Korean War veteran Andy Michel recalls his service after Honor Flight to Washington DC

The U.S. military calls it the “tooth-to-tail” ratio: The number of rear-echelon troops (or tail) it takes to support a combat soldier (or tooth).

In World War II, only 19 percent of soldiers (or Marines or sailors or airmen) ever saw the front line, which means that every serviceman who fired a gun in anger or heard one fired had 4.3 troops in safer and cozier billets keeping him supplied.

It was such a cozy billet that Andy Michel—a longtime Chesterton resident and member of the Utility Service Board—was seeking when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in the opening months of the Korean War.

Michel, 92, born in Baltimore, Md., was working at Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s Sparrows Point mill when a buddy of his from the block, Bobby Smith, returned home after being severely wounded in action.