Big Switches

Ever since Ulysses failed to make a prompt return from the Trojan War, the cheers welcoming an end of hostilities have been marred by a few notes of marital tragedy. Korea's Operation Big

Switch, no exception to the rule, brought to light a few switches on the home front:

P: News that Corporal Ralph Meier of White Lake, S.Dak. had been freed by the Communists prompted some soul-searching by his 17-year-old wife Avis. Last March, after having heard the previous fall that Meier had died in prison camp, Avis Meier married Herald Kapsch of Mitchell, S.Dak. When a G.I. released last April in Operation Little Switch reported Meier alive, she had her second marriage annulled, but she hasn't made up her mind about the future. Says she: "I was so sure Ralph was dead, and my whole life had taken on a new direction ... I still don't know how it will work out or how I want it to work out."

P: In even worse straits was 23-year-old Mrs. Agnes Dixon, who married William Sasser of La Grange, N.C. on the strength of an official War Department report that her first husband. Pfc. Walter Dixon, had died of wounds in Korea. In January 1952, after the Communists disclosed that Dixon was a prisoner, Mrs. Dixon got her marriage to Sasser annulled. Six months later she gave birth to a son. Though she named the boy William Charles Dixon, Mrs. Dixon is currently living with her second husband's family (Sasser himself lives elsewhere). Pfc. Dixon, who was released a week ago, has announced that "I'll see about the situation when I get home." Meanwhile, the Veterans Administration is trying to decide whether or not Mrs. Dixon must repay the $10,000 G.I. insurance which she collected after Dixon's reported death.

P: For Mrs. Ava Nell Cogburn of Lexington, Ky., the return of her first husband, Sergeant Jimmie Cogburn, posed only a legal problem. Though she was "surprised and happy" to hear of Cogburn's release, 24-year-old Ava Nell frankly prefers her second husband. Farmer James Hern, whom she married two years after Cogburn was reported missing and presumed dead. Ava Nell, who has a six-year-old son by her first marriage and a month-old daughter by the second, hopes to divorce Cogburn, remarry Hern and keep both children. In Korea newly freed Jimmie Cogburn, who had joined the Army against Ava Nell's wishes, met the news of her remarriage with a low-voiced question: "What can I do?"

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