In 1955 he married and subsequently raised two children: son Lorne, a "computer whiz" who travels the world selling software applications, and daughter Linda Ray, a journalism graduate. Divorced in 1978, Badowich remarried in 1984, only to see his wife die of cancer soon after.

Badowich didn't see any more military action, but in 1992 he did revisit the land he fought to free- this time as a guest of the South Korean government. He was among several veterans offered a week-long tour of the country. Along the way, he visited old comrades-in-arms who never had the chance to leave.

"Our dead aren't brought back like the Americans," he says. "Canadians are buried wherever they fell."

There was love among those ashes.

"There's very little greenery in South Korea, so they use the cemetery as a place to hold weddings," Badowich says, brandishing a photograph of a starry-eyed Korean couple.

Another shot reveals Badowich standing at "the bridge of no return"- a narrow walkway in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. "I've got one foot in North Korea and one foot in South Korea."

Nearly 50 years later, Badowich's heart remains a prisoner of war, captive to memories of fear, loss and pain. As sunlight streams into his small North York apartment, the walls reflect images from the past.

"This is a patrol going along a rice paddy," he says, pointing to a painting. "This is an attack coming in," he says while gazing at another. Another piece depicts an all-too-familiar scene for Badowich: soldiers entrenched in one of the dozens of hills on the Korean front lines. The position is girded by barbed wire while the skeletal remains of a Chinese soldier peer in from the outside. Inside the perimeter, the faces are all of young men, Canadians who left their homes to join a bitter conflict.

Ted Zuber is the artist, a man who has twisted his paintbrush to the art of war.

"He was in my regiment," Badowich explains. "He started off in Korea. He was a sniper."

Through images of youth surrounded by death, Zuber renders a tender lesson: The ravages of war underline the radiance of life. And it's not lost on Badowich.

"Look, a blue jay," he says, pointing out his wide living room window. "See the colour!"

He picks up a favourite poem, penned by an anonymous hand, and reads it aloud. It's about an old soldier. One who would frequent the Legion hall, spinning war yarns.

"And tho' sometimes to his neighbours, his tales became a joke, all his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.

"But we'll hear his tales no longer, for old Bill has passed away; and the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today."

Badowich's voice turns to a hoarse warble. He reaches for a tissue. The years have trickled by, the tears still trickle down.

Although he wasn't allowed to revisit Hill 187, where he was captured in 1953, he can imagine it today. "It's probably all overgrown," Badowich muses. "During the war, all the vegetation was destroyed by artillery and bombs. Everything's probably grown back. You'd have to look pretty hard to find the old battlegrounds."

Those blades of grass that once knew blood still draw him back to the dark trenches of memory.

Badowich went up that hill a boy. He came down a prisoner of war. And he came home a hero.

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