Midwest City Rotary Club

Jean C. Calhoun: Korean War

 

Interview by Joanne McMillen (Midwest City Rotary Club)

Interview Date: February 15, 2005

 

 Q:        When and where were you born?

 

A:        Born in Orlando, Florida in, ah, January of 1933. January 29.

 

Q:        When did people first began thinking about the Korean War in the United States?

 

A:        I don’t know when people did, but I – I started in high school when we heard about all of the things that were happening over there in 1950. Ah, as far as other people are concerned, I don’t know. I didn’t notice it even after I came home that they were thinking about it. 

 

Q:        So, the next question wants to know if the war was expected or if the US involvement came as a complete surprise. 

 

A:        To my knowledge, it was unexpected. It came as a complete surprise and, ah, everything I’ve read, ah, since then underscored that fact.

 

Q:        Now, you told us when you were born, but how old were you when the Korean War broke out?

 

A:        Eighteen. 

 

Q:        Eighteen.

 

A:        I’m sorry I was – I was, ah, seventeen when it broke out.

 

Q:       Seventeen. And when you enlisted?

 

A:        Eighteen when I enlisted.

 

Q:        Were you a World War II veteran, and, if so, how did that impact your thoughts? But you did not serve in World War II.

 

A:        No.

 

Q:        In what branch of the military did you serve?

 

A:        Army.

 

Q:        What were your personal feelings about going off to war and what were your feelings in regard to communism and the anxieties and tensions in the United States?

 

A:        At eighteen years old, how much do you think about other governments? Ah, I didn’t have any real, ah, animosity towards the communists. I didn’t even understand what communism was. The, ah, it was a – it was an adventure.

 

Q:        Ah-huh. What were the feelings of your friends and acquaintances about the war?

 

A:        At the time that I went in, ah, their thoughts were that, ah, something’s going on, but other than that they didn’t think a whole lot about it. When I said that I was going into the army, they said don’t you know there’s a war on (laughing) and you could end up there? And, ah, like I said, it was an adventure so I didn’t care. 

 

Q:        Did all of the people you knew want to join the military and serve? Or did any of them want to?

 

A:        No. Most of them just wanted out of it. Most of them were going go to college and, ah, they anticipated they would be able to avoid the draft for at least a few more years, those of my age. And, ah, other than that they didn’t think a whole lot about that war. It was – it was just not within our age group. We were more concerned with girls. 

 

Q:        And Korea was so far away. We didn’t have the same media to make it feel more real.

 

A:        Well, I didn’t – I didn’t even understand the causes or anything at that time and hadn’t thought about it. I had a romantic, idealistic view of war, which stemmed from my growing up during the Second World War, and, ah, without the experiences of actually being in the war, I think that’s the tendency for young people. And, ah, so I didn’t – I didn’t really think about it or talk about in terms of patriotism or anything like that. It was, ah, it was just a means to an end and the end was that I wanted to get started with my life and that seemed to be a good way to do it. 

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        And also have a little adventure in the prospect.

 

Q:        How did your family, wife, or girlfriend, feel about you going off to the war?

 

A:        I was unmarried. I was in between girlfriends when I, ah, when I left – steady girlfriends, shall we say. And my father and mother objected in the sense that no mother and father wants their son to go – or most of them don’t want their son to go into harm’s way. But at the same time, I think they felt it would be a, oh, a natural thing – a good thing for me to get some kind of growing up experience.

 

Q:        Were you the only one in your family that enlisted?

 

A:        I was the only boy. My father enlisted in the navy when he was young and, ah, I feel like that he enjoyed that experience, but it wasn’t war time and he missed out – he was kind of in between wars. And when the Second World War came along he was too old. So he was disappointed and he tried to enlist but was rejected. I think he saw that, ah, if I went in the army I would have an opportunity to experience something that he didn’t get to experience. And I don’t remember him saying “I encourage you to do this, but I think that it was in the back of his mind. He was an adventurous sort. Ah, it just, ah, it just kind of – I just kind of got that feeling that he was, ah, a little bit envious.

 

Q:        I can see that. Where did you undertake your basic training?

 

A:        Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

 

Q:        Can you talk about your experience and impressions of basic training?

 

A:        Oh, it was – I wouldn’t – when I was in high school I had a little bit of ROTC [Reserve Officer’s Training Corps] – the school I went to had an ROTC program. So many of the things, such as marching, such as weapons disassembling and cleaning, and all that sort of thing was already part of me. I had learned to do those things early on so basic training was easy for me. And, ah, it kind of gave me a leg up on some of the other guys that I was, ah, serving with. It eased me into the army because most of the guys I served with in the basic training were draftees and they, ah, they had a – advantage of age on me, but I had an advantage of having some prior training on them, so it kind equaled out. If it hadn’t been for that, I think basic training wouldn’t have been difficult because of the stigma, as it were, of having an RA in front of my serial numbers instead of a US, which is that designation of a draftee or a regular army soldier. 

 

Q:        Where did they send you after basic training?

 

A:        Well, I went to, ah, I was supposed to go to officer’s candidate school. Ah, and when you – if you’re going to officer’s candidate school, at that time, ah, in 1951, you had to go, you were required to go to what they called a leadership school which lasted two months. And when you graduated from leadership school you were automatically promoted to corporal and then if you, when you went into OCS you were moved up to the pay grade of sergeant and you came out of OCS as a second lieutenant. The, ah, I went through – out of – directly from basic training to leadership school and then at the end of leadership school after being promoted to corporal, I declined to go to officer’s candidate school and, ah, then I went to Korea, directly to Korea.

 

Q:        All right. So when you were in Korea you were a corporal?

 

A:        I was a corporal.

 

Q:        What places did you serve in Korea?

 

A:        That’s – I’m not quite sure what that question means, but we were – I was – I went to Korea with a rifleman’s designation, or MOS, and, ah, when I got there I was assigned to the second infantry division, 23rd infantry regiment, fox company, as a rifleman. And, ah, ah, it made it kind of awkward because rank was frozen over there at that time and people were put into slots such as squad leader without being promoted, and they, ah, they were, um, there was a squad leader and an assistant squad leader in my platoon that I went into – the squad that I went into – they were both corporals and, as a matter of fact, I outranked both of them, but I didn’t have any experience in combat and was not at all qualified to be a squad leader in a war. And, ah, ah, so, obviously I was untried. And, ah, in my mind I was unready, if there is such a word.

 

             The, ah, so I was – I went to a – to make a long story a little bit shorter – I was – I went to a line company and they were up in the Kumhwa Valley, ah, on the front line in Korea, which was just above the 38th parallel, as I recall. The, ah, I stayed there and kind of in a – a way of finding a place for me they then sent me back to, ah, to, ah, Chonju, which was about 50 miles behind the lines where I learned to operate a radio, and then went back up to the, ah, Kumhwa Valley and, ah, they didn’t have a place for a radio operator, so I – I was put back in my old line company, again as a rifleman. . .

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        . . .and, ah, I stayed there for about a month and a half. And, ah, we were – at that time the company was on a – on an outpost that was a thousand yards out in front of the main line of resistance and, ah, we, ah, stayed there. It was kind of a quiet area of the front, ah, at that time and until we were relieved. And when I came back off the front line to a rest area, I was then – they found a place for me in a headquarters company in 1st battalion as a radio operator. So I moved over there. 

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        And, ah, eventually I became radio chief and, ah, for the battalion, and, ah, but I was never promoted because they had – rank was first, still. My – as a matter of fact my communications sergeant was a corporal – my boss, as it were. The, ah, ah, I stayed there as a radio chief until the end of – end of my time as – in Korea. Rotated home from there. And it was all right up there around the – either the Kumhwa Valley or Chorwon Valley while I was there.

 

Q:        When you say that rank was frozen and you were in positions where you ordinarily would receive a promotion, am I correct?

 

A:        Where I was what?

 

Q:        If you were placed in a position where ordinarily you would be promoted? Also, did they – was there retroactive promotion when you returned?

 

A:        To the United States?

 

Q:        To the United States?

 

A:        I was promoted when I got back to the states, but by then they – you have to understand that they, ah, at that time there was a lot of young men who went to Korea and due to the rotation system and due to the wounded and so forth and so on, they would be promoted over there and some of them went all the way up to master sergeant from private, and, ah, but they would have, you know, a lot of guys killed or wounded and guys would move up, and then they would go home, and, ah, get to the states and they had a surplus of non-commissioned officers. So they, they, ah, they just stopped promoting for a little while. And then at the end of – about the time that I came home they opened it up again, and I was, ah, in, ah, June of 1953 I was promoted to staff sergeant, and, ah, but it had actually, ah, been offered to me in Korea with the condition that I stay another three months and I said no. Ah, and, then, ah, I wasn’t – I didn’t like, ah, being on the front line that much (laughing) for a few more dollars a month more I didn’t want to stay on in Korea. And it happened anyway when I got here, so . . .

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        . . . it all worked out.

 

Q:        Can you talk about the experiences and conditions that you lived and worked in when you were in Korea?

 

A:        I wish that, ah, I had a bunch of the pictures – my son has them now and he’s putting them on the computer – scanning them into a computer and making me a CD. Then, ah, you could see some of the living conditions which were mostly bunkers. We were up on the front lines, as we were saying. It was trench warfare type of system when I got there. More or less a static front. Um, and so they had time to build extensive trench systems with, ah, bunkers to live in. Those were rat-infested, but they were, um, not – that was not bad living conditions. They were pretty warm in the winter, and, ah, and fairly cool in the summertime. The, ah, food – the food that I got, after I got off the front line – and when I say off the front line, when you’re, when you’re in battalion headquarters company, that’s still considered front line, but it’s slightly improved front line conditions. You get, usually, three hot meals a day at battalion headquarters because they have – that’s where the cooks are. Ah, when you’re actually in a line company, the, ah, ah, cooks were back behind you a couple of miles. They’d cook up the meals, ah, and so frequently what you would get is a, ah, noon meal that was hot, and a breakfast which was corn flakes and, ah, ah, or some other kind of cereal, and then an evening meal which was C-rations.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        Ah, that was, um, I didn’t mind the C-rations. Again, I was 19 years old. Everything tasted good. And, ah, oh, and GIs find a way to forage, so it sounds, ah, a lot worse than it actually was. We – we found ways to found get hot meals up there frequently. And, ah, the – some of it was outright thievery. The, ah, which was called a midnight requisition.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        And, the midnight requisition became a supply system over there so that you got used to it, even though – you got it into your mind – it was thievery in a way, but you were stealing things that were, ah, required for living and required to do your job. We stole weapons, ah, we stole jeeps, ah, I didn’t, ah, I didn’t participate in any of that thievery, ah, but there were guys in the outfit who were what they called a scrounger. And they would – when you needed a, ah, an extra weapon, ah, there was conditions where, in a battlefield, things get lost. You retreat rapidly and leave stuff and, and, ah, you lose things and you, ah, so these things were available and I don’t know where they were stored, who had them, I just know that the, ah, the scrounger had a way of locating them. Does that make sense to you? Have you heard this before?

 

Q:        Sure.

 

A:        And, ah, so you could – when I became regular chief, I needed an ANGRC9 radio and I went to the supply depot and asked for it. I was told there was none available, it would take 3 months to get it. I asked how long if I provided a fifth of whiskey to the supply sergeant and he said we can have you one tomorrow. I rejected that, and sent my scrounger out to get one. And he located one. The, ah, ah, so there was all kinds of people doing all kinds of things, but it was effective system, and I suspect it goes on, from everything I’ve heard, in all wars.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:         Because of the nature of the beast.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        And, ah, ah, we – that same system operated on the front line, and I was up there operating the radio for a group of men in their bunker at, ah, some time when I was over there – I don’t know exactly when it was, but it was, ah, they were a group that was assigned to a front line unit, but they were not a front line unit, they were an intelligence unit. Um, and they were up there gathering intelligence. And, ah, so I had to go up and operate a radio for them. They were serving, ah, hamburgers and, ah, which they were cooking on their stove on the inside and I said “where did you get those?” And, ah, the answer was “we scrounged them.” Now, ah, the rest of us didn’t get hamburgers. I – I don’t know where they got those hamburgers, but they got them. So that kind of thing went on all the time. It was the fun part of the war – one of the fun parts of the war.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        I was – I found it to be very interesting and enjoyed – I enjoyed the freedom that you – to get things done in a way – a roundabout way – you didn’t have to go through channels, you didn’t have to have the bureaucracy over there, ah, that you – that I had when I came back to the United States.

 

Q:        What about – you mentioned you were fairly comfortable? I know the weather could be pretty harsh in Korea? The clothes that you had and the . . .

 

A:        When I got there it was – they had more or less solved the problems that – early on in the war,  you’ve probably heard, that over time that it was very, very cold and, ah, the GIs had insufficient clothing. I think that was just early in the war and, ah, later on they – when I first got there – the first winter we were in shoepacs, which were canvas and rubber – rubber soles and, ah, canvas uppers and they were pretty warm. Ah, but if you were out for an extended period of time, ah, they, ah, they were not quite adequate. They were better than normal boots, infantry boots, but they were, they were not perfect.

 

            The second winter we were issued what they called Mickey Mouse boots, ah, which were arctic boots and had a better – they had a – trapped air – had a layer of air which gave them a little bit better insulation properties. And, ah, we had parkas, any number of layers of clothes, and so, ah, I was never – I was never in a position where I was really, really cold, except for one time when I was on an outpost while I was still a rifleman. And, ah, I had to, ah, I thought I heard a noise, and I grabbed my rifle and I couldn’t – it was dark, it was night – and I couldn’t locate the source of this noise. And so I stood there for quite a while, ah, with my – just holding the rifle. And, ah, it, ah it turned out the noise was back behind me and was being reflected off of something in front and came back to me, and, ah, when I located it. But it was about 20 below and I – I got a slight case of frostbite on my hands, ah, just the very, very surface tissue. Didn’t cause any medical problems or anything. So other than that, I was reasonable warm. Never really comfortable during the winter, but I’m – I’m a Florida boy – I didn’t adjust to that winter for a while.

 

Q:        I’m sure. What kind of contact did you have with people back home?

 

A:        What kind of . . .?

 

Q:        Contact.

 

A:         Contact?

 

Q:        Correspondence?

 

A:        I see, contact. Ah, contact was – it was all just regular mail. And, ah, they could, ah, I think they could send a letter just by an ordinary stamp and it went to an army post office, which was in San Francisco. We didn’t – we were not charged for our mail – for the stamp cost. And, ah, we – the biggest problem we had was finding stationary, ah, which is understandable. The Red Cross would come by and we’d get stationary from them, and, ah, the, ah, ah, there wasn’t any other contact except by, in an emergency, by telegram. And ah, we didn’t – we couldn’t send telegrams, but they could send them to us.

 

Q:        And how often did you receive mail then?

 

A:        Well, I was – by the time I went over there I was engaged, ah, the, ah, my fiancé did not – we did not – ah, after I went over there I never saw her again. The, ah, she wasn’t right. She was in a different – she had her own life to live. It was, ah, I think it was just a poorly conceived idea from the very beginning and, ah, ah, I didn’t – I didn’t suffer any as a result of that. But the, ah, my parents wrote and my sister wrote, ah, and, ah, I guess that was – my mother wrote fairly often and, ah, ah, the – my father wrote once in a while. My sister wrote regularly and I had another friend that I wrote to on occasion. So I would say I would go usually probably a week at the most without a letter of some sort. Fairly, ah, fairly good.

 

Q:        So the system in getting your letters to you was fairly consistent also.

 

A:        It was fairly rapid.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        And fairly consistent that it, ah, I think that during the Second World War the guys had a lot of trouble getting their mail sometimes, but that was because of submarines and because they would move a lot more. We were in a steady front. There were no submarines to interdict the ships and, ah, and a lot of it was airmail anyway, so it came in fairly consistently. We didn’t have a problem. 

 

Q:        If you feel comfortable talking about combat, would you describe the combat experiences you had, if any.

 

A:        I think I was fairly lucky in that – combat is such a broad term. I hate to think of my experience as being typical of combat. They, ah, there was – I have a combat infantry badge, which you get for being ten days under fire. But ‘under fire’ is a, ah, a very, very broad term, you know, if they shoot at once in a while with a, ah, with a artillery piece or something like that, you’re under fire. If there’s a sniper close by that fires in the direction of your company, you’re under fire. There was (garbled), therefore you’re in a combat situation. The actual – you’re at – I have to say at any of those times you’re at risk because there’s, ah, that one artillery round could fall on you, ah, but at the same time, you’re not – after you adjust to the tension and that sort of thing, you – it’s not a really unnerving type thing. It’s kind of a – it’s, ah – you actually get a false sense of security to a certain extent. And there’s – when you’re out on that outpost, that was definitely considered a combat situation. We got shot at. We got – a sniper shot at us. Frequently the Chinese had patrols all around us all the times and how, ah, we – but it was not that dangerous. Ah, we were more or less protected in our bunkers and, ah, trenches.

 

            The, ah, the one time that when you talk about combat that comes to mind was in an effort to retake one hill called Baldy. Or Old Baldy. And, ah, and that lasted about three days. And, ah, it was almost constant, ah, shellfire, ah, machine gun fire, you know, whatever. Ah, and, ah, it was, ah, a situation – a situation where by this time I was the – not the radio chief, I was considered the senior radio operator and therefore, ah, I became the colonel’s – the battalion commander’s radio operator. And, ah, when he went out on, ah, whatever – the inspection or to check on the troops or do whatever – and, ah, so we were right up there at the front during the battle for the hill. And, ah, it was, ah, it was a, ah, well, I can’t remember a whole lot about it, other than the fact that, ah, we didn’t get much sleep. Ah, we were, ah, ah, it was a very wearing type of experience. You get so tired that finally you just go to sleep, and, ah, you sleep through just about anything. 

 

            The, ah, the reason why I say I don’t think my experiences are particularly and experience like anybody else would have in a combat situation or what you might picture – because I was a radio operator. I didn’t get to shoot at anybody. I was – I was shot at, but I couldn’t retaliate, which was very frustrating. Ah, the, ah, I wanted to fight back, but all I could do was operate a radio. 

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        And, ah, ah, I was, ah, I was there, but I was frustrated by my inability to participate as I – as I saw it in the retaliation against the enemy. They were shooting at me and I couldn’t shoot back. I was just too busy doing other things. I imagine the same frustration applies to other radio operators, to medics, to, ah, various other people with various other jobs. The riflemen, who is involved in something like that, at least has the satisfaction of shooting back. He’s defending himself. It probably releases some of his tensions. I don’t know. I didn’t get to experience that. So whenever – people have an image of what combat is like, and, ah, and I had one of those images in my own mind what it would be like and it was different. It was not, ah, what I wanted it to be, but yet at the same time it was – I didn’t want to be in some of those firefights that the riflemen got into. 

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        I was in a more secure position most of the time and, ah, secure position is a poorly defined because you can be – a radio operator still has to run through a artillery barrage, but he’s not as likely to get into a firefight where they’re shooting at you with a rifle. Ah, the, ah, I don’t – I kind of thought when it was all over with that I’d had all of the combat experience that I wanted. I went over for the adventure. I got close enough to the adventure to experience it to a certain extent, but not as a extensively as a lot of other guys. 

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        So, I guess the answer is, that is to say, I can’t recall an incident where I did anything heroic. But I’m satisfied. 

 

Q:        Sure. And we forget the many varied roles that the men had in this war.

 

A:        Well, that’s the thing that people don’t understand – a lot of people don’t understand. It’s not brought out in fiction or any place else is that, ah, in a war there’s periods of – there’s a lot of periods of quiet where you’re just moving from one place to the other. But moments of extreme danger come relatively rarely. I read a thing here a while back that the average combat soldier only experiences combat about, ah, in his whole war career, he may experience combat, ah, ten per cent of the time, or something like that. I don’t know what the actual figure was, but I know that that was my experience. So I hesitate to think – to even portray myself as a, as a combat soldier, but at the same time there was, ah, there was a certain satisfaction of having been there close to it. I saw some of the adventure that I wanted to see. I don’t recommend it to anybody, but it was, ah, it was a, I guess it was a high point and it was a low point in my life. I don’t know any other way to describe it. It was just, ah, I was just there and did what I did and came home.

 

Q:        I’m curious. You mentioned the combat zone in trying to reclaim a hill. Were you successful in reclaiming the hill?

 

A:        Yes.

 

Q:        OK.

 

A:        We were successful. This particular hill was fought over repeatedly and I think it was lost and reclaimed about three times. There were several battles for Old Baldy.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        And, ah, we – it was – you’ve might have heard that the Korean War – and I’m going to have to leave in just a minute – ah, the later part of the war as being the battle of the outposts. Baldy was an outpost. Pork Chop Hill was an outpost. And when they, ah, and there’s varying degrees of outpost. In other words, a major hill may become an outpost, but an outpost also may be just a little squad-size or 2-man position where they’ve got a couple of guys out there listening for any enemy activity. So an outpost is hard to define, but an outpost generally means it’s a place where you can absorb – observe enemy movements and enemy actions and keep them, ah, ah, under surveillance and you can control a certain amount of territory. And usually in Korea it was a place of height – looking for height. And the highest hill around was the, ah, place that they wanted to have an outpost. 

 

Q:        Makes sense.

 

A:        Ah, Baldy was a one of those, ah, and it was called Baldy because they had fought for it so many times that all of the vegetation was blown off the top of it. It was just a bare hill on the top. And, ah, but it was occupied so much of the time that both Chinese and the Americans had opportunity to re-enforce all the bunkers, build new trenches, a very elaborate system of bunkers, trenches, and that sort of thing.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        If you saw the movie Pork Chop with Gregory Peck – most women don’t like to watch those kind of movies – the, ah, you could see what it was – to a certain extent – what it was like over there. The, ah, you could see the bunkers and see the trench systems. The trenches usually connected the bunkers and, ah, the, ah, the bunkers were used to sleep in for warmth and that’s the thing that also protects you against artillery. The trenches were used, ah, as a place to stand and have some coverage of your head when you were shooting at the Chinese. And some of the bunkers had weapons slits, apertures, that you could fire through. Ah, an awful lot of them did not.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        Ah, they were just a place to sleep or protection against artillery.

 

Q:        How interesting. Moving on to the next question, what were your most memorable experiences in Korea? Combat or otherwise.

 

A:        The most memorable experience, of course, was the major battle which I participated in, which was the battle for Old Baldy, and that occurred in July and August of 1952. Um, it was, um, it lasted as far as I was concerned about three or four days, and that’s when I was involved in it and, ah, and it was, ah, exhilarating, frightening, ah, interesting. There was, ah, well you – I can see how people would get, ah, oh, kind of a – you get kind of a high when you’re in a combat, and it causes a thing which is kind of a time expansion. You, ah, you – time begins to seem – seems slower.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        I can remember watching and – to this day – 50-some years later, I can still remember running and observing an ant crawling – while I was running – and, ah, I was thinking to myself “that stupid ant doesn’t even know there’s a war on,” you know. Now, how did I have time to see that ant while I was running, I couldn’t explain to you, but I was – but I can remember that thought and I can remember, ah, smells, and seeing things that you don’t normally see. Your awareness level goes sky-high, I mean, and you’re just – all you’re senses – it’s an adrenaline rush, is what it is. And you, ah . . .

 

            (end of tape side one – beginning side two)

            

            . . . due to the adrenaline rush, you, you experience life so vividly, ah, that I can see where it could become habit-forming. You could get hooked . . .

 

Q:        On that high feeling?

 

A:        It’s a – it’s a huge high. And it’s an emotional high. And I suspect that people do get hooked on it. I have – I have known people over there and since then that, ah, talked about that experience with a certain amount of fondness. They, they miss it.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        And I’ve read since then that there are men, ah, who get – do get hooked on it and can’t wait to get back into combat. Ah, I didn’t get that high (laughing). I – but it was an interesting phenomenon. And, ah, the experience – the battle for Old Baldy, as far as I was concerned, was just – I was just another GI and I really wasn’t aware of the – what we were doing and what we were trying to accomplish. I was just doing what I was told.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        So, as far as what we accomplished and all of that, it was unknown to me then and I still don’t even think about that. It was just most of the GIs that I knew were just doing what they were told and the information about where we were or where the hill was or the importance of that hill, it never filtered down to us.

 

Q:        Nor were you encouraged to ask questions, I imagine. 

 

A:        No, we weren’t encouraged or discouraged. It was just, ah, you were – you had so much – you had your own particular job to do and that was – that was about all you could think about.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        So you didn’t, ah, the, ah, ultimate goal was left to the people in charge, and so we didn’t think too much about that. And I’ve thought about it since then. I would like to know exactly where it was. I’d like to know what – what we accomplished, but I don’t. I still don’t to this day. I saw a picture just recently in a book of the – of the hill, Old Baldy, and, ah, I – for the first time I found out what that hill looked like. I was – because it was a mountain really, and I only saw just exactly what I was involved with, no more. And I can pinpoint the place where I had been. But, that’s the first time I knew what that mountain even looked like. I came up on it from another direction and, ah, ah, and didn’t see a big part of what was around there. And I think that’s probably true for most GIs. They don’t – unless they’re in a position of responsibility (garbled), they don’t know anything about the terrain other than it’s a high hill (laughing). 

 

Q:        (laughing). We’re going up, now we’re going down.

 

A:        Yeah, or something like that. It’s tough going, but that’s about all you know when you’re a low-rank individual, such as I was. 

 

Q:        The next question is if you can tell me how that experience has impacted your life.

 

A:        I don’t think it has. I – I, ah, there was no – I was 19 years old and there was particular trauma as far as I was concerned. My, ah, my immediate – my friends, none of them were hurt. Ah, none of them – none of them were even wounded. Now I saw dead people from both sides, but they were, ah, when I say from both sides, I mean from both communists and the Americans, but they weren’t people that I knew so it didn’t affect me traumatically in any way. And I didn’t – I can’t say that it impacted my life other than I went over there for the adventure and I had the adventure and that was sufficient for me and I – I don’t think that I would particularly recommend war or combat as a – as a means of growing up, because sometimes it stops your growing up, but it, ah, I just don’t see any affect on my life.

 

Q:        How long did you serve in Korea?

 

A:        One year.

 

Q:        After serving in Korea, where did the military send you or were you immediately discharged?

 

A:        No, I was – I still had a year left on my enlistment and so they brought me back to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. I was raised in Florida, Orlando, Florida, and they try to get you as far away from home as possible, I think. But anyway, they brought me to Ft. Sill, and, ah, and I’ve been here just about ever since.

 

Q:        Now it is home.

 

A:        Now it’s home. 

 

Q:        What kind of reception did you receive when you got back to the United States?

 

A:        It was indifference. They, ah, ah, the war wasn’t really on anybody’s mind. It was just – it was just an incident that was going on on the other side of the world and, ah, most people, ah, when I told them, ah, I’d been overseas they didn’t inquire any further. They didn’t – it was not “Did you go to Korea?” or anything like that, it was just “Oh.”

 

Q:        I’m curious if you have any recollection as to how the media covered the fighting in Korea while you were gone or maybe once you returned.

 

A:        Of course, while I was gone, I wouldn’t have been aware of what the media was doing. When I got back, I was surprised to find that the media had concentrated, ah, on the events that happened in the first year and a half of the war. At that time it was still ‘new’ news. After it became kind of trench warfare and a stalemate over there, although there was a lot of war still going on – a lot of fighting, a lot of battles – they weren’t as newsworthy I guess. So you not only didn’t hear about it then with the exception of Pork Chop Hill and a few others, well you – later on, the, ah, books that I was able to get on the Korean War talked about the Korean War in terms of 1950 to about the middle of 1951 – about a year a half. And, then they said, “after this period, we had a serious of small battles. It was trench warfare, and they went on for another year a half.” They don’t talk about, or document, anything that happened in that final year a half.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        Which is kind of curious. The, ah, mainly because I’d like to – like I said, I’d like to know where I was and what I’d done and so, you can’t find any notation about that to any extent anywhere. Or I haven’t been able to find it. I suppose if I had the time I could, I could dig out that information somewhere, but I haven’t.

 

Q:        Sounds like the information was kept in the military records but not necessarily in the public. . .

 

A:        That’s what I dug out was in the military record. I don’t think – now, I have recently found a book about the 45th infantry division, which is an Oklahoma National Guard Division and, ah, the man that wrote it was there at the same time I was. So it was – it took that little period of history and got it into print. So, I ate it up, you know, it was a really interesting book to me, but I – the man who wrote it was in the artillery over there as an officer, so it didn’t really have the details that I was interested in. He did mention Baldy and that’s where, ah, I was, and the 45th division was in the same area of Korea – Kumhwa and Chorwon Valleys – that I was – the 2nd infantry division was in, so we had some similar experiences – common experiences. But, ah, I guess I just – if I could get a whole lot of detail I would just spend – be mesmerized by it, but I’m – I can’t find it. And I’ve looked and read an enormous amount of books. 

 

Q:        Hum. In terms of your war experiences, how did those experiences affect your relationships and interactions with family and friends, girlfriends?

 

A:        I can’t – I can’t see any affect, ah, and that’s because I wasn’t traumatized, ah, and I, ah, it was an interesting experience and when I came back it was just resuming as if I’d been asleep for a year, so to speak. I just resumed my life from where I left off. The, ah, I came back to Ft. Sill and spent the following year as just another soldier. And they didn’t – there was nothing that was, ah, granted to me because I was a combat veteran or anything of that nature – didn’t affect me. 

 

Q:        Did you parents treat you differently? You discussed earlier that perhaps your dad. . .

 

A:        The, ah, my father did a little bit, but it was like – you’re a grown man, now. I left as a young teenager and I – I came back, although I was only a year older – I was treated like a grown man.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.

 

A:        And, ah, I don’t know – I’ve never even made a guess as to whether or not that would have been the treatment had I just grown a year older at home. I don’t know.

 

Q:        Can’t compare.

 

A:        There’s no way of guessing that. My mother, ah, difficult to, to put any kind of a message to her treatment of me. She was glad to see me back. She was ill and, ah, ah, the, ah, I think she had some mental problems and I think the stress of my being over there might have aggravated it. And the – when I came back, naturally, she was relieved of some of that stress.

 

Q:        Sure.

 

A:        But she didn’t talk about it and, ah, we didn’t, ah, it didn’t change our relationship or anything like that. She had – about that time she had some treatments that more or less relieved her mental problems and, ah, she was – these treatments changed her personality to a certain extent and we didn’t – we didn’t dwell on the past or anything. It was just ‘I’m home and I’m glad you’re home’, you know, that’s it.

 

Q:        Do you still keep in touch with some of the people you served with?

 

A:        Yes, I showed you this one guy – his picture, ah, this guy standing in front of the radio truck. We – he and I are still in touch. I was in touch with this man until he died of a heart attack about ten years ago. And then another man that I was over there with, ah, I was in touch with him up until, ah, about a year ago, and, ah, the – I found him on the internet and, ah, so it was probably 30 years or 40 years after the war that I found him on the internet and we stayed in contact until just recently. And he had some war experiences that I didn’t have. He got, ah, frost bitten very badly and it caused a neuropathy disease – maybe that’s not the word, ah, neuropathic – but anyway it was nervous. His legs – the nerves in his legs were affected by the intense cold over there and, ah, the damage that was done was not discovered until he was up in his 60s and, ah, just one day he was playing golf and all of a sudden he collapsed. And they got his – laughed at him because they thought he was drunk and, you know, because he’d been drinking some beer on the golf course, but not that much. And he had already retired. He had a very successful career in the insurance business and was retired in Arizona. And was playing golf with some buddies and he collapsed. But he was able to get back up and walk and finish out the game, but he then started stumbling more and more. And he went to the doctor and they diagnosed it as coming from his war experiences. And from being, literally, frozen over there. And, ah, the last I heard of him was about a year ago and he told me when he called that he was going to have to move to a nursing home, he could no longer take care of himself. And, ah, ah, so, but he also told me his health was real bad and, ah, then, ah, then I didn’t hear from him for quite a while and I started trying to call him, and I can’t find him. So I don’t know whether he’s died or whether he’s into a nursing home. But he used to call me on a regular basis because I – through my business I have a nationwide WATTS and so he could call me free at any time. And, ah, he hasn’t availed himself of that opportunity, so I’m – I suspect that he’s – he might have passed on. His health was very poor and so I’m down to one person I’m in contact with now.

 

Q:        Ah-huh.  What kind of general observations and conclusions do you have about the Korean War and your experience?

 

A:        I think it was the – we did the right thing. I feel good about – if you compare South Korea to North Korea, ah, to the overall health of the citizens, the overall economic status of the citizens, of the education of the citizens, of the two countries, you can’t help but believe we did the right thing. We contributed – we made our contribution to that and they recognized that, ah, and when the GIs that were in the Korean War they are treated like heroes over there. Ah, they appreciate what was done for them. I haven’t been over there, but that’s the report that I get from everybody that I have talked to that’s gone over there. So, I feel good about it. I don’t, ah, ah, I don’t question that decision. I think Truman made the right decision.

 

Q:        Do you have any other concluding remarks you’d like to make as we finish our interview?

 

A:        No, I just, I – it’s been kind of a good experience to do this because it brought back some flashbacks and some – and flashbacks for me are not traumatic. I don’t – I don’t have any – never had any of the post traumatic syndrome that other guys might have had and you might have interviewed some of them that, ah, were in some very, very stressful circumstances. My particular circumstances were just – I was younger than a lot of them, which was a big help to me. The job that I had, ah, most of the time, put me on the fringes of the real, ah, combat experiences, but not actually in the middle of the combat experiences accept for those three or four days that I was talking about. The rest of the time I was, ah, I was not really in harm’s way. I was where, ah, we were shot at on occasion. We were, ah, bombarded by artillery on occasion, but just as long as you stayed in your bunker or as long as you could get to your bunker fairly rapidly, you were more or less secure. It wasn’t on a – just kind of livened up your day! Broke the boredom a little bit. 

 

Q:        Well, that’s an interesting way to put it. Everyone has their own perspective. On the experience there were different places and had different purposes. We really do appreciate you taking time out of your day to share some of your thoughts and experiences with us so we can record this.