West Bend, WI – Veteran Norbert Carter is back, holding down the corner of S. Main Street and Decorah Road in West Bend, Wi, with a tiny table of produce for sale. Stop and visit… the socialization is worth more than the sale as Carter’s wife Lucy passed a couple weeks ago. He’s a good soldier, pulling himself up by his bootstraps, but this time Norbie could use some friendly support.
The sign with an arrow reads tomato. It’s like a little kid lemonade stand with a Korean War veteran at the helm.
Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to
FREE local news at
Washington County Insider on YouTube
At 20 years old Carter got married in 1951, a couple years after tying the knot, he was drafted into the Army.
Carter is good at multi-tasking. He reaches into the passenger seat of his vehicle and pulls out a crumply stash of plastic bags to fill an order.
“I never got to go to high school,” said Carter. “I was put on the farm to help my uncle because he couldn’t get a hired man during the war.”
Carter was one of seven boys in the family; four of his siblings were also in the service.
“My dad was in World War I; my oldest brother was in the Navy during Pearl Harbor. Two of my brothers were in Germany, two of us were in Korea and my youngest son was in Desert Storm.”
For years Carter was part of the Wednesday Farmers’ Market on Sand Drive by the VFW.
You will find Carter set up on the east side of S. Main Street but moving forward he will operate out of his home, 5546 CTH M in the town of Trenton. Mobility issues are limiting his travel. Stop in and buy direct from this little local farmer.
The rest of Carter’s military story is below.
Carter went to Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania for basic training. That was followed by a stint in Washington and later he spent 17 days on a ship to Japan.
“We spent one night in Japan, got back on the boat and I spent the next 15 months and 22 days in Korea,” Carter said.
Immediately stationed on the front line, Carter recalls his orders.
“We were on night patrol and walked up to one area and were handed a steel vest and they said ‘put it on — this is the area where you need it’ and we walked some more and pretty soon we were up on Old Baldy,” he said referencing the site of five engagements during a 10-month span of the Korean War.
“For 32 days I helped build bridges while we were under fire,” Carter said. “There were some Army tanks on a couple of mountains up there and we had to get them back for service work.
“The biggest bridge we had was 280 feet long and it was all steel Treadway. We couldn’t work during the day because the enemy could see us and every day for the first five days the bridge was knocked out by artillery, so each day we had to tear it out and start over.”
Carter was discharged in 1953 as a staff sergeant, Section B, in the Second Division Combat Engineers. Carter is well known in the local military circle; he is chairman of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in West Bend and had been commander for over 18 years.
