LEADVILLE - Tough guys cried Monday as they stood before a rose granite monument chiseled with 999 names of good buddies who never made it home from the war.

The memorial of funeral stone sits on Tennessee Pass, a little more than 10,000 feet above sea level. Scores of men, mostly aged and feeble, gathered in what they say will be their final reunion for a service to commemorate their comrades in the 10th Mountain Division, which trained for World War II about 15 miles west of Leadville at Camp Hale.

Even the sky wept from gunmetal gray clouds. Like green bayonets, Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir towered above the monument, which was erected in 1959.

Some men wiped away tears during the service, while others let the rain camouflage their grief. Still others clenched jaws so tight you couldn't have jammed a needle into their cheeks.

The men of the 10th came from Ivy League schools, Wyoming cow country, coal fields and beaches along each coast. Together in rugged training they forged bonds of trust and friendship, some of which endure to this day.

For some, that bond was severed long ago in battle. Earl Clark, an 88-year-old retired lieutenant colonel from Littleton, lost not only a friend but also the man who was his roommate at Camp Hale.

They were sent to fight the Japanese at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands. Clark's friend, Wilfred Funk Jr., of Funk and Wagnall relation, was killed there by friendly fire.

The men returned from Alaska and trained others to be mountain fighters before shipping out to Italy, where they fought five major battles in the Appenines in 1944-45. During that time, they lost about 1,000 men killed and four times that many wounded.

Some, like Nelson Bennett, of Yakima, Wash., were felled by illness.

"I had a perforated ulcer," Bennett said. "If it hadn't been for my brother, Edmund, visiting me and lifting me out of that foxhole, I'd still be in Italy."

Bennett stood as stiff as the granite when he eyed the memorial on Tennessee Pass, holding in his feelings.

He said he's one to move on and not look back. "In moving on, you become preoccupied with your life, trying to be successful," he said. "I don't really have time to think about the past - until you come to something like this."

After the war ended, Bennett stayed in skiing and became a wheel with the U.S. Ski Association. He judged international courses, determining whether they were suitable places for competition.

Gilbert Engen, a Wyoming cowboy from Laramie, joined up because he had been skiing since kindergarten but the military had other uses for his talents.

"I got out of the skiing and rock climbing when they found out I was a cowboy," he said.

The 10th Mountain was trained to use mules to carry gear - six mules to haul a howitzer.

"Once they found out I could chase cows, they put me and a few other guys on a detail to take the mules up and graze them in summer," he said.

After the war, Engen came home and went back to ranching.

Entering Camp Hale was a sign with pictures of Hitler and Tojo and the words: "We have a date with the SOBs. Let's not be late."

"And we weren't," said Clark, the colonel from Littleton.

The men went above timberline a few times on long haul marches with full gear to Sugarloaf Mountain. They were taught to endure the cold so they could be as resilient as the mountain clover that grows close to the ground.

Some learned the hard way, like Maurice "Speed" Murphy, of Boynton Beach, Fla.

"We were camped on the other side of Chicago Ridge," he said. "It was so cold that when I took my canteen cup off my canteen, it froze to my fingers. I had to lick them to get them loose."

Murphy grew up skiing in his native New England.

"I wasn't any good at that rock climbing stuff," he said.

He also mentioned how he got his nickname.

"I've got short legs," he said. "When I ran, my legs were moving like hell. But I wasn't going anywhere. So they called me Speed."

He was in two major battles, and then got wounded.

"We were at a rest area, getting ready to go back," he said. "And we were getting the replacements organized. The first sergeant asked me to hand out grenades. I don't know what happened, but I think one of the new kids grabbed a couple by the rings and one of the pins came out."

So Speed picked up the grenade in his left hand and ran to dispose of it. It exploded, and Speed lost his left hand.

He came back to the states in 1945 and made a career at the Postal Service.

He doesn't have any regrets.

"Being in the 10th Mountain forged my life," he said. "It developed my character, my outlook. You have to overcome obstacles. That's the size of it. You've got to finish."

Future reunions will be organized by descendants.

The old soldiers know it is time to relinquish their role "due to advanced age and the recognition that we are fading away," said Clark.

Of 18,000 men who trained at Camp Hale, fewer than 1,600 are members of the 10th Mountain Division Association. They are left to remember their buddies.

"Nothing bonds more closely than being shoulder to shoulder in battle when your life could depend on the man to your right or to your left," Clark said.

"Every one of us see names of comrades on the memorial. We all have memories of dear friends who share the horror of war."

massarog@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5271

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