The Korean War Veteran - Our Pete's more than worthy of OC It's no longer an error of omission that the Toronto Sun's founding editor hasn't been ...

The Korean War Veteran
                         Internet Journal March 3, 2013

Our Pete’s more than worthy of OC
It’s no longer an error of omission that the Toronto Sun’s
founding editor hasn’t been called by Rideau Hall

By Mark Bonokoski ,QMI Agency

First posted: Saturday, March 02, 2013 08:00 PM EST

Peter Worthington (QMI AGENCY PHOTO)

INSERT FROM PUBLISHER OF THE KOREAN WAR VETERAN

I have known Peter Worthington for 62 years. He was a platoon commander in
Korea. I was a private, later acting section leader. We both fought together in the
Battle of the Hook. When Peter led a platoon-scale fighting patrol and attacked the
enemy on the Vegas position off of the Hook, one of my friends, Stanley Mudd,
from Moosomin, Saskatchewan was killed by ambushing machinegunners.

Peter visited Korea on a revisit program in April, 2000 when I was resident there.
He met my wife, Mak-ye and he was very well received with great interest by
Korean news people and by the Canadian Ambassador of the day, H.E. Arthur
Perron. Peter later was invited back to Korea by the Korean Ministry of National
Defence in honoured status to participate in the June 25 national ceremony
marking the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War, what Koreans
call the “6-25 incident.”
On that journey he traveled with the late Kenneth Barwise, who had been awarded
a Military Medal for bravery in the field during the Battle of Kapyong.
In July, 1953, Peter again was invited to Korea, this time by Veterans Affairs
Canada. He traveled to Korea with the 1953 VAC Pilgrimage to Korea and
covered all of its activities as a reporter. I was privileged to work for VAC then
(pro bono) as the VAC Veteran Liaison Officer.
I am reciting this to show that I know and am closely linked with Peter
Worthington.
Through the course of 13 years now, since his first trip back to Korea following the
Korean War, Peter has steadfastly and continuously written about and supported
the causes of Canada’s Korean War Veterans. His columns have expounded on
various needs, things that could be done, some of the activities of the veterans –
tremendous support! – and usually all of these columns were published not only in
the Toronto Sun but in the major cities where the Quebecor chain has newspapers.
Peter has done no less writing in support of veterans of the Afghanistan War, and
he reported from the field in Afghanistan on two occasions – the first at age 76. We
published a photograph of him in the sweltering heat of the day, wearing the heavy
body armour and helmet required for front line service.

In the column below, “Bono” does not mention that in World War Two, Peter was
the youngest officer in the Royal Canadian Navy Fleet Air Arm.
His father was Major General Frank Worthington, the founder of the Canadian
Armoured Corps – that is why Peter joined the navy instead of the army; to avoid
favourable treatment because of his father’s high rank and reputation.
He enlisted at age 17 but his parents made him wait until he had finished the year
of high school in which he was enrolled.
I did not add above that after Peter served with us on the Hook that he was
reassigned as the battalion’s intelligence officer, and then seconded to the U.S. Air
Force, where he flew as an observer and fighter bomber strike director with the
famed Mosquito Squadron, which flew slow, unarmed Harvard planes (used for
training by the RCAF) at near ground level over enemy positions to fire coloured
smoke rockets onto enemy positions.
One of Peter's fellow officers was Major General Herbert Pitts, then a lieutenant
and platoon commander and now a celebrated supporter of Canada's veterans and a
renowned senior volunteer in the Canadian and world boy scout movement.
Following his service in Korea Peter completed his university education.
He also met again his former commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Herbert
Wood, who had been appointed the historian of the Canadian Army. Peter did
proof reading and assisted him in preparation of the Official History of Canada's
Army in Korea and of a novel that Colonel Wood wrote about the Korean War.
Bono does not say whether anyone has yet recommended Peter for the Order of
Canada. One does not know as that is all confidential and in this case I do not think
that it matters.
I think that if EVERYONE writes to their Member of Parliament or Senator
and provides a copy of Mark Bonokowski’s column and asks them to bring
the matter forward in the House or Senate, in their political party’s caucus as
well as on the floor, imploring that an immediate recommendation be made
and that the Honour Committee that judges applications take a special look at
this on an immediate basis – as even Peter Worthington, the son of the great
Frank Worthington who is without the slightest doubt an incredibly
knowledgeable and skilled journalist as Mark Bonokowski makes clear in his
editorial, cannot be with us forever.
Bono also does not mention that Peter has also survived far more than a dozen
heart surgeries and never once has slowed down or shelved his work.
We pray for our friend, Peter Worthington.

Knowing him we are sure that he would blush and feel unworthy of such concern
and attention.
Vince Courtenay

Mark Bonokowski’s column continues:
Over the last few months, a number of relatively high-profile Canadian journalists
have received the Order of Canada, one of the highest civilian honours this country
has to offer.
From a peer perspective, none was particularly undeserving, although all were
notably liberal.
Around New Year’s, there was CTV’s political war horse Craig Oliver getting the
honour, along with Chantal Hebert, a political columnist for Le Devoir, l’Actualite,
the Toronto Star, as well as a regular political panelist on CBC TV’s At Issue.
More recently, it was CBC Radio’s Michael Enright, host of Sunday Edition, along
with journalist-author Stevie Cameron, whose 1989 political expose, Ottawa Inside
Out, actually turned Ottawa inside-out.
None of those four appointees, however, is more deserving of the Order of Canada
than the Toronto Sun’s founding editor, yet Peter Worthington (photo) has yet to
get the call from Rideau Hall.
This is no longer simply an error of omission. This is politically correct bias.
A long-time member of the Canadian News Hall of Fame, Worthington’s
illustrious career in journalism arguably surpasses any journalist already honoured
with an Order of Canada.
In fact, any journalist today who thinks his or her career is truly noteworthy should
read Worthington’s 1984 autobiography, Looking for Trouble, before they
consider writing their own.
No other Canadian journalist today can claim the patriotic heroics of being a
platoon leader in the Korean War.
No other Canadian journalist spent 15 years covering the world’s wars and
rebellions as a foreign correspondent — the Suez crisis, the revolution in Iraq, the
independence of Cyprus and the Turkish invasion, the Algerian war of
independence, the liberation of the Congo, the Chinese invasion of India, the

Indonesian invasion of Dutch New Guinea, the Vietnam War, the war between
India and Pakistan, the Biafra-Nigerian war ... et cetera.
And then, while covering the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, being the
only Canadian journalist present in that Dallas police garage to witness Jack Ruby
shooting Lee Harvey Oswald.
That chapter of Worthington’s life alone should have merited the Order of Canada.
But Worthington was far from done.
In 1965, while still with the old Toronto Telegram, Worthington opened the first
Canadian newspaper bureau in Moscow, raised hell with the Soviet Union’s
politburo, and then became forever persona non grata when he helped his
interpreter, Olga Pharmakovsky, defect to Canada.
When the Telegram folded in 1971, it was Peter Worthington, not founding
publisher Doug Creighton, who managed to get the necessary seed money to start
the Toronto Sun and, while Creighton was rightfully honoured with the Order of
Canada in 1992, Peter Worthington was wrongly left unrecognized.
Creighton led the charge for expansion, and today Sun Media is the largest
newspaper chain in Canada, having provided for the livelihoods of thousands of
families over the years, mine included.
Two years ago, Sun Media’s flagship newspaper, Toronto Sun, celebrated its 40th
birthday and, in virtually each of those years, Peter Worthington has been a major
presence — either as editor, pounding out daily small-c conservative editorials or
writing daily columns that range from the deadly serious to the understated.
He remains unbelievably prolific, and incredibly relevant.
Peter Worthington is now 86. We know this because, last weekend, he wrote about
how he celebrated this birthday in a hospital in Cancun after suffering a “stabbing,
twisting pain” in his lower intestine, and finally escaping after four days in hospital
with a $16,000 medical bill and no definitive diagnosis. This is not uncommon.
Among the various medical things that have transpired during his later-year
journeys, for example, he had a heart attack in Cuba in 1993 which he tried to put
out of his mind as he continued on to Mexico City and then onward to Costa Rica
where he was “patched up” long enough to return home for a quadruple heart
bypass.
This last episode, therefore, was simply the norm.
The thought of him banging away at his laptop computer without having been
recognized with the Order of Canada, however, remains both incomprehensible

and indefensible. Yet this continues to be the case. Before he arrived home from
Cancun, by the by, he filed not one but two columns.
Neither, however, was particularly politically correct — which could be the
problem in the politically correct realm of Canadian awards.
No other reason exists, of course, unless they are waiting to surprise him on his
100th birthday.
— Bonokoski is Sun Media’s national editorial writer