Fyffe, Billy
Billy Fyffe: Korean War
Interviewed by Joanne McMillen (Midwest City Rotary Club Interview)
Interview date June 24, 2004
Q: When and where were you born?
A: I was born on the 22nd day of January, 1922 in Rush Springs, Oklahoma, on Buster Bailey’s farm.
Q: On Buster Bailey’s farm?
A: Yeah.
Q: You were born at home?
A: I guess it was.
Q: Right.
A: Yeah, I was born at home. No hospital. My mother didn’t go to the hospital for any of her eight kids.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: All, ah, what do they call it? What do they call these women that . . .
Q: Midwife?
A: Midwife. All midwives.
Q: That was the tradition then. That was very common. When did people first begin thinking that the United States might get involved in Korea?
A: When the North Koreans came over the border.
Q: OK.
A: They came over the thirty-eighth parallel. They separated Korea north of the thirty-eighth parallel and south of the thirty-eighth parallel. And when they invaded over the thirty-eighth parallel and came south, then they knew the war was on.
Q: Ah-huh. Was the war expected or did the war and the United States involvement come as a surprise?
A: I think that was sort of a surprise. Just out of the blue – just like that.
Q: How old were you when the Korean War broke out? Approximately?
A: Twenty-eight years old.
Q: Were you in the military at the time?
A: Yes..
Q: Were you a World War II veteran and, if so, how did that impact your thought about the Korean War?
A: It impacted in such a way and that I made sure I had a leeway here and there when I went around. I mean, ah, you didn’t go out on a limb. You kind of looked where you were going.
Q: You were more guarded.
A: Oh, you’re absolutely right.
Q: Now, in World War II you were in the navy, but in the Korean War you were in the army?
A: Yes, right.
Q: Next question. . .
A: Do you want me to tell you a little bit about that?
Q: Yes.
A: Well, they shipped me out of Fort Sam Houston and sent me to Korea in 1952. Maybe it was the first of ’53. And I went to Korea. I went to Sasebo, Japan. And then I went from – on a overnight trip from Sasebo to Pusan on an overnight ferry. And I got into, ah, Pusan, and I was amazed. There weren’t any trees anywhere.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Wasn’t – Pusan was just beaten flat. The railroads were running, and, ah, there was really no towns anywhere. They were just demolished. As I went north from Pusan to Taegu on a railroad and I noticed as I got in the, ah, the, ah, the, ah, train that all the cars had wire mesh over the windows. And I didn’t know what that was for, but pretty soon I heard a bang and he says, “That’s what it’s for.” This guy who was sitting with me.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: The Koreans had thrown a hand-grenade and bounced off and gone off on the outside of the car.
Q: OK.
A: And they were doing that as we were going north. And so, that was another precaution that you had to look out for. Got into Taegu and the only thing standing there was the base – KCOMZ headquarters that I was assigned to and part of the, the train depot downtown, and all the rest of it was just flat – wasn’t anything.
Q: Where were the people?
A: Living in little throwed-up cardboard houses. They took, ah, sheetrock, plywood, ah, corrugated iron, everything to build those little hovels and dug out a hole underneath them and were living in that.
Q: Ah-huh. What did they do for food? Do you know?
A: Well, they managed to make kimchi (laughs).
Q: One of your favorites?
A: Oh, no, not one of my favorites! (laughing) They took these big crocks about that big around, about that high, and they chopped this cabbage up in there and put a few other things in there and put a lid on it and let it ferment for 90 days. And when you took that lid off, that lid just floated by itself. It came right up like that! That’s a staple food of theirs.
Q: Ah-huh. So they were able to garden and have some, maybe chickens or ducks or some . . .
A: Oh, yeah. I saw up there – a guy thrashing wheat. He was ah, and I thought the mortality rate was about thirty-seven years, but he was eighty-five years old and he had a big stovepipe hat on and he had – his thrashing machine was a make-shift object that he turned with his hand and, and, all around it they’d cut up a tire – rubber tire – a put it all the way around that – all the way around that circle and when it came around, well, they’d take a sheaf of wheat and put it up on there and that thing would just beat the kernels out of that straw. And the kernels would fall down below and a lot of the straw would blow away. And when they got through doing that, and they got plenty of wheat under there, they’d move that and they’d take that with a little pan, throw it up in the air and all the rest of that stuff would blow away and they’d have wheat left.
Q: Right. Interesting.
A: Learned a lot about their home living over there.
Q: Ah-huh. The next question asks about the branch of the military that you served in and we’ve already established that it was the army. What rank were you in the army?
A: I was a first lieutenant in the adjutant general corps. And I was assigned to the KCOMZ processing section there that assigned people to the combat zone. And I saw where I was going to spend a long time in Korea and I tried to get to go north so I could earn my points quicker, the general says, “Go to work.” So I stayed there and assigned people going north. We’d trade lieutenants for colonels and colonels for captains and whatever we needed up north. It was cold there! It was cold. It was so cold that one day we had a chief warrant officer and he liked to go hunting, and there was about an inch of snow on the ground, so you couldn’t see these holes that they put this night soil in – they were covered up. He had his rifle in his hand and he fell in that thing. (laughs) All the way down – head over heels – all the way. When they got him out, he burned his clothes, he turned his rifle in (laughing), and he took a bath for two weeks!
Q: (laughing) What a mess!
A: Yeah, it was.
Q: I wonder if he’s sitting somewhere telling that story about himself right now?
A: I don’t know. I guess he was – he was a couple of years older than I was. He might not be. . .
Q: Ah-huh. What were your personal feelings about going off to war and what were your feelings in regard to communism?
A: Well, communism, I felt that was wrong. That’s not the – you circumvent the whole population when you do that. You don’t allow them any freedom. They don’t have any freedom. They’re all put in stress. A lot of them die. If you object to anything, you’re gone. You, ah, you sort of have to be a yes-man.
Q: Ah-huh. So what were your personal feelings about going off to war?
A: Well, I was over there, they shipped me.
Q: Right, but you enlisted.
A: Oh, that didn’t bother me. I mean, ah, just like now, I – I would go to Iraq now if they would accept an old man, but they wouldn’t do that.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: It, ah, it’s just like a baseball game. You get a – you’re on one side and you hope that you win.
Q: Ah-huh. It’s a bit more lethal than a baseball game.
A: Oh, absolutely, you can bet on that. It, ah, we’d lose a man occasionally where I was assigned there. Not too many. We’d change the APCs a lot – the money.
Q: What’s APC?
A: Yeah . . .
Q: What is that?
A: That’s – that’s the money that – we had money that wasn’t like the United States money.
Q: OK.
A: It had pictures on it, ah, let me see, do I have any anywhere? I’ve got a couple of pieces somewhere. And they would have, maybe, a picture of a bird on it or something and it’d be a five dollar bill. They didn’t use American money there.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: In World War II they used American money in Hawaii and over in North Africa, but in Hawaii they wrote the big letters H-A-W-A-I-I on both – on one side of it. And in North Africa, they – the seal on there was yellow. It wasn’t like any other seal.
Q: Why did use different money?
A: Well, they didn’t want to get a lot of our money over there and lose it.
Q: OK.
A: Just like when they – well, now, this was a different story over with Saddam. He had buggies full of it.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: He had millions of dollars of our money. Brand new bills in big suitcases. And he – when they caught him, he even had one big suitcase – he had seven hundred thousand dollars with him when they caught him.
Q: He did.
A: Brand new bills. And he’d got that through selling oil and everything and just took it for himself and – instead of doing something for the people there. Wonder who got that money? (laughing)
Q: I speculate . . .
A: There was a lot of it found – a lot of it found.
Q: So why did you enlist?
A: Well, in the army?
Q: You put your time in the navy, why did you enlist in the army? Why did you go back . . .
A: My wife wouldn’t let me stay in the navy!
Q: OK, so your time in the navy was over and you were married.
A: Yeah, and I got my degree and then, ah, I was working on my law degree and this opportunity came up and – whoah! I could finish my law degree and have some income coming in on the side, and so I enlisted, and then they called me to active duty as an officer and I went to San Antonio, Texas.
Q: OK, so you enlisted in the army reserves?
A: Yeah. No, no, I was in the regular army.
Q: OK.
A: I wrote a letter to Washington. I got a degree determination. And so my permanent chief in the navy was only worth a sergeant first class in the army – that’s a joke! (laughing) And, ah, that’s the way I got in. I would have stayed out here at Tinker until my enlistment was up, but I was in there looking through a book one day, and I said “Oh, I qualify for that.” So I put in for a second lieutenant (AGC) and a I got it.
Q: So your incentive at the time – we weren’t at war with Korea?
A: Do what now?
Q: We weren’t at war when you first enlisted?
A: No, no.
Q: And your incentive was the educational benefit?
A: Yes. Oh, yes.
Q: Did you ever think that you would be in another war?
A: After I got in six months I did! (laughing)
Q: Well, before you enlisted did you ever think you would be in another war?
A: I didn’t think anything about it, really.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: It was just one of those cases of pig in a poke – you’re in there and they catch you in there and that’s it.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: It wasn’t all that bad, but in Korea it was, ah, wasn’t anything in Korea. That was a good place to freeze to death in Korea.
Q: What did you do to stay warm?
A: Well, they had a pot-bellied stove in that Quonset hut. If that guy eating that kimchi wouldn’t have come in the other end and run me out the back end of it! Oh, that was horrible! I enjoyed those Koreans giving me a haircut, though. They cut your hair with a razor, you know, a straight-edge razor?
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And they – they would massage your head, your shoulders and your arms and your back and when you were through, man, you felt like you’d really been worked over and it was – it was – it was nice.
Q: Ah-huh. Ah-huh.
A: Never see anything like that here. Well, I do know a guy over here and sort of does a little of it, but not much.
Q: What was it like in the United States with the – were people anxious or tense because of the communism and the Korean. . .?
A: Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Q: Was the tension and anxiety on mainland United States, was it the same as during World War II or . . .
A: Just as bad.
Q: OK.
A: It was just as bad. That seems strange that they fought Japan and right next door we go back and fight over Korea.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Now, we’re getting ready to take some troops out over there and a bunch of them want us to keep them there and then, ah, those young bucks from about twenty to thirty, they want them to leave. Well, they don’t know what they’re asking themselves for because that North comes down over there again they’ll snow them under. Of course, they got a food shortage in the North and I don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just depriving of the public population up there something to eat. I’ll tell you, that’s what they’re doing. A lot of people dying if starvation in the North. Then he’s got his little toy over there. He’s trying to make an atomic bomb. He doesn’t know what he’s messing with. I was over there when they dropped the two in Japan and I want to tell you something, you’re going to think twice, yes siree, you’re going to think twice.
Q: Were you close to it?
A: No, not real close. I was about, ah, eight hundred miles away.
Q: Could you see any of the mushroom?
A: No, no.
Q: I don’t have any idea how that might travel.
A: Well, it traveled.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I think, I think, I think Hiroshima was sort of down in a little cup, like that – down like that, you know, and so all of the force of that went down and up like that. Now Nagasaki, I’m not sure what the elements were there, but, ah, I’d say each one of them – there was about eighty or ninety thousand killed outright, and they lost another hundred and fifty thousand after that from contamination.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: They, ah, when that thing when off, if I’d a had this shirt on up there, my body would have just dissipated, but the these little marks there would have been on that concrete, these little marks on that shirt? Would have been on that concrete. Concrete was the only thing that seemed to stay put with the atomic bomb. That’s the only thing. Steel – it just evaporated just like it wasn’t nothing.
Q: How did you know that? From hearing others talk about it?
A: Oh, research, reading, hearing others talk about it.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Now if this steel was inside a concrete dome, which there was one left there, it survived. But where it was just out bare steel, it’s gone. You see, that degree – there must have been five or six thousand degrees in there. Well, it only takes four thousand degrees to make steel.
Q: Did people – do you think Americans really understood what the atomic bomb would do when they dropped it?
A: They had no idea, absolutely no idea.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: But, boy they were all for them once they found out what it would do. I’m sure I was glad, because we might have lost a million people if we had invaded Japan. Entirely possible. I’m going to get me a cup of coffee, you want a cup?
Q: No, I’m fine.
(tape stopped temporarily)
Q: All right, we were talking about, actually we left Korea and went back to World War II with the atomic bomb. Going back to Korea. . .
A: That was no-man’s-land, Korea was.
Q: What do you mean by that – no-man’s-land?
A: Well, the army was fighting up north, north of the thirty-eighth parallel and, ah, so finally the, the – China turned loose of two manned divisions of their troops up there to help the North Koreans, and so when they started in the first wave that came in didn’t have gun one. All they did was just have their bodies with those thick suits on, and they’d fall on this barbed wire stuff – this barbed wire . . .
Q: Were they booby-traps?
A: No, it wasn’t booby-trapped, but they’d fall down on that and the others would just walk right over them. And they’d fall down . . . they were making a path across there so the others could get through it.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Then, pretty soon, about every fifth guy had a gun, then when the next bunch come through every third guy had a gun, that’s the way they got through that barbed wire entanglement.
Q: Huh.
A: And they – they killed a lot – we wiped out two whole division of Chinese troops up there, but they just kept sending them. All they were was fodder.
Q: So the people that wore the vests that would fall on the barbed wire, did they get shot and die?
A: Absolutely.
Q: What did your friends and acquaintances think about the war?
A: Well, not many of them liked it, but they thought it was a necessary thing to get those people back north. Get the North Koreans back north.
Q: Why did they feel that way? Did they think if was our responsibility?
A: No, they just – well, they were, they were, ah, following orders. And they were – we were sent over there to help the South Koreans win that little skirmish. They kept kind of saying it was just a – what did they call that? They didn’t call it a war, they called it a skirmish.
Q: Did all the people you know what to join the military and serve?
A: Well, ah, I joined the military and it did me a world of good.
Q: Ah-huh. What about your friends back home? Did a number of them enlist?
A: Yes. Yes. But they didn’t enlist when I did. I went in before there was any war on.
Q: Right.
A: And, ah . . .
Q: So, once the Korean War started, people were . . .
A: Well, they first had some, ah, ah, what do they call – they sent in a bunch of people to help train the South Koreans. . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And then, then they just went over there and spent eight or ten months doing that and you’re time’s up when you came back. But they hadn’t came down from the north yet.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And so that bunch was going on in 19 – I guess that was going on in 1950 and ’51. Then when the war broke out, that war only lasted three years, you know. That’s way over in the back of this (sound of pages turning) . . .
Q: How did your wife feel about you going off to war?
(Tape stops temporarily)
Q: OK. I believe the next question I need to ask is how did your wife feel about you going off to war?
A: I think she was happy about it! (laughing) No, she felt like most women, I guess. She was a little apprehensive about it. I – I left from San Antonio and went to Korea and she was left there and came over after I transferred to Japan..
Q: Did you have any children at the time?
A: Oh, yeah. I had, ah, two. A boy and a girl right up there – those paintings right up there.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: They were made in Japan, when I transferred to Japan.
(end of Side B of tape)
Q: This is a continuation of our Korean War interview with Mr. Fyffe, who served in Korea during this time. We’re talking about Korea and you mentioned the weather. Tell me some more about the living conditions.
A: The living conditions were depressing. If anytime I was ever depressed in the service, that was when I was in Korea.
Q: How did the other men respond to the weather? Was everyone pretty well depressed with the weather?
A: Ah, well, the weather was a strange factor over there. It made it hard for the combat troops. It made it hard for those that weren’t in combat.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: It was just – it was just ferocious weather.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: The winters were bitterly cold.
Q: What about the summers?
A: Bitterly hot!
Q: OK. I hear people talk about the bitter cold winters, but the summers people did not talk about that as much.
A: Well, if you were near the ocean on, on, then you got the sea breeze, but it you weren’t it was pretty warm. And those – the clothes they wore over there, well, they were hot.
Q: How do you think that impacted combat?
A: Well, in the wintertime, I’m glad everybody in combat was happy to have those heavy clothes on because it was – it was cold. Of course, you never knew where your enemy was – that was the problem a lot of the times. They had as many enemies in South Korea as they had coming down from the north. And then they had the big breakout and the – they had two or three prisons just full of North Korean soldiers and they gave them an option of joining the South Korean army or staying in jail, and they joined the South Korean army, but that didn’t say they’d joined the South Korean army!
Q: Ah-huh.
A: They’d just as well fought for the North as for the South, see, and that made it tough.
Q: There was no way to really identify them.
A: No, not really.
Q: Other than their behavior.
A: Absolutely not. Well, they had different insignia on their clothes, but you couldn’t tell that, I mean, that was, ah . . .
Q: So when a North Korean was fighting in the South Korean army, they would have different . . .
A: Well, when they let those prisoners out down there, they had that option of joining the South Korean army and going with them and fighting, or staying in prison. And almost all of them joined the army, but that didn’t mean they joined the army. They might have took an oath, but then they could have still fought for the North in the South.
Q: Right. The next question asks what your most memorable experience in Korea was, be in combat or otherwise.
A: Riding on the train, dodging hand grenades.
Q: You talked about that earlier.
A: Yes. That’s – they had a lot of North Koreans in South Koreans and they just lived down there.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Coming out of the mountains. That’s why they had those windows shielded with that wire mesh, to keep those hand grenades out because before they did that, they lost a lot of people coming into Korea just by throwing those into the windows of the trains that went by.
Q: Could a hand grenade land on top of the train?
A: Well, it wouldn’t do any good there. They could, but they would toss them up and – most of their windows they didn’t have anything over them. They had the window back so they’d get the air in, you know? And they just threw those hand grenades in there and they played havoc with the people inside.
Q: Ah-huh. I guess my question about the hand grenade, I wondered if it was strong enough to do damage through the train – through the roof. Not the same way as coming in through the window, of course.
A: Well, yes, it did damage. Absolutely.
Q: Ah-huh. Were you around combat or places where people were actually throwing hand grenades and they were going off?
A: Once I settled in Taegu, I wasn’t.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Because I didn’t – I left the post a couple of times to go down towards downtown, but I never went all the way, I just went part of the way and looked and came back. But, ah, oh, they threw hand grenades over in our compound, too. Well, one of the peculiar things was when they changed the money over there. They – like they change it today, they found out about it yesterday and they’d be all lining that fence with just bundles of that APC money to change, you know, to trade it for some of the new money.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And, ah, a lot of them got caught there, you know, a lot of the pretty girls and stuff that worked over there. They lost a lot of money like that because they couldn’t change it – couldn’t get it exchanged with somebody inside.
Q: How do you think your experiences in Korea have impacted your life?
A: Made me sit up and take notice.
Q: Notice of what?
A: Of everything!
Q: Of your environment?
A: Oh, yes, very much so. Very much so. That was just a nervous place to be and where I was – I was only getting a point and a half a month over there, and if you went up to the front lines you got three points a month. And you needed X points to get out of there. Soon as you got your points, well, you got to leave, either go home or take an in-effect transfer and go to Japan.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: It took me a long time to get my points to get out of there. And then, when I got them, then they cut my orders and I went over to pick them up, that major over there, adjutant, turned around to me and said “Oh, you’re leaving,” and the general said, “You’re not going anywhere! Go back and go to work.” And the next morning, he stopped everybody from leaving Korea in KCOMZ Headquarters.
Q: Why was that?
A: Well, they were leaving and he thought they should stay over there as long as he was staying over there.
Q: Oh, I see, OK.
A: That was something different. Of course, I just said, “Yes sir,” and I went back to work and I took my bag that night and went down and got on the train and I was gone! But I heard about it when I got to Japan that he’d stopped everybody the next day. No one left Korea out of the KCOMZ until he told them they could go. But I had my points.
Q: So after you left there, where did you go?
A: I went to , ah, ah, Albuquerque, New Mexico at the AFSWP Headquarters. That was the Armed Forces Special Weapons Headquarters. That’s – that was a high-alert place in Albuquerque.
Q: How long were you there?
A: Two years.
Q: Is that where you retired from?
A: No. No, I went to Austin, Texas and spent three years in Austin, Texas, and then I got orders to send me to Munich, Germany. I spent three years in Munich, Germany, and then I got orders to send me to Fort Carson, Colorado. And that’s where I retired from, Fort Carson.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I was chief of the separation center there.
Q: And moved back to Oklahoma right away?
A: Huh?
Q: Did you move back to Oklahoma right after you retired?
A: Yes. As soon as I retired I came back to Oklahoma.
Q: So from Korea, you were transferred to the station in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
A: Ah-huh.
Q: Did you have an opportunity to visit family in between?
A: Visit my family?
Q: Right.
A: No, when I got to Albuquerque, they were transferred in from Oklahoma City.
Q: Ah-huh. So, what was the reception like when you came back from Korea? How did the public respond to the men that were in the military or service?
A: They just acted like you’d never been anyplace. Ah, you really couldn’t expect anything, you know. Unless you got over there and got a bunch of medals or something. I got a couple of medals over there, but non-combat medals.
Q: Ah-huh. How long after you returned from Korea was that conflict over?
A: Well, it was over – it – they signed that agreement before I left there. 1953.
Q: OK.
A: And then I went on an in-effect transfer to Japan.
Q: And that meant you were in Japan for how long?
A: Eleven months.
Q: OK.
A: I was transferred to the big 8 [Eighth Army] stockade over there at Nakano-ku, Tokyo, and I was the personnel officer there. And we got all the people that had been court-martialed to serve time in the stockade or in the prison at Leavenworth, Kansas. We got them there after they’d been court-martialed and then we sent them from there back to the states. But that’s pretty – pretty fuzzy there! The other officer – there wasn’t any officer that would go in there check them and I’d go in there and check them and talk to them and I – I was talking to murderers – they couldn’t care less.
Q: These are military men who were court-martialed?
A: Yeah. Absolutely. We even court-martialed a civilian over there.
Q: Huh.
A: He was a civilian – I think it was a GS – I guess he was a 9 or 11 and he sent back to the states and ordered a Cadillac and paid for it, and when he brought it over to Japan, as it was coming down the dock, he’d already sold it to a Japanese guy and the Jap was there ready to pick it up, and he picked it up and he got court-martialed for that. You couldn’t do that. And he got several years for that in Lompoc, California.
Q: I don’t know that I’ve heard of a civilian getting court-martialed.
A: Oh, yes. He did. We had a master sergeant in there who killed a colonel’s child down on Okinawa. We had a lot of bad people in there.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: We had a couple in there that, that took a WAC down there and raped her. We got them from all over the Orient. And then some that were tried by the Japanese, they were sent to Fuji Prison. That was different. I had a chance to visit that. And in there, the floor looked like it was just polished glass. Would you believe it was dirt polished? It was dirt polished. They worked on that floor. It looked just like glass, and it was dirt.
Q: Was that one of the jobs in inmates had, taking care of the floor? The inmates?
A: Yeah. And the Japanese had three or four Americans over there in prison at this time.
Q: Ah-huh. How was it that you went to visit that facility?
A: I went over for a tour of the place and I got a pretty good look at it.
Q: Ah-huh. The Americans that were serving there, were they transferred eventually?
A: No, no. Well, no-o-o. They spent their time there. If they had ten years to do, they spent ten years there, and then when that was over they were let out of prison and given a pass out of Japan. They were pretty strict on that.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: You could be on the streets of Japan over there and a cop would never go out anywhere. He’d be standing in one little place on the corner and if he saw you, he’d just wave to you and if you didn’t come over to him, they were out picking him up the next day (laughing). They – that was really unusual. But he just waved to them to come over and if he didn’t come over, the next day he was in prison.
Q: Huh.
A: Very strict on the policing there in Japan.
Q: How did the American government respond to that when they would arrest an American?
A: Well, they just, they found out who had jurisdiction over it when a crime was committed and if the Americans did, they took him in to court-martial him.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And put him in our jail. If, if he was doing something on, on their property and they caught him, they would process him and put him in their jail.
Q: Huh. So they had some of our military men in prison?
A: Oh, yes. Absolutely.
Q: And when they returned to the states, they . . .
A: Most of them had a bad-conduct discharge and, ah, and, ah, that’s it. If you get a bad-conduct discharge, you don’t have the right to do anything in the United States hardly.
Q: You lose privileges.
A: Your privileges have been usurped.
Q: Ah-huh. How do you think your war experiences in Korea affected your interaction with your family and your friends?
A: At one time, I was kind of disillusioned over there. I wanted to come home. I put my papers in to get discharged so I could come home. And the colonel, lieutenant colonel there talked me out of it. That’s just how bad it was, pretty bad.
Q: When you were there?
A: Yes.
Q: But when you came back, what was it like being back your family?
A: Oh, it was OK.
Q: Ah-huh. Do you still keep in touch with some of the people you served with?
A: Huh?
Q: Do you still keep in touch with some of the people you served with?
A: Oh, no. Most of them are dead.
Q: OK.
A: I kept in touch with some in the navy until the captain died this last summer and then – I don’t keep in touch with them anymore.
Q: Now you were in the army longer than you were in the navy?
A: Yeah, I was in the army for seventeen years.
Q: Right. But you didn’t stay in touch with many of those people?
A: You can’t make friends in there. Just like I couldn’t make friends in the navy. You make a friend in the navy and the first thing you know either he’s killed or you’re killed or you’re both killed.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And it’s just – it’s part of the hazards of life when they have a little bit of war going on.
Q: Right.
A: That’s why I can’t understand all these people belly-aching about the time they’re spending over in Iraq (laughs).
Q: It’s never easy being at war. It’s not an easy tour of duty, is it?
A: No, no, it isn’t. It’s different.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: You better be prepared for it, I’ll clue you. I come out a different guy than I went in.
Q: How was that?
A: Well it just changed my aspects all of my life. You make decisions differently. You do things that you never thought you’d ever do before, and. . . even you’re time spent with your family has been changed. And you have some rough times. Didn’t you read what that guy said in that . . . ?
Q: Ah-huh. I did. I did. Did you find that, maybe, you were more of a risk-taker, or less of a risk-taker?
A: Well, I’ve never shirked my duty – ever.
Q: No, you didn’t when you were serving. I just wondered if – you said you made your decisions differently when you were out of the military. What did you mean?
A: Well, I’m not a hap-hazard risk-taker. I’ve taken some risks, but there wasn’t much to loose, even if I lost, see?
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I met you and you’re taking this down! That was a risk! (laughing)
Q: That’s right.
A: I almost didn’t do it.
Q: I appreciate you doing it. There is value beyond the two of us in recording, giving better insight as to what our men experienced when they served in the war. It makes history become more real for the people reading. We’re down to our final question and it asks what kinds of general observations and conclusions do you have about the Korean war?
A: Well, I don’t think we should have been over there originally. But they were – they were hurting. If we hadn’t been over there, they’d have taken that place over solid.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And all that would have been communist then. They’ve had a much better life over there without it. Below the thirty-eighth parallel, it’s an entirely different country. North of the thirty-eighth parallel, it’s worse than it’s ever been. Yeah. When I left there, there wasn’t anything there. Now you go over there, it’s just – they’ve got a lot of big cities and everything, just like if you went to Europe, you know. A lot of difference.
Q: So you felt that we were really able to help the South Koreans?
A: Oh yeah, we helped them a lot. Absolutely. They could never have done that by themselves. We had a lot of troops over there.
Q: Mr. Fyffe, are there any other comments or statements that you’d like to make as we close our interview?
A: I don’t think so. I’ve made enough!
Q: Well I think you for your time. It’s been a pleasure.
