account of what happened to him afterward. We cannot know whether he lost both parents or had become separated from his family during the chaos. That uncertainty may be the most haunting part of the image: history remembers his face with extraordinary clarity, but almost nothing of the life attached to it.

These and other poignant images will be featured in Johnny’s Korean War Letters.

“There is still one absolute weapon.... That weapon is man himself.”- General Matthew B. Ridgway, November 1953This is t...
10/01/2026

“There is still one absolute weapon.... That weapon is man himself.”

- General Matthew B. Ridgway, November 1953

This is the official US Army portrait of General Ridgway, taken December 22, 1949. A year later, he inherited a battered and demoralized US Eighth Army retreating from Chinese forces in Korea. He restored its fighting spirit, launched a series of aggressive counteroffensives, and helped turn a near-collapse into a stabilized front.

Ridgway always led from the front, combining tough standards and clear orders with a visible commitment to share his soldiers’ dangers and hardships. He earned their respect by insisting they be properly equipped and supported, showing confidence in their abilities, and restoring their belief that they could win.

These and other historical images will be featured in Johnny’s Korean War Letters.

The photograph was taken on September 24, 1951, only a few days after the 1st Marine Division concluded its offensive in...
09/30/2026

The photograph was taken on September 24, 1951, only a few days after the 1st Marine Division concluded its offensive in the Battle of the Punchbowl, fought from late August through September 20–21 in the mountainous terrain of east-central Korea. The Marines had captured the high ground north of the bowl-shaped Haean Basin and established a new defensive position known as the Hays Line.

The archival caption states they are relaxing by a Korean hut “after destroying an enemy sniper housed there.” That’s important, because Korean homes, farm buildings, and villages were routinely absorbed into the battlefield and used as shelters, observation posts, firing positions, and defensive strongpoints. Here, a civilian structure has become both a sniper’s concealment and the Marines’ temporary refuge.

Nearby, the bloody fight for Heartbreak Ridge was still underway, although that battle was primarily being fought by the US Army’s 2nd Infantry Division. The 1st Marine Division remained on the northern rim of the Punchbowl and soon transitioned into the more static phase of the war — fortifying ridgelines, sending out patrols, and fighting frequent small-unit engagements.

These and other historical images will be featured in Johnny’s Korean War Letters.

As soon as Johnny deployed to Korea in September 1952, his new wife moved in with his parents. They sent him several pic...
09/29/2026

As soon as Johnny deployed to Korea in September 1952, his new wife moved in with his parents. They sent him several pictures from home, including this one of Betty, to keep his spirits up.

#1952

This is Betty, the topic of every letter from Johnny while he was in Korea. This is her 16 year portrait, taken in 1946....
09/28/2026

This is Betty, the topic of every letter from Johnny while he was in Korea. This is her 16 year portrait, taken in 1946.

Johnny and Betty were high school sweethearts. This photo was used for their wedding announcements in 1952.

#1946

Johnny was 22 years old when he went to Korea. Before the war, he’d already made quite a name for himself. He was an out...
09/27/2026

Johnny was 22 years old when he went to Korea. Before the war, he’d already made quite a name for himself. He was an outdoorsman, an artist, and a pilot. By sixteen, he had his pilot’s license, his own plane, and a group of high school flying buddies who called themselves the Skull Squadron. On weekends, they flew into the Texas countryside to camp and have fun. This is his senior portrait, San Jacinto High, Houston, Texas, class of 1947.

By then, he’d also met my grandmom. From the photos, he was strikingly handsome: tanned skin, green eyes, wavy brown hair. From the stories, he was intelligent and charismatic. He was certainly a unique character.

Excerpted from the preface to Johnny’s Korean War Letters.

combatveteran

“This is a picture I drew of my dad in Viet Nam, 1966. He had this picture in a shoebox, I took it, and started to draw....
09/25/2026

“This is a picture I drew of my dad in Viet Nam, 1966. He had this picture in a shoebox, I took it, and started to draw.”

It was June 1988. I was 14 - the summer before my freshman year of high school. I couldn’t get his eyes right, so I drew sunglasses on him.

The original photo had a profound impact on me as a youngster. It directly fed my obsession with Rambo. When I missed my dad, this is one of the few images I had that would console me.

I don’t know if I ever told him I stole this picture! Don’t know if I ever told him I drew it when I was a kid. I’m keeping it though, Dad, sorry!

This young man turns 82 today - wish him a Happy Birthday!

October 21, 1950. Off the coast of North Korea, the USS Missouri unleashes her 16-inch guns against communication and tr...
09/24/2026

October 21, 1950. Off the coast of North Korea, the USS Missouri unleashes her 16-inch guns against communication and transportation lines near Chongjin, just under 40 miles from the Chinese border.

At that moment, the Korean War appeared to be nearing its end. Pyongyang had fallen. UN troops were racing north. North Korea’s army seemed to be collapsing. But beyond the horizon, something much larger was already happening.

Chinese soldiers were quietly crossing the Yalu River into Korea. Within days they would collide with advancing UN forces. Within weeks, the battlefield would reverse completely.

That makes this photograph more than an image of American firepower. It captures the war at the exact moment when victory appeared close, just before the tide changed.

The ship itself also carried extraordinary historical symbolism. Only five years earlier, on September 2, 1945, representatives of Japan had stood on Missouri’s deck in Tokyo Bay and signed the documents formally ending World War II. Now the same battleship was fighting again in Asia, this time in a conflict shaped by the Cold War divisions that emerged from the aftermath of that victory.

These and other historical images will be featured in Johnny’s Korean War Letters.

This shot captures the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team’s October 20, 1950 operation at a moment before the jump. L...
09/23/2026

This shot captures the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team’s October 20, 1950 operation at a moment before the jump. Loaded with parachutes, weapons, and everything they would need to survive behind enemy lines, the troops landed near Sukch’on and Sunch’on, roughly 30 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. UN forces had entered the capital the previous day, and the airborne force was meant to cut off North Korean troops retreating north.

There was another, more urgent hope to this mission. Intelligence suggested a train carrying American POWs was moving north. The paratroopers hoped to intercept it and rescue them.

About 2,800 men were carried in the first flight. The jump succeeded, but the larger trap largely failed. The main North Korean force had already moved beyond the drop zones, and most of the prisoners had been taken farther north.

Photograph by Cpl. Dennis Buckley.

These and other historical images will be featured in Johnny’s Korean War Letters.

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