Waterloo honors fallen Korean War hero
Soldier killed in 1950 battle receives honorary high school diploma
"Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met."
— Korean War Memorial, Washington, D.C.
WATERLOO — He may not have been old enough to fight for his country. But he was old enough to die for it - and the liberty of a people halfway across the world.
And he was honored by his hometown Monday night, almost 74 years after his death.
Surviving family of Maurice Edward Cook received an honorary diploma on his behalf from Waterloo East High School and the Waterloo Community School District at Monday night’s Waterloo school board meeting.
”I was truly honored that he is being recognized,” said a niece, Jody Cook.
Pfc. Maurice Edward Cook of Waterloo was one of the first soldiers to fight in the Korean War in late June 1950. He had enlisted in the U.S. Army Dec. 26, 1947. He had attended East Junior High School before joining the Army.
Although records in the National Archives show his birth date as 1929, which would have made him 18 at the time of his enlistment, his gravestone and newspaper articles indicate he was born in 1932 — and may have been only 15 at the time of his enlistment and 18 at the time of his death three years later.
Just three years before his enlistment, he won the school marble championship at Grant Elementary School, according to a 1944 Courier article, qualifying for the city tournament.
Maurice Edward Cook served in F Company, 2nd Battalion of the predominantly Black 24th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Infantry Division. The 24th had been formed in 1869 when it was made up of Buffalo Soldiers — Black U.S. cavalrymen. He was initially stationed in Japan, but the regiment was dispatched to South Korea immediately after the North Korean invasion of that country on June 25, 1950.
In Korea, Pfc. Cook's regiment fought at the Pusan Perimeter, where U.S. and other United Nations forces clung to a toehold on the Korean peninsula. In September they broke out of an encirclement by the invaders and drove the enemy back into North Korea. They pushed north of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang to a point north of the Chong’chon River at Kunu-ri, a village just 70 miles from the Yalu River and North Korea’s border with Communist China.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese Communist forces crossed the river and invaded North Korea, overrunning and driving back American and U.N. forces.
Maurice Cook was reported missing in action near Kunu-ri on Dec. 4, 1950 after the Chinese intervention into the war. No official word of his fate was confirmed for several years. Courier accounts note the Army kept his case open until after the July 1953 armistice ending the fighting, in hopes that returning American prisoners of war might have some word of his fate.
He was later confirmed to have been killed in action. His body was returned in 1954 for burial at Waterloo’s Fairview Cemetery. Pfc. Cook had received the Combat Infantry Badge in September prior to his death, in addition to his Purple Heart for being killed in action.
Among family members receiving Maurice Cook’s honorary diploma was a cousin, Kirk Sallis and niece Jody Cook, who is a social worker in the Waverly-Shell Rock public schools. Her father, and Maurice’s brother, James Wesley “Jim” Cook Sr., was the first Black detective sergeant in the Waterloo Police Department. He passed away in late 2023.
Also surviving is another brother Rev. Gary S. Cook, a Waterloo minister now living in Sioux City, who was an on-air host for many years on Waterloo Black-operated public radio station KBBG 88.1 FM. Surviving sisters include Verona “Cookie” Trosper also of Sioux City and Audrey “Babe” Hardy of Portland, Ore. Accompanying Jody Cook for the presentation was her daughter and son in law, Cierra and Landon Newman, an Army veteran who served a deployment to Kuwait.
Kirk Sallis said that even though Maurice died seven years before he was born, he has decorated his grave every year for Memorial Day.
A third cousin of Maurice Cook, Ryan Sallis, a 2001 East High graduate and coach and coordinator with the Future Trojans Wrestling Club, served with the Iowa Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment, the “Ironman Battalion,” from 2003-09, including a deployment to the Sinai Peninsula in 2003 and to Iraq from 2005-07, during which he received the Army Commendation Medal with valor for action in combat.
Pfc. Cook’s honorary diploma resulted from an inquiry by the author of this article. in his capacity as an oral historian with the Grout Museum District, to Waterloo East High athletic director and East High Hall of Fame coordinator Tim Moses and East alum Yolando Loveless, career Navy veteran and executive director of the Black Hawk County Veteran Affairs Commission.
The Grout Museum District and its Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum have been compiling photos and biographies of Iowans killed in the Korean War. In researching Pfc. Cook, it was discovered that he entered the service before graduating from high school.
Many school districts around Iowa over the years have bestowed honorary diplomas to former students whose academic studies were interrupted by service or death in the U.S. armed forces.
Waterloo school district officials expressed desire to similarly recognize Pfc. Cook if surviving family members could be located. That was accomplished through research by Loveless and the author of this article, who made connections with Jody Cook while working on a separate “View from the Cedar Valley” column.
“Private Cook’s commitment to our nation represents the highest ideals of citizenship,” the diploma reads. “Though time has passed, Private Cook’s contributions to our community and country endure as a testament to his strength and valor.”
An East High Junior ROTC honor guard was on hand for the diploma presentation.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. Click on their links below to sample their work.
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Thank you for your story about Maurice Cook. He was a brave young man who died in service to his country - way before his time.