Faulkner receives military medal

Some would call the Faulkners recent transplants to Osceola.

They moved to town in 1980. Max started a contractor business and built several of the homes in Harkin Hills. Marjorie joined the staff at Clarke Community Schools and taught for 22 years. Her brother, Dr. Wood, came to Osceola for his first job as a veterinarian and liked it so much he invited his sister’s family to join him.

Max Faulkner is a vet of a different sort, serving in Korea from 1952 to 1953 as a medic, and was recognized Oct. 13 at a ceremony at the local American Legion.

“Medics don’t carry guns,” he laughed. “They just pick them up.”

“You were in the foxholes, though,” said Marjorie.

Max is 87 today, making him just 22 when he joined the fight to protect the Republic of Korea from northern invasion. The war lasted from 1950 to 1953 and led to the creation of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, approximately 400 square miles of land dividing North and South Korea. The Korean Ambassador for Peace Medal commemorates the men and women who served during the conflict.

“Korean Consulate in Chicago held quite a deal in Des Moines awhile back,” said former Legion President Dick Gunderson, but everyone who’d served wasn’t able to attend. “I took it upon myself to write a letter.”

The Consulate responded with medals for the men. Gunderson has been diligent about getting them to their rightful owners.

After his service, Max returned to Gowrie, Iowa, where he started a plumbing company and became a member of the American Legion chapter there. In March, 1976, Marjorie’s friend introduced them.

“We were both small-town people,” she said.

Those small town connections were put in motion even before their first date.

“My father was a superintendent,” she said, “and he called the superintendent in Gowrie.”

Thankfully, Max had behaved himself in school.

The couple were married two months later, and eventually made their way to – and made a life in – Osceola.