Glenn F. Oleson

Abbotsford, Wisconsin-
Korean DMZ Veteran of the United States Army

"I would like anyone who reads through my memoir to realize that the Korean War did not end in 1953. There were American soldiers getting wounded and dying many years after. American soldiers on the DMZ suffered extreme cold and extreme heat, monsoons, and humidity.   And, they had to work in these extreme conditions under the threat of being ambushed, bombed, shot, or booby-trapped at any time. "

- Glenn Oleson

[The following is the result of an online interview between Glenn Oleson and Lynnita Brown that took place January-April of 2007 and January and February of 2008.]

Memoir Contents:

• OD Blood
• Goodbye, Vietnam
• Hello, Korea
• Incidents and Casualties
• Visiting the Ville
• Daily Life
• Going Home
• RECONDO
• Second Enlistment
  • B Troop, 3/7 Cav (Ft. Bliss)
  • CSC Co., 3/7 Inf. (Ft. Benning)
  • Training in Alaska
  • Month at McCoy
  • AO Black
• Civilian Life
• Final Reflections

• Glenn Oleson's Photo Album
  (Click a small picture for a larger view.  If you want, click the first picture, or any picture, and sit back and watch a slideshow... pictures will automatically change in 10 seconds.)

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OD Blood

My name is Glenn Franklin Oleson.  Although this may sound a bit "out of the box," I guess at this point I should explain that I knew at a very early age what I wanted to be as soon as I got old enough.  My father had been in the Navy, as had all four of his brothers.  They had all been Navy pilots.  One of my uncles was an Ace in World War II.  My cousin was also a Navy pilot, and was the navigation officer on the USS Forrestal when he retired.

The Korean War and Vietnam War were going on in my lifetime, but neither one affected my family a lot.  The conflicts were something that were talked about while catching up on the news at the local tavern.  Other than that and watching it (Vietnam) on the nightly news, there wasn't much of an effect.  There weren't many local guys that went to the military, primarily because we were a faming community so most of the boys got deferred to help on the farm.  I know of two guys in my high school class that were killed in Vietnam.  The names I can't readily recall.  I didn't know about it until I got back from Korea.  By then it was old news.  I didn't know them very well so, to be more accurate, I should say I knew of them.

No recruiters or vets visited my schools while I was attending.  We didn't have many vets around, and in grade school we were too young to be of any interest to recruiters.  I don't remember any recruiters visiting in high school.  If they did, I must have missed it.  We lived in a small town at a time when news traveled rather slowly.  There were few televisions and tons of work to be done all the time.  The Oleson family did supply a few good men to the cause.  Other than that, I don't recall making any sacrifices or working to support the war.  As far as I know, no one in my family was lost in a war.  As I stated previously, they were Navy guys.  My father took part in the battle of Midway Island while aboard the destroyer USS Allen Sumner.  He returned unscathed.

For some unknown reason, I was drawn to the Army way of life.   (I think I was born with OD blood.)  From a time as young as I can remember, I couldn't get enough of the Army.  The things I wanted for Christmas were all Army related toys.  One year it was a helmet.  The next year it was a pistol belt, etc., etc.   I never missed a war movie.  My friends played cops and robbers, but I dug foxholes on the lawn at my grandpa's house--which didn't make my father very happy at all.  I was made to fill them in and place the sod back over them, so it didn't do any long-lasting damage.  Funny now that I think about it.  Ships, airplanes, tanks--I loved the whole military aspect.  I wanted to go to Vietnam (your guess is as good as mine what made me want to go there), so when I turned 17, away I went to join the Army.  When I went to basic training in 1966, I thought I was in heaven.

My mother was a bit upset when I told her my plan to join the military, but she supported my decision.  She looked me straight in the eye and asked me, "Are you truly ready to give your life for your country?"  I said, "If that's what it takes, then yes."  She hugged me and said, "Then you go."  My parents willingly signed my paperwork.  I guess they figured that, since I had dropped out of school I had to do something, so it might as well be something I wanted to do.

My original intention was to join the Navy.  I passed the written test, but then found out that I had to wait six months before I could enlist.  The Army recruiter told me to pack and go.  That's what I did.  I had another very close friend who joined with me using the buddy system.  We were to be sent to training together and stay together.  He, however, got sent home after we took the physical due to a heart murmur.

I joined the Army on March 24, 1966.  My recruiter issued me a bus ticket that took me to a reception station at Ft. Leonard Wood about mid-April. There I was picked up along with about 20 others, put on a military bus, and bussed an hour west to Ft. Riley, Kansas, which was located on flat land near the occasional rolling hills.  I spent the whole time on the bus sitting alone, thinking and wondering if I was doing the right thing.  Last minute jitters, I guess.  I had never been away from home at all before that day other than a Boy Scout camp which was only two days, so it was quite scary.  I didn't know who I could trust, but for the most part everyone I encountered was very accommodating.  Ours was a unique situation in that we were a cohort unit.  That means the entire 9th Infantry Division that assembled at the reception station in Ft. Leonard Wood was bussed to Ft. Riley together, and remained together throughout basic and advanced training.  We were trained by NCOs and officers that had returned from Vietnam and who would go back to Vietnam with us when our training was complete.

Leaving home and missing the family was the worst thing about basic training.  I think there was one time in the next eight weeks that we were allowed to make a telephone call, and that seemed to make matters worse--for a time, anyway.  Letters came pretty regularly and that helped, but I still missed home, no matter what.

Basic Training

When we got to the base, the Army band was playing for us.  The NCOs guided each group or platoon to our assigned barracks.  Ft. Riley wasn't all that large at that time.  It had very neat surroundings that were well kept, as was usual with military places.  It had newly-painted, two-story wooden barracks that had been built in the 1940s.  It still had a "T" in front of the number on the buildings, which stood for "temporary."  We discarded our civilian suitcases in the barracks and had a company formation.  We met our assigned platoon leaders and the entire chain of command, and the squad leaders and team leaders were picked from our group.  The trainee who was made my squad leader was a black college graduate whose name was Whitley.  I called him "White-ly" just to irritate him.  He just shook his head when I called him that.  He was going to go to OCS and become an officer after training.  I think he and maybe a couple others were the only blacks we had in "B" Company.  Whitley was the only black in my platoon.  I liked him.  He was a good leader and a good friend.  I heard that he got killed in Vietnam, but I can't confirm it.  I don't think I ever knew his first name.  I had to call him Sergeant because he wore the stripes, even though they weren't real.  I doubt in our training environment that there was any prejudice.  I know that later on it was a factor in Vietnam, but not for us at that time.

We were marched to the mess hall and fed steak for lunch, eating at our own pace.  We were then assembled in our own barracks, told how and what to do with the belongings we had brought with us, and stored them away.  We were assigned to B Company, 2nd Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division.  I was in the second platoon.  We had a young sergeant (E-5), whose name I can't recall, and a Staff Sergeant E-6 named Quaker for a platoon sergeant.  Both were Vietnam vets.  Staff Sergeant Quaker was our primary NCO.  He was mother, father, brother, and friend (iffy on the friend).  We all respected him--and at times hated him--but we appreciated him as well, as we did with most of our chain of command.  There was never any doubt that if they had to stand up for any of us, they would without question.

Basic training by itself lasted eight weeks from May to late July.  We lived in two-story wooden barracks that had been built in the 1940s.  They were well-maintained with tile floors and a latrine on both floors.  Both sides were lined with windows on the top and bottom floors.  Double bunks lined both sides of the aisle.  The latrines had six sinks and six commodes lined up opposite from each other so that the newspaper could be read on both sides at the same time by two different people.  Ha!

The first days of basic training were a mass of harassment. That is, when our NCOs and officers exercised their right to dominate us.  It was their time to demand our respect and prove to us that they knew more then we did.  I smoked at that time, which wasn't a problem until I got caught dropping a cigarette butt on the ground.  That was a big no-no. Staff Sergeant Quaker made me dig a 6x6x6 to bury it--meaning a hole six feet deep, six feet wide, and six feet long.  At times two or three NCOs ganged up on a particular person, got right in his face, and yelled like crazy.  I always got a laugh watching that happen.  Normally the poor guy didn't know who to listen to or what to do because they were all telling him to do something different. And, yes, it happened to me a few times.

Our NCOs had pet names for us as well.  I was "Bone Head."  Some others were "Idiot," "Stupid," and "Dirt Ball."  Mail Call was quite a fiasco. Staff Sergeant Quaker divided our mail between other NCOs and they all yelled out our pet names.  When they yelled, "BONE HEAD," I answered, "HERE, SERGEANT," and he threw the letter like a Frisbee.  When I ran to get it, they yelled at me to get back in formation.  It was an experience I would rather not go through again, but it was really funny sometimes.

The day normally started at 3 a.m.  Whoever was on duty at the time got to wake up the troops, which was usually done by flicking on all of the lights and either kicking the 20-gallon trash can down the aisle or taking the cover off and banging on it with a stick or whatever he had.  And, of course, yelling at the top of his lungs.  We had about a half hour to clean ourselves up, shave, get dressed, and straighten up our bunks before the first formation.  We were marched to the mess hall and filed into line, where we stood at parade rest until we got inside.  Again, everyone was yelling at us to eat and get out. We tossed in as much food as we could and ran out the back door, where we had to do five pull-ups on a bar that was hung over the sidewalk.  If we couldn't do all five, we had to go back and try again over and over until we got it right. Within a couple of weeks, we were going ten, then fifteen--which I never thought possible.

We got breaks from the grind.  Normally classes were 50 minutes long, with a 10-minute break before starting the next segment or class.  If we were training in the field, lunch was normally C-rations.  I learned to love them or go hungry.  Then the evening meal was around 4 or 5 p.m., or 1600-1700 hours.  Food in Basic was very good, I thought.  We had all we wanted to eat, although the heavier guys were restricted.  We mostly had regular meals such as pork chops, roast beef, always potatoes, and even lasagna.  In the field when we weren't issued C-rations, they brought out chili-mac, spaghetti, and things like that.  I'm glad I'm not Italian.

Lights out was at 10 p.m.  The CQ or Charge of Quarters always came through the barracks and counted heads to make sure no one took it upon themselves to go AWOL.  When he left, the flashlights came out and mostly everyone studied under their blankets.  Sunday was our day.  There was no training unless we were in the field.  Church was always offered.  It was mostly nondenominational, but it served the purpose.  The NCOs normally left us alone on Sunday.  The company only kept a couple of people there on duty in case of emergencies.

Basic training in 1966 was not designed to be fun, but I had a ball. It was exciting being someplace I had never been before, doing things I had never done before.  The training was stressful, but when there was something very difficult to do and I did it and did it very well, it was a great feeling. The mental highs were, without a doubt, unlike anything I had ever experienced.  The lows were the same. Of course, there were times when I got irate, but I got over it quickly.  And if I didn't, someone noticed and gave me a pep talk.  Maybe I was a little more gung ho than most of the others, but then I wanted to be there.  Remember--I was the one digging foxholes in the lawn when I was seven and eight years old!

After a couple of weeks the harassment eased off.  We actually started learning new things--how to set up and aim a claymore mine, how to set up hasty ambushes, what to do if we were ambushed, the proper way to dig a fighting position, medical subjects, field sanitation, communications, and survival, escape, and evasion techniques. We watched a couple of dull training films.  One was on NBC (no, not that NBC, ha!)--Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical training.  I have no clue what the others were.

The Army in the 1960s had a system that worked very well.  We were sat down and lectured, and told what the task was, how to do it, and why we had to do it that way.  Then we were given a demonstration.  First, the demonstrator walked through the task.  Then he performed the task at normal speed.  We then were walked through the task ourselves, corrected until we got it right, then had to perform it at normal speed.  After that we were tested--on almost everything we learned.  That included everything from weapons maintenance to physical training or anything that was practical to teach using that method. Then there was a big test before graduation.

We also had weapons qualification.  As a kid I was used to using open iron sights on a rifle. The Army gave me an M-14 with a goofy-looking front sight and a peep hole on the back.  My first thought was, "How in the world can anyone shoot with something like this?"  It took me a while, but with the help of an NCO I figured it out. Then they made me get into the most awkward firing positions. I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to lay on the ground and shoot around a tree stump when they could rest the rifle on top of it and have a stable platform to shoot from.  When I was told, "Maybe someone will be shooting back at you," I thought, "Well, maybe I'll do it your way."  To this day, I can't get into a good kneeling firing position elbow over knee without having bone-to-bone contact.  It defies nature, but that's just me. I finally managed to get with the program before the big qualification day came, and fired an easy expert first time out--thanks to Dad and Jack.

The only instructors we had were the ones that ran certain ranges, such as the rifle qualification range, the CBR area where we were familiarized with the use of chemical agents, and a few others that I don't recall.  Almost everything we were taught was instructed by our organic NCOs.  As for discipline, we were yelled at constantly.  We were mostly threatened that if we didn't do this or that correctly, the Viet Cong would make sure we didn't have a second chance.  They were serious.  They had been there.  They knew.  We didn't.  So we listened.

There was a particular weapon that gave me fits.  It was a flame rocket launcher with the name XM202.  There was a certain way we had to open it and extend it.  It looked like a four-barreled LAW.  There was a dust cover on one end and I consistently wanted to take it off first, which was wrong because if the dust cover was taken off and then extended, it sucked dust and dirt into the launch tubes.  To me, it wasn't natural to do it that way and I messed it up every time.  As punishment, I was made to hold my arms out with the launcher laid across the back of my hands for what seemed like hours.  After being punished like that three or four times, it finally sunk in.

Another problem was that I had trouble getting my gas mask on in nine seconds.  If I had not been able to perfect doing it, I would not have graduated.  Punishment was to wear my gas mask everywhere--or for at least a couple hours, so I guess the punishment that we encountered was fair enough and it pertained to the offence.  Punishment as a platoon was constant.  If someone messed up, we all suffered because it was our fault.  If a man failed a certain test, it was our fault because we didn't make him study enough.  If a man was weak on one area physically, it was up to us to ensure that he got the help and the PUSH he needed to strengthen that area.  We were a team.  We were trained as a team and punished as a team--and it worked.  It also had to be that way because we didn't have the luxury of having four to six drill sergeants assigned to a platoon.

We were very fortunate in that we didn't have any troublemakers that I can remember in our platoon.  For this I credit the draft.  I may be the only one left that thinks the draft was a good thing, but we procured a good cross section of the population that way.  We had college people mixed in and working beside (ahem) dropouts.  This was a big plus.  We had farm kids and city kids.  What a great way to educate people.  We all learned from each other.  If someone didn't know exactly how to tackle a project, someone else did.  It worked great.

The last week to ten days before graduation from Basic was preparation to move all of our equipment to Vietnam.  The trucks had to be stripped and repacked in preparation for being loaded aboard ship.  The company street was a mass of trucks and Jeeps and 20-gallon trash cans filled with water and OD dye so we could dye all of our socks and underwear (they were issued white).  All of the training had been finished by then.

I didn't get into trouble very much while in Basic.  I learned that it was pretty easy to become invisible when I blended in with the people around me. I definitely did not want to stand out--unless it was in a good way.  I made a mistake on the worst possible day, the day before graduation. I had been on KP and when I got back to the barracks, the guys told me we had an evening formation and to hurry up and get changed.  Just then Staff Sergeant Quaker blew his trusty whistle, signaling time to fall out and get into formation--which I did, wearing my helmet liner instead of a baseball hat like the others.  I thought he didn't notice at first, but when he released us from formation he pulled me aside and told me he had something special for me to do the next day. I thought, "Ha--graduation day, who cares?  However, after graduation when all the families and pretty young sisters were walking around the company area, I was standing in front of the company oak tree, calling out marching commands to the tree:  "Tree, attenTION.  Left FACE.  Forward MARCH.  1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-.  Tree, HALT."  On and on until Staff Sergeant Quaker got tired of listening to me--but not before I drew a crowd and all the families were gathered around me snickering. I vowed at the time that if I ever got a chance, I would slowly extract his front teeth one by one. I thanked God that my own family couldn't make it to graduation.

We had what one would call a "low profile" graduation.  Dressed in khakis with striped pistol belts, we looked pretty good.  We wore no necktie, but we did wear a blue infantry scarf.  I don't remember who spoke, but it seemed like he talked forever.  The Army band played the regular ceremonial music.  We had prepared for it the entire morning, but the whole thing took about a half hour.  After the ceremony we were authorized passes, which I desperately needed after marching that oak tree around in front of all those people!!

While taking the training, I had no clue what was happening in Vietnam.  I guess we weren't a very well-informed unit.  We heard some things when guys got letters from home that told what someone heard on the news, but for the most part our main source of outside information was our chain of command.  We had a television in the day room that no one ever got to watch, and a radio in the company office that the CQ listened to at night, and that was it.  Now and then our NCOs told us something like, "Well, the big bloody one got a bunch of people zapped today," or "The 1st Cav lost a squad."  We didn't know if they were trying to pump us up, scare us, or whatever.  We just didn't get a lot of information pertaining to Vietnam.  I was counting the days and ready to go whenever we got finished with training so I could see for myself what was happening.  We were ready for anything.  We were confident and morale was sky high.  We were finished with the BS and ready to get into the good stuff.  We couldn't wait to get started.

Most of the company took a two-week leave after Basic.  I caught a flight from Manhattan, Kansas, flew home, and was picked up by my parents at the airport.  It was mandatory to wear our uniforms home unless we were going to drive.  I wore khakis because they were in season and comfortable.  After an hour's drive from the airport, we headed for the local watering hole where all my friends had gathered, and we partied until the cows came home.

After I was home for about ten days, my mother got a telephone call from one of the guys in my company.  His name was Daryl Dupee (not sure of spelling). Since we lived fairly close to one another, he wanted to know if I wanted to drive back with him and another guy named Earl Nigon who lived in another town that was on the way. Of course, I jumped at the chance. I had forgotten what day it was, so when the time came I wasn't ready until Daryl called back wondering where I was.  I had to throw what I didn't already have packed into a bag and run.  The trip back was going well until we stopped to pick up Earl.  I'll never forget what took place when Earl tried to leave. Earl had a beautiful wife who absolutely did not want him to leave. He had his bags and was standing at the curb when we drove up.  As we approached, she came out.  I thought she was hugging him.  Actually, she was, but she was bear-hugging him and wouldn't let him go.  He tried to gently get away from her, but she slid down his legs and clamped on for dear life.  She cried very hard, saying over and over again, "Don't go, don't go."  I felt so sorry for both of them I didn't know what to do.  I guess Daryl didn't either, because we both sat in the car with our mouths hanging open like dummies. Finally Earl pushed her away enough to jump into the car and we drove away.  Looking back, she was still sitting on the sidewalk crying desperately. That had to take more strength on his part then I'll ever have. In fact, I don't think I could have left under the same circumstances.  When it was time to return to Ft. Riley after my leave was over, I had my own mixed feelings.  I knew I was headed for Vietnam and so did my friends and family, so it was very hard leaving.  There was a lot of, "You better come back or I'll kick your butt" going on, and enough tears to float a battleship.

Advanced Infantry Training

When we returned from leave we didn't have far to go for advanced infantry training.  We used the same barracks, same company area, and had the same NCOs. That's where it became intense.  The training was concentrated on the skills we would need in Vietnam, i.e., sweating gallons and walking miles. We marched to the field, only this time we marched tactically--at a slower pace and not in formation, but lined up on both sides of the road, staying a certain distance between people.  Depending on the terrain, we stretched out to about 50 meters between each other in the open, and closed up where the vegetation was thicker.

The area we trained in and around Ft. Riley was primarily flat.  There were also scattered areas with rolling hills and some places where the trees and undergrowth was very thick.  Rivers and lakes were sparse, but someone found out that even though we were in Kansas there was thick vegetation in certain places, and that is where we went to train.  It was very realistic.  A Vietnam village was set up along the river, therefore hot summer days were even hotter due to the humid conditions next to the river.  The mosquitoes were very bad there as well.  The village was complete with false walls and tunnels.  People of Asian descent were recruited from the neighboring town of Junction City.  They were trained to act as the Vietnamese people would.  To add to the stress, a 2nd Lieutenant, named Strickland, I believe, would creep around with his red marker and use it to "slit the throats" of the guys that weren't alert enough to see him coming.  Being young trainees as we were, half the company was walking around with red stripes around their throats.  But we learned fast.

The Vietnam village seemed like home.  We trained nearly every day there.  We attacked it, then defended it.  We searched it endlessly.  When we first started training in the village, there were maybe five or six people or players involved.  The population of the village increased dramatically when all the truck drivers whose equipment was aboard ship, as well as any clerks, were drafted into the scenario.  Off-duty personnel volunteered and become villagers, as well as any other GI types that weren't doing any training.  They all became Viet Cong.  Now there were at times 20 to 30 villagers.  The village did not get any larger, but the area surrounding it became more populated in that a couple of guys would make a small camp of their own away from the village.  These little camps popped up everywhere and became a royal pain.  Some of the players really got into their roles as VC.  The older women yelled at us and even threw stones at us and hit us with sticks.  We got the idea that we weren't liked very well.  It was very realistic.

I qualified expert the first time out on the M60 machine gun, which got me slotted as a door gunner.  (A door gunner was a person who manned an M60 machine gun that was mounted in the door of a UH1G Huey helicopter.) We got to actually train with the Hueys--a real treat.  During the introduction phase, we were told that the life expectancy of a door gunner was 2.6 minutes, which made us think a bit.  The M60 machine gun was definitely my favorite weapon.  It was heavy but when stalking through thick vegetation, the bipod legs caught on every branch or vine that got close.  Many times I ended up on my back trying to jerk the gun free from the vines, which we called "wait-a-minute vines."  They were plentiful even in Kansas.

I don't remember a lot about the qualification day on the M60 machine gun, but I do remember that part of the qualification phase was having to shoot a single hole through each of a line of one-inch square boxes on a paper target at a range of 75 meters.  This was done using a tripod and T&E mechanism.  The T&E allowed us to aim the gun by using clicks on a wheel that moved the gun up and down and left to right.  It was very difficult.  The target boxes were lined up left to right, but not in a straight line.  Three or four boxes were together in a straight row, but then swooped up or down.  (It's hard to explain.)  We could only miss a couple of boxes in order to qualify expert.  I was given a lot of training in that department.  We did a lot of flying and a lot of shooting, which was Heaven for me.  The training was great fun.  I loved the weapons and the training.  The one big drawback was when firing out of a helicopter, sometimes the hot brass blew down my shirt.  We wanted to do a lot more training with the helicopters, but they had other missions as well, such as moving troops who also needed training with them.

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Goodbye, Vietnam

We trained for months in preparation for Vietnam.  I did a lot of cussing as did all the others, but I was happy to finally be doing what I really wanted to do.  Advanced infantry training (AIT) was supposed to be from August through November (12 weeks).  However, in its infinite wisdom, the Army had a rule that anyone under the age of 18 could not be in a combat zone.  My parents had to sign for me to go in at 17 years old, so I truly believed (as did my recruiter) that I would be 18 before we had to go to Vietnam.  I came up a couple of months short, and in early November got my orders to visit the Land of the Morning Calm (Korea) instead of going to Vietnam with the guys I trained with for seven months.

The First Sergeant called me into the orderly room before training started.  I have no idea what the date was, but I was to see the company commander, which I did.  He talked to me about how I thought the training was going and how I felt about the company, then he gave me the bad news that I was to report to a unit in Korea on a certain date.  I had a couple of weeks before I had to be there.  Captain Dydell gave me my orders and plane tickets, and explained that this was the way it had to be.  He apologized, I cussed and saluted, and left.  My training stopped the day the CO issued my orders for Korea.  I made no attempts to change my orders at that time because the Company CO assured me that it would be useless to try to change things, especially since my birthday wasn't until January.  I thought that possibly after I had been in Korea for six months, I would try to get to Vietnam.

When I joined the Army I knew of the Korean War, but that's about all.  I hadn't thought of Korea as a place I would be sent.  I didn't even know there were Army people there.  I thought the Korean War was a war that was over.  A great uncle of mine had been there during the war, but I didn't know much about him and I don't think I ever met him.  The country was quite a mystery to me at the time I was informed that I was being sent there.

I was authorized another leave of two weeks before I went, but I only took one week due to the fact that the Army gave us four weeks of leave a year.  I wanted to save a week for when I got back or in case I needed it later on.  When I returned home after such a short time, I had a lot of explaining to do since everyone thought I would be leaving for Vietnam.  It was a simple explanation, but I had to tell it a hundred times.  The family was relieved, of course, since they thought I would be out of harm's way.   (Little did I know at the time what I was getting into.)  My friends' reaction was mainly that I was better off going to Korea than Vietnam.

As close as I can figure, it must have been mid-November when I left for Korea.  I had to buy my own plane ticket to McCord air base in California, then wait for a hop to Korea on a Northwest Orient Airlines.  We made a stop in Japan and, as luck would have it, something was wrong with the plane.  We ended up staying a night at the Hotel Heneda in Tokyo.  Five of us were put up in two rooms at Uncle Sam's expense.  The general consensus was that this may be the last time we get to party for quite a while, so off we went to recon the city and find the party spots.  We had to exchange our American dollars for Yen.  I changed a twenty-dollar bill and got more money than I could carry.  We had money in every pocket and had no idea what it was worth.  I bought an apple from a kid that was selling them on the street.  I gave him a bill but he shook his head and said, "No."  I grabbed another bill and handed it to him.  That one made him very happy.  It was probably enough to make his dad's car payment, but I didn't care.

After getting our point across to a cab driver, he took us to the Ginza.  I will never drive in Tokyo (like I'll ever get that chance).  It was quite scary and strange watching the traffic.  We thought it was rather a nice gesture--or maybe it was the law, but they all turned off their headlights while they waited at the stoplights.  I guess the Ginza was the party neighborhood in Tokyo.  We found a little tavern that had a couple of GIs in it who were stationed there.  We drank with them until sometime in the morning.  We had meal tickets for breakfast and lunch for that day, so we took advantage of that.  Sometime around midnight we got on another plane to Kimpo air base in Korea.

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Hello, Korea

I don't recall the exact date of my arrival in Korea.  All I remember at this point in time is that it was cold.  Trailing back the timetable of what I remember, it had to be late October to mid-November--sometime within that three-week period.  I think that every GI that went to Korea went through the same drill.  We landed in the early morning.  I realized it was a third world country before we landed, since I could see outlying villages around Kimpo air base on the flight in.  I saw the grass-roofed huts and dirt streets of the outlying villages and wondered just what I had gotten myself into.  Then when I stepped out of the airplane, the smells hit me.  There was 'nothing better' than the smell of jet fuel and kimchi (fermented cabbage, a standard staple in the Korean diet) in the morning.  It wasn't immediately obvious that Korea had been at war.  It was not until I got into the DMZ that I witnessed the effects of the war.

After landing at Kimpo air base, we reported in with the replacement people who were stationed there.  They took our names and, on about 40 copies of our orders, processed us into whichever units we were going to.   I saw the guy take our orders to another large room and followed him out of curiosity.  In that room sat maybe 50 or 60 GIs, most of them asleep in chairs.  On a large bench that was raised four or five feet above the floor (sort of like a judge's bench), there was a bank of eight to ten guys yelling into telephones.  They were all yelling at the same time at the top of their lungs.  Evidently land-line communications were not very efficient at that time.  One of them caught my attention when he said my name.  It took him a good five minutes to get whoever was on the other end to understand.  Then I got to wait like the others.  I was soon sleeping in a chair using my duffel bag as a pillow.

My orders said that I was assigned to the 122 Replacement Company, ASCOM, Korea.  Staff Sergeant Johnson and I were fortunate enough to evade having to bunk in there as a lot of others had to do.  It was evening before someone yelled my name and the name of Staff Sergeant Johnson.  We got into our "limo," which was a dust-covered three-quarter ton truck with a canvas cover over the bed.  Staff Sergeant Johnson and I hopped in with bag and baggage, and bounced along for what seemed like hours, shivering all the way.  We were dressed in Army greens without an overcoat.  I remember sitting on my hands trying to keep them somewhat warm and trying to talk to hold a conversation with Staff Sergeant Johnson while my teeth were chattering.  We had to stop at the checkpoint at Freedom Bridge and show our orders and ID cards, then the truck proceeded on to 2nd Battalion Headquarters of the 23rd Infantry Regiment.  When we got off the Main Supply Route (MSR), which was the only paved road in the country at that time, we bumbled along the washboard dirt road which made us bounce on the wooden bench seats from the front to the back of the truck and back to the front again.  I distinctly remember Staff Sergeant Johnson asking me, "Are you ccccold?"  I said, "nnno."  He said, "Mmmme nnnneither."  I still have to laugh when I tell that story.  The company was located at Camp Woods across the Imjin River when we got there.  I understand that just before we arrived they had moved up there from another camp which was located near Munsan further south.  We stayed there the entire twelve months and seven days I was in Korea.

Staff Sergeant Johnson and I signed in at 3rd Battalion Headquarters. From there the S-1 or personnel section assigned us to C Company.  When we arrived at C Company orderly room, the CO assigned us both to the mortar section of weapons platoon.  Staff Sergeant Johnson became my section leader.  Other than him, I had never met any of the others at the company or in my platoon.  I remember some of the guys that lived in my hooch--Mays, Way, Brombough, and an SP/5 named McCord.  I have no clue anymore where they were from or what their first names were.  I wish I could remember all of them.

The first guy that I met that lived in my hooch was SP/4 Douglas Wray from Chicago.  He was the gunner for my mortar squad and I quickly made friends with him.  He and I hung together the most.  We were almost opposites in the way we were brought up except for the fact that we were both more laid back types than the others.  We didn't let the minor things bother us. During the monsoon season when we got back from a patrol soaking wet, opened our lockers, and found our clean clothes were hanging there almost as wet as we were, we simply put them on and wore them until they dried.  The others tried to rig up hangers over the stoves to dry pants and shirts before they put them on.  This was a waste of time because there wasn't enough heat to have that much of an effect. Both being from the Midwest, I guess Doug and I talked the same language and enjoyed the same things, such as a quiet night in the ville eating and drinking with the two Korean girls instead of going to the wilder clubs. Doug Wray left Korea before I did.

Assigned to weapons platoon

It was a step-by-step thing. Unlike others who arrived after us that were assigned directly to the company as stated on their orders, Staff Sergeant Johnson and I didn't know at any one time exactly where we would end up.  I ended up in the third squad, mortar section, weapons platoon of C Company, 3rd Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division.  I sometimes get this confused as there was the 2/23, 3/23, 3/32, and 2/32.  When I started researching for a scrapbook I was working on, hell, I didn't know which battalion I was actually in.  There were too many 2s and 3s.  Lieutenant Greenhut came to my rescue since he knew my CO at that time.  He e-mailed the information that I needed, along with a couple of photos.

We lived in "hooches."  They were 20 by 40 foot sheet metal buildings which sat on a concrete slab.  There was no insulation that I can remember.  Ours had two naked light bulbs--one on each end of the hooch, and two stoves that used either kerosene or diesel for heat.  There were two rows of double bunks on either side.  When guys left or got reassigned, there were times when we didn't have a full barracks.  At one time we had all single bunks, which was nice in the fact that we had much more room. When we had double bunks, the guys on the top would sweat at night while the guys on the bottom had to use both blankets to stay warm.  There was no cooling in the summer except for the windows, which didn't do a lot because the humidity was the worst part of the heat.  There was no way to get away from it. We were sweating even before we got dried off after a shower. We had a houseboy named Chong.  He took care of our laundry and filled the stoves up before he left in the evening so we didn't run out of fuel during the night.

My first night in the hooch, I was told that things were heating up in the zone and to watch everything I owned because the slickey boys were hitting at an all-time high.  "Slickey boy" was a name given by the GIs to anyone who stole things.  It was primarily meant for the slippery guys in the villages that stole us blind without our knowing about it.  They stole anything from large objects like truck parts (or trucks themselves) to C-rations--or basically anything they could get their hands on.  I remember this because later that night I went into the latrine, took off my watch, and laid it on the counter above the sink.  I ran some warm water into the sink and I put my head down to splash some water on my face.  When I looked up again, my watch was gone.  I know I was the only one in that latrine.  I thought, "Wow!  The guys weren't BS'ing."  Someone told me that they had to keep a minimum speed when driving trucks through the villages because the slickey boys could steal the inside dual tire from a moving truck and leave the outside tire in place.  I almost believe that.

KATUSA

After getting my watch lifted, I stayed on semi-alert status for quite a while.  I didn't feel safe at all.  I didn't sleep very sound, but I got enough sleep so it wasn't an issue.  Someone got their wallet lifted while standing in the chow line, which was a real task since our fatigues had button-down pockets.  He found out later that it had been a KATUSA in his platoon.  When he looked, he found his wallet under the KATUSA's mattress, then proceeded to beat him senseless.  KATUSA's were South Korean soldiers assigned to augment the US Army on a semi-temporary basis, hence "Korean Augmentation to US Army" (the Army had an acronym for everything).  They were usually not the best soldiers, and most were not trustworthy.  Some thought the KATUSA's came from the more wealthy families because they had it much better with the US Army than they did in their own Republic of Korea (ROK) army.

I didn't trust anyone except for a few guys in my hooch.  The KATUSA's I didn't trust at all, and kept my distance from them with one exception.  Sergeant Park, S.R. (I think his name was Park So Rook, although the spelling is probably wrong) who bunked beside me was a good soldier.  He was more of a GI type than the other KATUSA's.  He was an E5 or Sergeant in the Korean Army, and probably more educated.  He was six feet tall, which was nearly unheard of for a Korean.  He and I hit it off right away.  When I first met him, he stared at my name tag and tried sounding out my name.  "Or-re-son" was the result and that stuck.  He wrote it on my field cap in Korean, so all the KATUSA's called me the same thing.  He played cards with us and roughhoused with us while the other KATUSA's kept more to themselves.  He stayed gone a lot, since his family lived someplace fairly close.  He took the bus home at night and returned the next morning, but not every night.  There were times when he went to the village with the other KATUSA's and come back drunk on mockley.  After eating dried squid and kimchi all night, he smelled pretty bad. One time he came home drunk from the ville and brought me a present.  He woke me up to tell me, and he reeked from the mockley.  I told him to put it in my locker and I would look at it in the morning.  Big mistake!  He brought me a dried squid.  When I opened my locker the next morning, it was like getting hit in the face with a skunk.  Everyone in the hooch yelled at me to shut the locker door.  Instead, I grabbed it and threw it outside where another KATUSA picked it up and put it in his pocket.  Then we laughed and Park laughed the loudest.

The KATUSA's had an E7 named SFC Park who came around once a month to inspect them.  That day scared the hell out of them.  They polished boots, ironed fatigues, and cleaned like crazy in preparation for him.  When the wallet incident happened, it was about a week before SFC Park made his visit.  The KATUSA--I think his name was Kim (of course) did not report being beaten up, and neither did anyone else.  It was not all that uncommon to see a KATUSA with black eyes, so it pretty much went undetected by our chain of command.  However, SFC Park took notice.  We watched out the windows every time SFC Park held a formation for his KATUSA's, and we snickered when he went down the line and cracked each of them alongside the head with his open hand.  When he got to Kim, he yelled at him like a mad man, then cracked him beside the head so hard that he staggered backwards a couple of steps.  Then he made the two lines or squads face each other and each had to hit the guy across from him.  Then just to be sure that everyone got fair treatment, Park went through the line again and gave each one another good slap beside the head.  This was the norm.

For the most part, the GI's in our hooch got along very well.  Choi, M.K., the only KATUSA (other than Sergeant Park) got a bit mouthy at times.  When he did, someone would tie him to his bunk or lock him inside his wall locker.  He and I fought at the drop of a hat.  Not "fight" to hurt each other, but more to harass in a fun kind of way. He came in drunk and smelly one night, and I shoved him into his wall locker.  Two of us carried him into the shower and turned the cold water on so that it sprayed on the front of the locker door.  When he finally got out, he faced the cold shower.

On Guard for the Enemy

Militarily, the American GI's were a bit on edge and somewhat jumpy.  For the life of me I can't recall what it was, but there was an incident just before I arrived in Korea that caused the CO to have the rifle racks moved into the hooches.  I believe it was something of a terrorist or espionage type thing that had happened to one of the battalions. Whatever the reason (it was a serious event), this made them a bit nervous.  When someone went on pass, they turned their rifle into the arms room to be locked up.  But if he was present for duty, his rifle stayed pretty much with him all the time.  With our weapons literally at arm's reach, it would take us far less time to react to a threat than it would if we had to first get dressed, then run to the arms room and stand in line waiting to sign out our weapons.  This way, we could literally jump out of bed, grab our rifles, and run out the door.  Of course, if an incident had occurred that involved North Koreans on the compound, the sight of a bunch of naked GI's with rifles in hand, charging out of the hooches, would more than likely send them fleeing back to North Korea without a shot being fired.  (Maybe that's what the CO had in mind!)

I pulled guard duty right off the bat--I think my third or fourth night in country. That surprised me, but then when we had our first morning formation I thought, "Wow! Is this the entire company? I was used to having 40-man platoons and 220-man companies. Weapons Platoon fell out with four or five people. When I asked, I found out that the other platoons had anywhere from six to ten men and that all the others were on commitments. I guess that meant I had to pull guard. If I remember correctly, Camp Woods had three guard posts. All three were walking posts. One was around the motor pool where two guards walked randomly around the perimeter. Another was around the east end of the compound and another was around the west to north end of the compound. The guards pulled two-hours-on and four-hours-off shifts, but weren't allowed to leave the compound when off duty. We guards carried our personal weapons--M-14s with five 20-round magazines of ammunition.

During my first guard duty experience, I was walking the motor post with a KATUSA I didn't know. It was around 2 or 3 a.m. when I heard something I had never heard before. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I ducked behind a truck and listened intently. The KATUSA was walking calmly a ways away from me as though he heard nothing. I heard it again, even closer this time. It sounded like someone with a horrible smoker's cough--just one cough, a long wheezing exhale. It didn't bother the KATUSA at all. I heard it again, very close this time. I ran up to the KATUSA and asked him as best as I could what that sound was. Through the use of hand signals and broken English, I finally figured out it was an Asian deer.

The peace was only inside the compound at that time, and the guards made it that way.  Anywhere else a soldier walked a guard post, it was generally boring as all get out.  At Camp Woods, however, we stalked guard--at least I did.  I don't think anyone just slumped along dragging their feet, looking at the ground.   The guards were fully awake, eyes open, heads up, and ever alert for anything out of the ordinary.  If we didn't believe that to be true, none of us would have gotten any sleep. We knew that what had happened on May 22, 1967 could happen easily to us as well.  That day, the North Koreans sneaked into a compound and planted satchel charges around a barracks.  The explosion left one dead and a bunch of others wounded.  I believe that there was some synchronization between the happenings in Vietnam and Korea.  Primarily, when the TET offensive kicked off, it got really hot in Korea.  That's my opinion.  At that time we didn't get much (official) news about Vietnam, but there were plenty of unconfirmed rumors.

The daily activity at C Company was first the commitments--patrols in the DMZ, MDL patrols, guard duty around the compound, GP duty, manning positions along the fence, and the ever-dreaded water truck guard.  When C Company had the patrol commitment, it usually lasted a week. There were times when we had to support another company due to the fact that they didn't have enough personnel to fulfill their commitment. C Company normally sent out one daylight patrol and one night patrol.  The daylight patrol could have been either an MDL patrol or a hunter/killer patrol, or possibly a patrol sent out to investigate a place that the Battalion CO or S-2 wanted to know more about, such as looking for tracks or signs that someone had traveled through the area.  At times we had a double commitment, where we had to man the GPs along with the patrol commitment.

MDL is short for Military Demarcation Line (in other words, the line separating North and South Korea). We had to send periodic patrols along the line in our sector seeking anything of suspicion, such as fresh footprints or anything else of a suspicious nature.  We sometimes met North Korean soldiers patrolling their side of the line.  This was quite exciting. Depending upon the demeanor of the North Koreans, we sometimes stopped and talked to them or exchanged cigarettes, then with a nod of the head be on our way.  If they looked frightened or skittish, we stayed our distance from them.  The line itself consisted of a couple of strands of barbed wire and in most places it was lying on the ground.  Every 100 meters or so there was a small metal sign saying, "Military Demarcation Line."  Most of the signs had little or no paint left on them and some were totally unreadable.

There were different types of patrols that we did in the DMZ. We had the ambush patrol which usually consisted of ten men or more who left from a GP at night or walked out into the zone and waited for the cover of night to move into an ambush site.  Once in place they did not move until at least BMNT (just as it was starting to get light in the morning).  Ambushes were the pits when it was raining or cold.  Another type of patrol was the hunter/killer patrol.  We got to move around pretty much as we wanted during this type of patrol. If we saw something of a curious nature we had the freedom to investigate it, although there were times we were instructed to stay within a certain area to keep us from running into another patrol and having an accident of some kind.  This type of patrol could also be held overnight, which meant it became an ambush patrol.

Water truck guard was the most hated detail of all.  Camp Woods' only water supply was a huge square tank that sat in the hill close to the orderly room. South Koreans were contracted to keep the tank full.  I guess they delivered to other places as well, but I only got the privilege of guarding the ones that took water to our compound. The trucks were mostly something or anything that could carry water.  Some were old Japanese pickups that had a tank rigged on the back.  They would stop running, run out of gas or have multiple flat tires, and most of them barely made it through the day.  A GI was assigned to each truck for protection and to make sure the Koreans actually emptied the tank when they unloaded.  If we didn't check, they would dump half the water and go for another load. They made more money that way. We were issued a box of C-rations for lunch, and ate when the Koreans did.  They took turns since there were normally two people per truck.  They normally ate rice and kimchi, which reeked to high heaven.  After a day of sitting in a closed truck with two Koreans, it was great to get the last load finished and get out in the fresh air.

Those not involved in either patrols or water tank guard were off on pass or training or filling sand bags and building positions along the fence line.  In my case, I had to be trained on the mortars so, along with whoever was free and with whatever NCOs from our platoon were present, I trained as much as possible.  Usually whoever was around that wasn't doing anything else got to train me. Sp/4 Wray was my assigned gunner.  I was a PFC at that time, which made my assigned position assistant gunner. I was trained by everyone in the platoon at one time or another. I got the basics and did a lot of training on my own.  When I had nothing to do I went up to the mortar hooch and set one up.  Then I could practice doing small and large deflection changes as long as I wanted. We got to go south of the river (Imjin) one time and live fire the mortars. We did very well. We practiced with proximity fuses.  With that type of fuse we could time the round so that it would burst before hitting the ground. The resulting air burst spread shrapnel over a larger area, which was most desirable when ground troops were in the open.  There was one drawback to proximity fuses, however.  Very dense air could set them off prematurely. Just to prove it, we almost shot down an airplane (totally by accident, of course).  It was an American plane--just a two or three-seater.  It was pretty high, and no one saw it or heard it until we dropped the round down the tube.  It was like: "bang...cease fire...oops."  The round burst one finger width behind the airplane.  In other words, if you held up one finger at arm's reach, the thickness of the finger was how far the round burst behind the plane. That sounds really close, but at the altitude the plane was flying it wasn't all that bad.  We did agree, however, that he probably found a few pieces of shrapnel in the tail of the plane. We never heard any reports or got any feedback from the incident.

Manning positions along the fence was called "Night Defense Position" or NDP duty.  To explain, we normally had four to five guys to a hole.  At night we rotated shifts so everyone had a chance to get a little sleep.  While one man was awake, the others could sleep.  Sometimes when we switched people, the guy that was supposed to be on guard fell back asleep sitting up in the hole.  This was a pretty common practice. I was an E4 at the time and was in charge of the hole. I made sure someone was awake.  I never laid down and went to sleep.  I dozed from time to time IF I trusted whoever was on guard, but I mostly stayed up all night.

When we had the barrier fence commitment, our days were our own.  After returning from the night's campout along the fence, we cleaned and turned in all of the equipment we used.  Then we were off duty until briefing time that evening. The ones that hadn't slept, slept.  The ones that slept all night--or had enough sleep, usually went to the snack bar on A Company's compound, just hung around the hooch, or played cards. I normally slept until 10 a.m. or thereabouts, then hit the shower and maybe wrote a letter home.  I ate lunch at the mess hall, then got ready for another long night. The KATUSA's always slept until lunchtime, even though most of them slept all night.

I heard a lot of horror stories about things happening in the Zone, but didn't believe any of them until I heard the same exact story from different people. It made me think that maybe this place was as bad as everyone had been telling me. One guy told me there had been a patrol that went out and never came back. Someone told me that a bunch of people in the Zone got their throats slit. I listened to it all with tongue in cheek. I thought that kind of stuff was going on in Vietnam, not Korea.

The "Zone" was actually the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ. I have no idea why it is called the "demilitarized" zone because only the military is allowed there. For anyone unfamiliar with Korea, the 38th parallel is the line between North and South Korea. This line is known as the Military Demarcation Line. On either side of that line there is a buffer zone. This buffer zone or DMZ is about 2.5 miles deep from north to south and runs the entire width of the Korean peninsula.

Camp Woods

Camp Woods was a very small camp compared to other camps/compounds in the area.  The closest compound to it was where the Headquarters Company was located, HQ 3/23.  It was just on the other side of a large hill to the southwest and was a bit larger than Camp Woods.  Also the A Company 3/23 and B Company 3/23 compounds were larger compounds.  There was a movie theater and a gym there.  It was about 3/4 of a mile southeast of Woods.  There was some discussion as to exactly which companies were at what camps.  B Company might possibly have been housed at the HQ compound.  I'm not entirely positive.

Camp Woods contained about 15 buildings.  We had a mess hall and latrine.  An orderly room which sat at the top of the hill was connected side by side with another building that housed an operations center where all the ammo and grenades and such were stored and passed out.  At the east end of that building was a small classroom where the pre-patrol briefings were given.  Every patrol that left the compound was given an Operations Order.  This was a standard Army format which consisted of five paragraphs: Situation, Mission, Execution, Command and Signal, and Administration and Logistics.  It was a very detailed report and took about a half hour.  The parameters of the briefing were set by the Company Commander and the patrol leader, who sifted through intelligence information gained by the Battalion S-2.  Also, sometimes the Battalion Headquarters or Battalion Commander dictated certain areas that he wanted investigated.  Most times the briefing was given by the Operations NCO (at that time he was an acting sergeant named Winters), and/or the patrol leader.  Everyone that had anything to do with the conduct of the patrol attended the OP Order briefing.

The rest of the buildings at Camp Woods were mostly barracks either of the Quonset hut variety or made of sheet metal.  Most of the buildings were numbered and most of the numbers started with a (T), meaning "temporary."  It was my understanding that they were built in the 1940s. There were some buildings used for storage as well.  The 81 millimeter mortars were kept in a separate building along with 106 recoilless rifles, I think. Down the hill from the Orderly Room/OPS building was the motor pool, such as it was.  It was mostly a flat muddy place to park vehicles and tanks and APCs.

The hootch I lived in was luckily next door to the latrine and not far from the mess hall.  Later on they converted one of the hootches into a lounge, complete with a television, a small bar, and a Korean bartender, named (what else?) Chong.  We could relax, watch TV, and enjoy a real American can of cold Budweiser. What a luxury that was.  I remember how great it was going in there after a long hot patrol and asking Chong, "What kind of beer can I have today?" His answer was always "Budawasa or Budawasa."  Unfortunately, we seemed to run out frequently.  Nevertheless, the company bar was my sanctuary.  It was boring and that's why I liked it.  Not many of the guys went there because of that, so it was never crowded, which I liked.  I never liked crowds.  At that time, boredom was a good thing.  We got all the action we wanted in the Zone.

Drinking an occasional beer at the compound bar and smoking were about all the vices I was able to partake of while in the compound.  Actually, now that I think about it, I remember there was an enlisted men's club located on the hilltop near the compound.  I don't remember if it was a KATUSA club or what the reason was that I didn't go there much.  The few times I did go there I had my fill of beer.  There were old cement steps going up the hill.  The hill was really steep and the steps were treacherous because they had broken and missing steps.  A few times I fell down them instead of walking down them.

Gambling was constant, but mostly nickel and dime stuff.  We played card games like poker or anything a guy could bet on to break the boredom.  We bet on things like what time the mail truck would show up or what the cooks were making for dinner.  We did nothing that could get a guy into real trouble.  If I got really bored, I could always pick on Choi MK.  He provided me with many hours of entertainment. A particular time stands out in my mind. Choi was sleeping way too peacefully late on a Sunday morning and I was bored. I went into the latrine, got a big handful of toilet paper, and soaked it with cold water. I stood next to Choi's bunk looking at his face.  Doug Wray was laying on his bunk and saw what I had in my hand and said, "You're not."  Then "Kapotch!"  I threw the TP and it splattered over Choi's face.  Doug Wray had just lit a cigarette.  When the TP smacked Choi's face, he blew the cigarette right out of his mouth and it landed on my bunk. Choi flew out of bed cussing in Korean and went into his Bruce Lee routine, saying something like "Mimishimikasikia, you numma huuchchcing 10 GI."  Now the dog was looking at me like I had lost it because I was cracking up and I was all alone. I don't know what Choi was saying, but I understood that it was something not good. By then Doug Wray was rolling on the floor holding his stomach laughing like he was crazed. Choi got me back the next morning when he stuck a pealed banana in my boot.

I remember that C Company had an old smelly black goat that hung around the compound. Weapons platoon guys named him Dammit.  Others had different names for him. He got the name from Sp/4 Wray because he liked to butt. We could be standing someplace talking and the goat would walk up to someone and butt him in the rear. In turn, this person would yell, "DAMMIT, get out of here."   The goat walked guard with me.  He liked me because I fed him an occasional cigarette.  I guess he liked them.

It sounds like a peaceful situation, but once we left the compound, it was entirely different. When we entered the Zone--the DMZ, we had to have a weapon, basic load of ammunition (five magazines with 20 rounds each and two hand grenades), flack vest, and steel helmet.  The reason for this was that there was a constant threat of some kind of enemy activity. We never knew what, when, or where it was going to take place. The peace was broken on several occasions.  One was an incident that Lieutenant Greenhut talks about in a coming paragraph in this memoir.  Along with this were many other happenings in the Zone and on the GPs.  Sharing cigarettes with the enemy wasn't an every day thing. It happened to me two times when we happened to meet the North Koreans patrolling their side of the MDL. Usually when we encountered the North Koreans, we avoided them as they did us.  But on two occasions we were at the same place at the same time.  Both times I held out an American cigarette, which was as good as gold to them.  They more than gladly took it and offered one of their own back.  Then with a nod of the head, we went in our respective directions.

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Incidents and Casualties

Camp Woods was located about two miles north of Freedom Bridge. The DMZ was about a mile and a half north of the camp. It housed C Company, 3/23. Very few Korean nationals were allowed in the camp.  They had to pass a background check to be there.  They came every weekday, and some of the cooks did weekends as well. There were two barbers--one male and one female (she was the only female allowed across the Imjin River and I believe she may have been married to the barber), Chong the bartender, and the houseboys.  I don't know how many there were altogether.  At one time we had a group of them from another battalion (I think B Company 2/23d) camped in our back yard in tents.  They acted as a Quick Reaction Force or QRF.  It could have consisted possibly of two platoons, judging by the size and number of tents they occupied.  The tents were large General Purpose (GP) tents. The main purpose of the QRF was to react to basically anything that happened in the Zone.

Position #32

Manning the positions along the fence was a commitment which was rotated around the battalion. Someone manned the positions along the barrier fence every night. The job was rotated between the companies on a weekly basis.  One week my company was responsible for conducting patrols.  The next we may have been detailed to man the GPs, and the next it would be some other commitment.  I'm not sure how long my company was assigned to the fence.  I think it was a week or maybe two. While we were manning the fence line, other companies were running patrols and doing GP duty or performing other commitments.

In July of 1967, an incident occurred in which three men were killed in the position just down the hill from the one that three others and I were occupying.  The three men were from Lieutenant William Greenhut's company.  Position #32 was the last position that B 2/23 held. Two KATUSA's and I, along with another private, occupied the first position in the C Company, 3/23d sector.  I have no clue as to what the private's name was. We were a mixed batch of people.  Both of the KATUSA's were from other platoons, as was the private. We were assigned to a certain position as a company without platoon integrity, so we never knew who we were going to be with until we got dropped off at a particular position or hole.  The holes were approximately 75 to 100 meters apart.  According to the scenario, the truck drove down the line dropping off the people who would man each position.

Our equipment included a TA 3/12 telephone which we attached to the pre-strung wires and made a communication check.  Then we continued making preparations for the night.  Part of the preparation process was to test the coverage of the xenon searchlights that were mounted on tanks located on the hills well behind us.  Xenon searchlights were very powerful search lights mounted above the main gun of a tank. The lights were designed so that one tank could light up a target (such as an enemy tank), while another tank engaged it. These lights were a great deterrent for anyone who wanted to cross the open area and breach the fence line. I assume the tanks were armed as well, which would enable them to engage someone with machine gun fire if they caught anyone in the light. Periodically they randomly lit up an area just to let the North Koreans know they were watching.  They had our numbers recorded and placed on a target list. We listened on the phone and when they called out our hole number, we confirmed we were up and ready.  Then they turned the light on.  If it lit up the spot we wanted it to, we were done.  At times we had to adjust the light, but normally only a couple feet this way or that.

The positions/holes were basically sandbagged holes dug chest deep and large enough to hold four to five guys.  The front was open and the back portion of the hole had overhead cover made from steel fence posts with a layer of sand bags covering them. In the winter they put a small stove in the covered part.  There, the ones that were not physically on guard slept and warmed up.  It was very tight quarters, therefore it was more comfortable to lay a sleeping bag out on the ground at the rear of the hole. That, however, was dangerous. In the event that there was an incident like the one on July 16, they would be caught without any cover at all.

Position #32 was located in the bottom of a valley. We watched them each night as they tried to adjust the light. Due to the position of the tank, they could never get it where they needed it. The tanks could only depress their lights so far, and it wasn't enough to cover the front of hole #32.  The closest they could get was about 50-60 meters out in front of the hole--well across the fence, and no light at all to the sides or rear.  That is the reason the three guys died. That was the only hole that was not covered by the lights.  In an e-mail message to me on February 6, 2007, William Greenhut talked to me about the incident.  He said:

"On July 16, 1967 three men from my company, B 2/23, barely out of their teens, were overrun in position 32, one of the holes my company was occupying along the barrier in 3/23's area. Up until then, any time an American fired his weapon, he and a company officer had to go into the TOC for debriefing in the morning and Colonel Cloninger would make the Company Commander come up in the afternoon and get chewed out for his men having no fire discipline and firing at phantoms.

The NKs were stepping up the level of incidents. After Tommy Boyd, John Gibbs and Leonard Ashforth got killed, none of us cared anymore what Colonel Cloninger said or did. The company started firing so many rounds each night that he stopped making us all come in for debriefing.

The North Koreans continued to escalate. Roads were mined, firing incidents increased and, right around July 31, when my company had just been relieved of barrier duty to go into training, the QRF was formed and we were the first company to serve, moving north onto your compound."

The above incident was the most frightening situation that I was part of during my tour of duty in Korea.  There were others (such as the night we unloaded our ambush on some undeserving people), but the night of July 16, 1967 stands out above the rest.  Up until that time, I didn't think it was so bad being over there.  I wanted to explore places and see what there was to see.  I mean, hell, I was never out of Wisconsin until then except for Kansas and Missouri, which was not that different.

In the back of my mind I knew what happened, but I just didn't immediately rationalize exactly what had taken place.  I saw the tracers going south and ricocheting off the ground. I heard short bursts of automatic fire. To my knowledge, our guys didn't have any automatic weapons.  After a split second, the disbelief went away and I realized what was happening. I acted in what I think was an automatic reaction.  It seemed to take eons, but I don't think it took more than 10 to 20 seconds before everyone in my position was on the alert. Time nearly stood still until I was satisfied that I could do no more to make my guys realize the situation. No one talked.  No one stuck his head up to see more than our immediate area. We were extremely tense.  Everyone had their weapons to their shoulders, locked and loaded with their safeties off.  After about a minute or maybe more, I realized I was holding my rifle so tight that my hands were hurting. I tried to relax and think. Someone heard something to the front and he tugged at my arm since I was watching in the direction of hole # 32. We were standing in mud about ankle deep.  I turned toward the front, straining to hear what he heard, but I didn't. The rain made it very hard to hear anything except my own breathing.  Then I thought, "I wonder if anyone knows what just happened?"  We had a TA 312 telephone, so I gave the handle a spin and told the ops center what I saw, talking as quietly as possible. They asked if I wanted the lights to search the front.  I practically yelled, "NO!"  I didn't want that damn light anywhere near my position.

They told me to stay alert and stay in the hole, which was a given. As far as I know, they alerted everyone up and down the line. The next few hours were unreal. We all heard things.  Someone whispered that he heard someone walking to the front, but no one else heard anything.  If two of us had heard the same thing at the same time, we would have blown the claymores and opened up on it. It was very hard not to do that anyway--at least then we would know for sure that no North Koreans were paying us a visit. We saw hand flares in the Zone, which raised the blood pressure more yet. Then we heard echoes of firing in the Zone. Some time during all this, I realized I was shaking or shivering almost uncontrollably, and my teeth were chattering like a mad man. I told the guys I was taking a break and ducked inside the overhead cover.  There I pulled my poncho over my head, lit up a smoke, and tried to relax a bit. A minute later I was back outside watching and shaking until first light. I think I finally started to breathe regularly when I heard the truck coming to retrieve us and was thankful it was early. The company that hole #32 belonged to was coming to make a sweep and we needed to get out of the way. It took a couple days before we found out that the three guys from B Company 2/23 got killed in action.

It is my belief that the North Koreans had a person or people lay in hiding and watch different portions of the barrier fence line to find out what was the best spot to breach. We were all briefed about spy teams, and I think that is what hit hole #32 on July 16. The spy teams were known for their speed and ferociousness. They were heavily armed and moved fast.  Their mission was to escort a spy into South Korea or die trying. Once the spy was delivered, the rest of the team had to ex-filtrate back to the north. In my feeble opinion, I believe that once position #32 was overran, they released the spy and headed back north. I have read other entries on different websites that attest to this theory.  I also should mention that the North Koreans took the weather into consideration that night.  It was a rainy, miserable night and a heavy fog hung in the valley where #32 was located.  The North Koreans did their homework very well.

No one can make me believe that we weren't being watched all those nights that guys rolled out their sleeping bags on the ground behind the holes (which we were not supposed to do), all the nights everyone in the hole was asleep, and all the nights guys stood upright in the holes, lit up cigarettes, and shined flashlights around.  All of that stopped after July 16. There was a rumor that the North Koreans took a starlight scope from the hole.  That scared the hell out of us.   The starlight scope was a wonderful passive device that enabled the operator to see somewhat clearly during periods of poor light conditions.  It gathered illumination from the surrounding area and amplified it--which basically let the scope operator see at night. When looking through the scope, one could see a green haze.  Movement and other light sources were very evident. A clear night with a moon made the scope most effective. On a clear night, one could see someone light a cigarette a very long way away.

After the three men were killed in Greenhut's company, the men sitting in the positions at night tightened their own security measures. After July 16, when I looked down the line of positions, I saw nothing. There were times I had the chance to sign out a starlight scope. I could scan the line of holes and still saw no movement.  Only sometimes could I see a head sticking out of the hole.  Before that incident, I didn't need a starlight scope to see every hole. On clear nights I saw guys walking around the holes lighting up and smoking and guys holding flashlights so they could read.  The only difference I saw as far as increased security on a company level after July 16 was that we had to have a person riding shotgun on the truck that dropped us off at our holes.  I have no clue as to what went on diplomatically after this incident or what the government's view of it was.  We didn't get much news at Camp Woods.  All I know about it is that we got called out in the middle of the night to conduct a sweep around the compound where the bombing occurred. I have e-mailed guys that were on that particular compound in the past, but nothing was mentioned about policy changes or anything like that.

There were a few times after that when I felt as though I was not in a good situation. The night of July 16 was a wake-up call.  We--the four of us in my position, felt in very strong personal danger the night position #32 got overran.  During that few seconds, many things happened.  We found flaws in the system that we didn't know about before. And it was frightful knowing that these flaws affected us directly. For example, we saw the tracers and a second later heard a couple bursts of automatic fire. I called for the tanks to light up #32.  For a split second I thought we were being abducted by a UFO.  The bright white light hit directly on our position. By then, the KATUSA had the other two people up and bumbling around.  They were half awake and wondering what was happening.  Meanwhile, I was yelling into the phone to kill the light. I saw problems that could and would have been life-threatening. If it had been our hole that got hit, the results would have been the same.

After that, all the hand grenades were placed on the sandbags at the front of the position.  Two people were awake at all times.  If the guys wanted to sleep, they slept with their weapons in their hands.  And the lights--well, I hoped I never had to use them again.  We were debriefed by the Battalion CO and a room full of other officers. Before we got a chance to answer the questions, we got reamed for not providing supporting fire to # 32.  When everything settled down and we explained that even if we would have had a starlight scope looking directly at #32 at that particular time, we wouldn't have seen anything except a few tracers.  We could have shot in that direction, but who would we have hit--if anyone? There was absolutely nothing that could have been done to help those people. The North Koreans were just too well-prepared.

Ambush Patrol

Other incidents happened in the Zone during my tour of duty in Korea. The time I was most scared was on an ambush patrol.  I don't know if I should talk about it or not, as we were told to keep our mouths shut. I will say this much, however, in hopes that someone that was on that patrol will read it and contact me.  A small group of three people tripped our ambush. They were people that were not supposed to be where they were. They were not friendly troops, but neither were they North Koreans. One of them tripped a ground flare that we had installed.  We saw the person dive to the ground and we let loose with everything we had, including claymore mines. After the firing stopped, the patrol leader called in on the radio and told Battalion OPS what happened.  They told us to wait until first light, then do a sweep of the area.

Everyone was shaking in their boots until it got light enough to see.  During the sweep, we found our "enemy."  There wasn't much left of them.  The lieutenant who was the patrol leader called it in. We were told to wrap them in ponchos and carry them back to the pick-up point. We rotated the bodies so that when one guy got tired he handed the body over to the next guy.  We all got the privilege of carrying the bundles. The smell was sickening. Blood leaked through the ponchos and soaked our fatigues and boots.  I guess it makes no difference now, but the unfortunate people caught where they absolutely were not supposed to be were brass pickers from a local village.  We guessed they were two teens and an older man, all three carrying fabric bags containing a small amount of spent small arms brass casings.

Other Incidents

There were a lot of things that went on that we never heard about.  While manning the GPs, we saw flares and heard explosions in the Zone that we reported, but never heard anything further about it.  I remember a few things that have stuck in my mind all these years. One night a couple of guys got tired of listening to the propaganda speakers in North Korea, so they set out from one of the GPs and fired at them with 40mm grenade launchers.  One of the more serious times was when the Brigade Chaplain got shot in the abdomen while on GP Gladys. We, of course, being the good guys, couldn't fire back at the deranged North Korean who had a 51 caliber machine gun set up on a burm on the MDL. Then there was the ambush that went on around Mortar Hill.  Mortar Hill was the place that intrigued me the most. I am not completely sure that it was Mortar Hill or a hill by some other name, but I went there on a couple of different patrols.  I could almost envision what went on there. It was a small hilltop.  Around the crest of the hill was concertina wire--very, very thick concertina wire.  Within the wire were old pineapple grenades and noise-makers.  I found a skull half buried beneath the wire.  It was an eerie place.  Someone must have had a hell of a battle there.  Maybe someone reading this can fill me in on the history of this hill.

There were times while manning the GPs when we heard the wire around the perimeter being disturbed. We had C-ration cans hung in the wire with a couple of stones in them.  When moved, they rattled.  We played mind games with the North Koreans and they played mind games with us. We heard noises all the time and didn't think of it as really threatening. If we heard a noise, we threw a rock down in that direction.  The noise would stop for a bit, then start again.  The North Koreans would sneak up to the wire and tie a string or thin wire to it, then back off to a semi-safe place and jerk the string so that it rattled the noise makers. Sometimes I took my magazine out of my rifle, pulled the bolt to the rear, then let it slam shut.   That made them stop for a longer time. They threw rocks at the little bunkers we had around the GPs, which made us pay attention, never knowing if they were grenades or not.  Then, of course, there was the incident that I mentioned earlier--when the North Koreans blew up the barracks.  I heard they shot a helicopter down somewhere. On two different occasions that I can recall, there were a couple of busses shot at that were hauling troops back from the ville. There were more that I can't think of right now.  I guess I missed the boat when most of the major incidents happened. There were a couple times when I found out what 'trauma' meant. The above incident had lasting effects on me.  The other was an incident that happened inside the Company Operations hooch. I was on light duty at the time because I had gotten my teeth knocked out.  (Gee, I haven't thought of that until right now.)

One incident involving a Katusa happened one late afternoon after the evening meal.  We were to spend another lovely night sitting in our prospective holes near the barrier fence. Part of the preparations for the night was to make a commo check, load weapons, and install our claymore mines out in front of the position. I was lying on my stomach to aim the last claymore when I saw the dirt fly about two feet beside me.  Funny, but at that particular time, I heard nothing.  The Katusa assigned to my position loaded the M60 machine gun and for some unknown reason, he pulled the trigger and fired five rounds before he stopped. After realizing what had happened, I walked up to him and punched him in the chest as hard as I could, which knocked him backwards into the hole. I got on the telephone, called the TOC, and had him relieved.  They sent out a Jeep with a replacement.

Teeth Knocked Out

I got my teeth knocked out while riding shotgun in a 3/4-ton truck on the way back from hauling a load of chow to GP Gladys.  The road was wet, slippery clay with very deep ruts.  The front tires got into one set of ruts and the rears got into another, so we were going almost sideways down the road.  The driver (I don't remember his name) was trying to get out of the ruts and eventually did, but when the truck jumped out of the ruts, it rammed into the side of the hill at the exact spot where there was an old tree stump.  We stopped with a thud and I flew forward and took a bite out of the windshield wiper control box that was mounted on the dash.  I think we broke the A-frame or the tie rod on the left front, because the tire wouldn't turn straight.  When the driver tried to go in either direction, it wanted to go in a circle.  I had to leave the driver with the truck, which I really didn't want to do, but I had no choice.  I was holding my front teeth in my hand, and was in a quite a bit of pain.  We decided that I would walk back to the compound and send help, then get some help for myself as well. I walked with teeth in hand back to the motor pool and told a mechanic what had happened.  He took another mechanic and left while I walked up to the orderly room and explained over again.  The CO's Jeep and driver took me to the aid station at Headquarters Company.  They put me in a cracker box (ambulance), and I went to ASCOM to see the dentist. They shoved my teeth back into my head, wired them in, and put a couple of screws into my jaw bone to hold them.  Then back to the compound I went.

While I was on light duty working in the OPS hooch, I helped take in and pass out ammo to the patrols. The Battalion Commander had issued an order that all hand grenades were to be checked upon turn in, and the pins had to be bent flat against the fuse housing. A hand grenade pin was nothing more that a cotter pin. Anyone knows that if a piece of metal is bent back and forth enough times, it's going to break.  Well, we issued grenades with the pins bent flat.  The guys would partially straighten them out because it was impossible to pull the pin with the ends bent flat.  When they turned the grenades in, we bent them again. (Get the picture?)  Sergeant Winters, the Operations NCO and I took in ammo and grenades.  The guys set their wares on the shelf at the front door, we accounted for them, and then we put them away.  I had just put two grenades away and I was standing and leaning against the counter when Sergeant Winters hit me like Superman in flight.  The last thing I saw was three guys trying to get through a doorway at the same time side by side, and I couldn't figure out why.  They didn't fit and the next thing I knew, I was laying on my back on the floor with Sergeant Winters on top of me.  Dazed, I was looking at the roof through the smoke.  I could see the exact, perfect outline of a hand grenade handle that had gone through the sheet metal sideways.  One of the grenades had fallen off the shelf and exploded in the hooch.  One of the three guys that were trying to get through the back door got some shrapnel wounds, and Sergeant Winters got metal in the back of his thighs, I think.  My memory is a little vague on this point. I got a couple pieces of grenade wire in the back of my leg, but nothing serious--thanks to Sergeant Winters.

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Visiting the Ville

There wasn't a lot that a guy could do to make himself safer.  We stayed away from known bad places--the popular clubs in places like Munsan and Yongju-gol.  When we got the chance we went to the "ville"--the town of Unch'on-ni.  While writing this memoir, I looked it up on a contemporary map.  It doesn't seem to be in the same place as it was in 1968.  The four-lane highway must have moved it farther east.

To get to the villes, we had to cross Freedom Bridge.  Freedom Bridge was one of two bridge spans that crossed the Imjin River. The other was Libby Bridge, located farther east. Freedom Bridge was our only link to the outer world. It was a very narrow one-lane bridge with wooden deck, steel base, and side supports. Search lights were mounted in two places along the bridge so that the guards could illuminate the river and banks below if they heard or saw something of interest. The bridge was guarded at night with two guards walking from either end to the middle. There was also a guard at either end of the bridge on the ground watching and walking the river banks underneath. Guarding the bridge during the winter was one of the coldest times ever. The wind blew down the frozen river and large chunks of ice rammed the bridge abutments, making the whole bridge rattle, squeak, and shake.  During the summer, however, it was very good duty (well, as good as guard duty can be).  If we got lucky enough to get one of the guard posts underneath the bridge, there were always crabs to play with.  Or, if we were handy enough to rig a fishing pole, there was always a good chance of catching something.  It was entertaining as opposed to walking the never-ending bridge back and forth for two hours.

Unch'on-ni was the closest village to Freedom Bridge.  There was a little store there that was owned by two girls who were married to GI's that were in Vietnam.  They were Korean.  The guys they married were rotated back to the United States, then sent to Vietnam before they could get their Korean wives cleared to relocate stateside.  I think the guys must have volunteered to go to Vietnam, otherwise they should have been in the states at least a year before coming down on orders for Vietnam.  The girls were both in their late twenties and spoke very good English.  We knew them as Ms. Kim and Ms. Nancy.  They were very respectful and educated girls, but not rich by any means.  Most times it was just Doug Wray and I that went there, but other times we had other friends who joined us--but not too often.  We were too boring.  I liked this little store, and that is where I went when I had a pass.  We always bought Korean food that the girls couldn't afford, but we drew the line at kimchi.  We just couldn't get past the smell of it.  We always drank a couple of bottles of Korean strawberry champagne, which gave us a horrendous hangover.  They closed the store when we left to go back across the bridge and caught a taxi (which we paid for) back to their home in Munsan-ni.

The other ville, Yongju-gol, was another place we visited a couple of times.  It was pretty wild, with Americanized clubs that had Elvis impersonators, dancers, or some other attraction that drew the GI's in.  Papasan came around with his Polaroid and took our photo, usually while sitting next to a young hooker.  That cost a dollar MPC.  After a while the photo went blank.  There was always racial tension there, drugs, a lot of hookers, and a lot of military police. I only went to one or two of the most popular clubs, and even then I went there primarily to see what was there, or I was with someone who wanted to go to one of them.  The only attraction these clubs had were the prostitutes, which I stayed away from because of the horror stories that I heard when I first got to Korea.  I have to laugh now that I know better.  I was told about the "black clap" which was something that could never be gotten rid of and which supposedly eventually caused a man to go crazy--or the certain kind of VD that would cause one's penis to fill with fluid and the only way to get it out was to smack it with a rubber hammer.  Now that's funny.  (Back then I was only 17 years old, so give me a break.)

We tried to take a taxi to the bridge instead of the bus because the busses got fired on at times and there were fights on the busses all the time, usually started because of a racist remark of some kind. If it wasn't an American taxi, it was a kimchi cab. If it wasn't an American bus, it was a kimchi bus. American logic, I guess. I saw one 1956 Chevy in Korea being used as a taxi. All the rest were tiny car wanna bes. Two fair-sized GIs could sit in the back seat, but usually had to duck their heads.  Most--or maybe all, were Asian-made--either Japanese or Chinese or something.  I remember seeing a Simka, but have no clue what make all the others were. Most all of the taxis that I rode in were beat half to death due to the rough roads. The kimchi buses were the same way.  They slanted to whichever side of the bus had the most people sitting on it.  They were usually over-loaded and flat tires were to be expected. The drivers were apparently all NASCAR fans. They loved to scream down the washboard roads at 50 or 60 miles per hour, so the car would rattle sideways one way, then the other. That was great fun when we were saturated with Korean champagne.

When we went to the little store in Unch'on-ni, we waited until the twelve o' clock smoker (American bus) went by.  Then we grabbed a kimchi cab and gave the driver a one dollar tip if he caught up with the bus before it got to Freedom Bridge. We made it every time.  The bus had to stop at the bridge so the MPs could go through and check ID cards, so some GI's had a kimchi cab drop them off at the bridge, then waited for the bus to take them across to their compounds.  The busses were bad at night on the way back to the bridge.  After a night of drinking, there was usually a group of blacks looking for some fun, which consisted of beating the hell out of anyone they targeted.  Sometimes it was a KATUSA, sometimes not.  They learned that there was strength in numbers.  There were usually four to eight guys who taunted and belittled someone until they were fed up enough to take a swing at one of them--then it was on.  Sometimes the entire bus was one big brawl.  People got hurt, but the chain of command could do nothing about it--or at least that is the way it seemed.  It was that way the first time I went to the ville, and it was that way the last time I went to the ville.  Once back to their units, it was all forgotten except by the poor sucker who got the tar beat out of him.

The clubs in the larger villages were the same way.  There were clubs that catered to the blacks with names like "Cotton Club" and so forth.  This actually helped the racial situation because they had their clubs and everyone else had theirs.  There were times when the blacks invaded other clubs.  A bunch of them would gather up and raid some other club, or basically they would go charging into a club and beat the hell out of everyone or anyone that was sitting around having a beer.  If they found out that there was more or equal amount of guys in the club, they walked out without doing anything.

Other than trips to the ville, I just hung around with guys that I thought were somewhat sane.  Passes were at a premium at that time, so we didn't get to go sightseeing at all.  I wanted to visit Seoul, but only got the chance two times--once when I got to Korea and the bus drove through it, and the second time when I left to return to the States and the bus drove through it going the other way.  That was my tour of Seoul.  We stayed pretty busy with commitment, so passes were not an every weekend thing.  Some of the guys south of the river had 9 to 5 jobs and a few actually lived in the ville.  Up north, it was totally different.  We got passes when they could be given out.  Since we were understaffed and over-committed, that was seldom.

The compound was home.  It was our little city. The only time I left it was to go on a mission in the Zone or on pass, which always ended at midnight.  If we were in the Zone, it may have been up to three days when manning the GPs.  I think I spent a week on the GPs.

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Daily Life

Cleanliness

Keeping clean was routine when we were in the compound.  There was a fairly good shower in our latrine.  We had to use the hot water a bit sparingly, but it was adequate. Chong, the house boy, kept me in clean fatigues and I bought a new pair every month, so I had plenty of them. While on the GPs, the best we could do to clean up was to take a bath out of our canteen cups using a bar of soap and a drive-on rag.  A "drive-on rag" was simply an Army-issued arm sling.  They were always in demand and not too easy to get. One had to resort to larceny or have a medic for a friend to get one.  I think they came in the medics' field medical kit. As to keeping clean while operating in the Zone, forget it.  We just stayed stinky until we got back to the company.

When we were in the Zone during the monsoon, we stayed mud-covered, cold, and soaked for however long we were out. I carried a toothbrush in my first aid pouch.  It had a broken handle, so it fit nicely in the tiny pouch. During the monsoon, the rice paddies filled with water.  We walked on the dikes, which were slick as a minnow's tail, and sometimes we had trouble staying on top of them.  If one foot wasn't slipping off of one side, it was slipping off the other.  One time I got detailed to carry the radio--an AN/PRC 25. We were walking the dikes when I slipped off of the end of the dike, not the side of it.  I fell face first into the mud, which was actually human waste. With the added weight of the radio and the suction, I couldn't get up. Two guys walked over me before the third tripped over the radio and pulled me out.  If he had not looked twice at what he tripped over, I would have drowned. What a way to go. I should add that it was nearly impossible to see each other. It was very dark and raining really hard.  At times we had to grab the web gear of the guy in front of us in order not to lose contact with him.

When we got back from the Zone during the monsoon, we were a real mess.  We were issued ponchos, but they were of no use.  After a while they got just as wet inside as they were on the outside.  They did come in handy if we used them right.  If we kept our poncho rolled up on our pistol belt, then covered up with it when sitting in an ambush position, it helped hold a bit of heat in.  Some of the guys went to the ville and had papasan make them a set of rain gear. That was a joke. They fell apart shortly after the first use, so we just got wet and cold until we got back.

Mealtime

C Company had a fairly good mess hall. We had regular meals that were not unlike one that would be made at home in the States. We had the normal variety of pork, beef, hamburger, chicken, etc. There was a Mess Sergeant and a few Army cooks who were augmented with Korean nationals who served as helpers and KPs. They kept us fed pretty well.  On the other hand, when we were on a mission in the Zone, we carried C-rations.  They were adequate as far as keeping one from starving, but at that time we had no way to heat them so the taste and consistency was not the best. (There's nothing like frozen beans and weenies for breakfast.)  One of the meals was ham and lima beans.  I learned to love them, but when we couldn't heat them, they were the worst.  The first thing we had to do was to spoon out the large chunk of lard that formed at the top. When it was raining, the small cans of food seemed to last longer because, if we were wearing a steel pot (helmet), every time we looked down to take a bite, the water from our helmet ran off and filled the can up again. There was one meal that everyone liked.  A can of turkey loaf was a treasured item.  Guys swapped almost anything for one of those.  The absolute worst was fruitcake.

We sometimes had to ride shotgun on trucks or Jeeps to pick up supplies south of the bridge.  When we went through the villages, we tossed things to the kids along the way.  John Wayne bars were something the kids fought over, but one time I threw out a can of fruitcake.  A 9- or 12-year old kid picked it up, looked at the top, and threw it back at me.  I certainly didn't gain any weight in Korea, but then I guess I didn't lose any, either. That was thanks to the snack bar at RC#1.  It was a mandatory stop when we went south for something.  I would run to the snack bar for a cheeseburger and fries, and take two to go when I left.

When I got my first pass, I went to Munsan-ni.  There were boards lying across ditches that ran along the streets and between the houses and stores.  The guy I was with told me the ditches were full of crap, and I should be careful not to fall into one. I guess it collected in wells called honey wells. (They were not a place to fall when one was drunk.)  Then they transported it to the fields and spread it over the rice paddies, I never saw how it was done, but it must have worked because they had been doing it that way for many years.  They still used human waste as fertilizer in 1967-68.  As for eating the native food, I figured that if they could eat it, I should be able to as well. I really didn't think about the unsanitary conditions at that time. I remember seeing an old papasan cooking something on a street corner in an old US Army gas can that had been cut in half.  I guess he was vending whatever it was. I never got sick from any Korean food, so it must have been okay.

There were foods that were very expensive for the natives, just like crab legs or lobster or steak for us.  When we went to the little store in Unchon-ni, one of the things we liked best was "mondu."  There were a couple of  varieties of it, so we ordered all of them.  What we received was like a basket of little pods filled with some kind of greens and what they said was deep-fried pork or fish.  They were great dipped in soy sauce. Crab cakes were another of our favorites.  The girls sometimes felt guilty eating our expensive foods, and then just ate kimchi or kimpops along with us. Even though we assured them that it was our intention to have them eat with us, they were reserved and only took a tiny bit of what we had ordered. Either Doug Wray or I would give them five dollars MPC, and they came back with enough food for a week.  For us, it was a cheap night out. Mondu was our definite favorite.

Cheeseburgers were the stateside food I missed the most.  There were times when I would have given my soul for a hot cheeseburger with fries and an ice cold glass of fresh milk. The milk we got in the mess hall was recombined by taking a can of evaporated milk and adding a can of water.  I couldn't drink it. Being from Wisconsin, I was brought up with a quart of milk in my hand. I probably drank at least a half a gallon of milk a day when I was a kid. I really missed having milk with meals. The alternative was Army Kool-aid, in which they added twice as much water as was called for. When we were on one of the GPs, we got a container of Kool-aid and one of coffee.  Most of the time the only way we could tell the difference was the coffee was colder.

Humor

One of the Quonset hut type hooches was built on the side of a hill. If someone took a run at it, he could jump on it and be high enough to stick there.  Then, using all fours, he could crawl up to the top. Someone used to wake up the troops in the morning by jumping on the hooch and running back and forth along the top of it, crowing like a rooster in skivvies. I don't think anyone ever found out who it was for sure. I heard him (crowing) a couple times.  I guess no one was able to get up fast enough to find out who it was.

For a while we had to account for every round of ammo and every hand grenade.  If one round was missing, there had to be a reason for it. Staff Sergeant Johnson was at times detailed to head patrols in the Zone.  We rode 3/4 ton trucks to the drop-off point.  Just after going through the gate leading into the Zone, there was a pond. On one trip heading out on patrol, I heard a "ping" sound just as we were driving past the pond.  I turned to see what the noise was just as the pond exploded, blowing water into the air. My first thought was that we were getting ambushed, until I realized everyone was laughing. It seems that Staff Sergeant Johnson had a yen for fresh fish and had tossed a grenade into the pond. (Ya had to be there, I guess.)  Other than that, pulling pranks on the KATUSA's and them trying to get back at us was usually worth a laugh or two.  We didn't have a class clown so to speak, but there were enough lighter moments to keep us entertained. The old saying, "Never let a grunt get bored," is true.

Mail call

I got about a letter a week from my mother or dad.  Even though there usually wasn't much to report, they always sent a note. I also got a few letters from a couple of girls, but nothing of a serious nature.  I got a couple of care packages while I was enjoying the Land of the Morning Calm.  They mostly contained homemade cookies--or I should say, cookie crumbs, and Dad always threw in a few packs of beef jerky. We enjoyed the cookie crumbs by the handful.  I don't remember asking for anything in particular from home.  Pre-sweetened Kool-aid was always welcome.  It wasn't the best, but it improved the taste of canteen water a bit.

I don't remember anyone getting really bad news from home, other then me when my mother was fighting cancer. It upset me when I had time to think about it.  I wanted to be home with her because she was going downhill fast.  There were times I prayed for this or prayed for that, prayed for my family, especially my mother.  As the saying goes, "There are no atheists in foxholes."  Sundays we might walk over to the "A" Company compound and attend services, but not every Sunday.  Usually we were committed, but when we had the chance and felt like it, we attended the non-denominational services given by an Army chaplain.  If a chaplain was visiting, he led a prayer before we left for a patrol, but that was pretty rare.

The Red Cross was a great source of help for me when my mother died.  My father knew of the Red Cross and what they did from when he was in the Navy.  He tried to contact them to get me home, but living in such a small town we had only one representative and he was on vacation.  So my dad called my cousin Dave, who was a Navy commander at the time.  He contacted his Red Cross person and within minutes my unit got the message. They sent the confirmation that I was needed at home due to my mother's illness, and I was authorized a mid-tour leave.  While I was home, my mother passed away.  That was in February of 1968.   The Red Cross also provided me with the money to fly to McCord Air Base in California to get back to Korea.  I had to extend my leave by two weeks, then return to Korea. It was tough leaving home to return, but then I was more than halfway through my tour, so I knew that I would be back in a few months.  I kept that in mind.  It made it a little easier to go back.  Once I returned to my unit, it was back to patrolling and the other commitments that kept my mind occupied.

I was picked up on the morning report as being three days AWOL before returning to Korea. I would have been on time except for the fact that McCord air base didn't have anything going my way for three days, even though I signed in at McCord and was told that I was covered for whatever time it took to get back to Korea. I still ended up as being AWOL until I signed back in at my company.  I was never punished for it, but it is still on my record. I tried several times to get it rescinded and was told that it would be eliminated, but it's still there.

Donut Dolly

Donut Dollies came around once a month or so, although sometimes they missed a month.  They were Red Cross girls who had a supply of donuts with them.  They gathered up whoever was left on the compound and we had games and donuts in the mess hall.  It was something a bit out of the ordinary for about an hour.  There was one time that they actually came on a helicopter.  I didn't know they even had them in Korea up to that point.  Everyone ran to greet the girls.  I ran and hugged the helicopter and sat and BS'd with the crew while the others were stuffing themselves with donuts and drooling over the girls.  I hadn't realized that I really missed flying and my machine gun.  The pilot was a W-4 who had flown in Vietnam.  He said they were dragging the skids when they got close to the Imjin River so they wouldn't be detected.  That was a special treat to me, even though I missed out on the donuts.  They were the only (round eyes) American girls I encountered in Korea.

Crabs and Prostitutes

If I had to guess which Korea had more of--crabs or prostitutes, I wouldn't know which I would pick. And by crabs, I don't mean the kind you eat. There were swarms of prostitutes at the gates of every American compound and in every village. I was never stationed south of the Imjin, so I can only relate what I heard and saw the few times we went to the ville. I guess they had girls that hovered around the gates at American compounds, waiting for a GI to sign them in or to come out of the compound and go wherever to ply their trade. One guy told me that he never stayed in the barracks.  He lived with his Yobo (girl friend), who normally was a prostitute during the day in the ville.  He had a 9 to 5 job.  After work he went home to her, spent the night, and went to work the next day. Some had it pretty good, I guess. What I couldn't believe was how young some of them were. I was in Munsan-ni with Doug Wray on one of the few nights that we ventured out to the danger zone.  A young girl ran out of the club we were walking past and jumped up on me.  She wrapped her legs like around arms around me and clung there like Velcro. She was yelling something in Korean--I have no idea what, but I couldn't shake her off.  I was waiting for the knife to be stuck in my back when Doug Wray grabbed her and ripped her away from me.  Then Mommasan grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back into the club. That kind of rubbed me the wrong way.  We didn't go back there after that.

I had crabs--everybody had them.  They were like roaches.  There was no getting away from them, so we were grunts.  We played with them, raced them, traded them--anything we could do with them we did.  They were a source of entertainment. We discussed ways of getting rid of them and the general consensus was that the best way to get rid of crabs was to shave a stripe down the center of our pubic hair, have a stick pin handy, then light one side on fire.  When the crabs raced across the stripe to get away from the fire, spear them with the stick pin. I don't think anyone ever tried it, but it most likely would have worked--if we were fast enough.  Otherwise, there was always crab powder. Although it worked, it was boring. I put crab powder on every night and every morning after a normal day's work.  When I un-bloused my boots, a pile of powder and crabs would fall out of my pants leg.  It looked like flour with pepper mixed in with it. The only way to completely rid ourselves of them was to go where they weren't--and that place did not exist in Korea (that I knew of any way).

Entertainment

I drank, smoked and gambled while I was in Korea.  I did all that before I got to Korea, and I did all that after I got to Korea.  I guess gambling was just a source of entertainment.  I did nothing illegal or nothing with a lot of money involved.  I won a couple of pretty good-sized poker pots, maybe 30 or 40 dollars, and lost a lot more than I ever won.  But like I said, I did nothing life-altering.

The only holidays I remember celebrating in Korea were Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.  I turned 18 over there, but I don't remember it being anything special.  I remember Thanksgiving 1967 because of the meal the mess hall put on. They had quite a spread--turkey with all the trimmings, and it lasted almost all day.  I think I went back to eat three or four times. I didn't like the first time.  After standing in line for a long time, I ended up at a table with four Korean kids, which I really didn't mind except for the fact that they smelled like kimchi.   It sort of dampened the spirit of the season.  But the food was great.

Then there was Christmas Eve 1967. I was on guard duty, standing on the hill above the compound.  The stillness was eerie.  I could almost hear the large snowflakes when they hit the ground. I saw the motor pool guard walking slowly around the north end of the motor pool and heard the now familiar sound of an Asian deer coughing off in the distance. I think it was my second shift and around midnight that the speakers broke the mood. On a cold, clear night we could hear them at the compound. That particular night I couldn't make out what or who they were talking about.

Contact with Natives

Contact with natives was nearly nil. I respected the old men and the young kids.  The old guys had values and were hard workers.  There were a few times when the bus stopped along the road going to the ville to pick up a GI that was walking, and I would get off and walk the rest of the way to the ville.  It was only a couple miles.  There were normally one or two of the old guys walking along the road with A-frames filled with wood or rice stalks or whatever they carried.  Some walked and talked, others ignored me if I tried to talk to them. I once offered to carry the A-frame for one old poppasan who was taking a break along the road.  He laughed like crazy when I couldn't pick it up. I walked as far as the little store with him, then bought him a Korean coke. He appreciated that, and I learned to leave the hauling to the poppasans.

As for the kids, they were fun as well.  I would have liked to get out and play with them a lot more than I did. I bought Korean candy from the girls at the store and passed it out to the kids when it was warm enough to sit outside.  The older ones knew that GI's were good for handouts, and tried to beg.  I had to be careful how I did that since they would fight over it and actually hurt each other if I randomly tossed something to them. I learned to place it in their hands.  That way the others wouldn't try to take it away. Sometimes if the mother was around, she wouldn't let the kids take the candy, so I gave it to her instead.  She would bow six or seven times while walking away. I don't know why the kids liked that stuff.  It tasted like crap. I think it was some kind of molasses candy.  Most of the children looked healthy enough, but a lot of them were under-dressed in the winter. They were always curious, but mostly shy.

From the little that I got to see of the Korean people, the natives were very poor people.  Keep in mind that this was up north.  I never got to see any of the larger cities.  The lucky Koreans lived in wooden homes with thatched roofs.  They were built mostly out of old Army ammo boxes. They had sliding paper doors for walls and the rooms were very tiny.

Prejudice

I saw prejudice while I was in Korea.  I guess there will always be prejudice in the military. Mostly it was between the blacks and Caucasians or blacks and Latinos.  When we were on duty at the compound, it wasn't a big thing.  But off duty or in the ville, it was rampant. I mentioned before how the blacks had their clubs and the others had theirs. The Koreans seemed to cater to either one or the other. I guess both whites and blacks treated the Koreans badly.

Heroes

Sergeant Winter, the guy who dove over the counter when the grenade went off in the Ops hooch, is a hero--to me, anyhow. He could have gotten himself over that counter much faster if he hadn't thought about taking me with him. The guy that stepped on the radio I had on my back while I was laying face down in that rice paddy who decided to stop and see what the strange thing he stepped on was is also a hero to me.  Other than them, I think heroes are just normal guys who find themselves in a dire position and decide to do something about it. There are many types of heroes out there. The term "war hero" is someone to look up to and respect for something he did when others didn't. It's that simple.

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Going Home

We had just loaded onto a truck headed for a three-day patrol in the Zone when the First Sergeant came out of the orderly room and yelled my name.  When I answered, he told me that I had gotten a two-week drop and was going home in three weeks. I was to report to him when we got back so he could give me my orders. I jumped up and yelled and the rest of the guys patted me on the back.  It seemed to make them as happy as it did me.  The patrol seemed extra long and was actually boring for a change, which I didn't expect. But we survived another excursion to the Zone and I got back to receive my stack of orders. I was going to be reassigned to Ft. Carson, Colorado, in C Company in the 1st of the 12th Infantry. I was really looking forward to my leave and visiting Colorado for a while.

I guess I don't recall a lot about the last hours before I left Korea. I remember filling in the last space in my short timer's calendar and having to clean and turn in all of my field gear.  I also definitely remember trying to pack my duffel bag.  I had enough clothes to fill two of them, but I rolled up everything as tight as possible and jammed it all in one.  When I finished, that thing felt like it weighed 500 pounds.

I remember my last breakfast in our mess hall. I sat with Wray and a couple others. The mess sergeant walked by and said something about me getting short.  I said, "I'm not short.  I'm 'gone'."  I had to sit and wait for the company clerk to finish his morning duties before I could sign out, which seemed to take forever.  I waited in my hooch until about nine o'clock and couldn't stand it any longer.  I walked up to the orderly room to see if I could hurry him along some, but he was done and it only took a minute to sign out of the company. He offered me a ride to the bus stop, but I wanted to walk, even with that two-ton duffel bag.  I wanted to walk over the hill to catch the bus for the last time.  It was a clear day for a change, so I could see the compound when I stopped to give my shoulder a break on top of the hill. I saw the First Sergeant walking to the mess hall.  I remember thinking, "I wonder if he even knows I'm gone?"  I was very glad to be leaving, but at the same time, that compound had been my home for the last year, and in a weird sort of way I thought I might miss it a bit--and I knew that I would miss the guys for sure.  I had addresses and names so that we could keep in touch after I got back to the world.

I walked to the bus stop. (Actually, there was no bus stop.  We just went to the road and waited until the bus came through.)  I had to wait about ten minutes until I heard the bus clattering up the hill. I was the only one on it for a long time until we got well south, where the other troops that had time off started getting on board.
I got off at ASCOM, signed in there, and again got lucky.  There was a Northwest Orient flight that afternoon, and I was on it. In the meantime, I had to process out, which took a stack of my orders.  I had to have them sign off on my clearing papers saying that I had done everything I was supposed to do, had done it properly, and had turned in all of the gear and bedding etc.

The date escapes me, but I left Korea as an E4 and an Imjin Scout.  I had all my limbs, fingers and toes, and I had learned a hell of a lot about life. I felt bad for the people of Korea, but I knew it would get better for them.  I felt bad for the families that had given up their sons and brothers in a mud-filled hole on the DMZ. But I felt great to be going home, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on a cold glass of real milk.  I know that sounds corny, but that's just the way it was.  That afternoon, a busload of us was driven to Kimpo Airfield and loaded onto the freedom bird at last. When the wheels of the plane left the ground, everyone on the plane cheered and yelled. It was a party atmosphere until about two hours into the flight, when everyone fell asleep.

For me, the hardest thing about being in Korea had been missing my family.  Things got pretty intense when my mother got sick.  I wanted to be home with her.  Letters came at least weekly, but I wanted more information than I was getting.  I felt that they were holding back and not telling the truth, which I found out was accurate.

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RECONDO

We had a stopover for refueling in some desolate place with a very small building and a lot of snow.  I have a suspicion that it was Iceland.  As luck went, they loaded all the fuel into one wing and had to pump it out and readjust the load.  There were about four vending machines in a little passenger area that could hold about 50 people comfortably.  All 220 or so of us invaded it, as we had to get off of the plane while it was being refueled--which took about three hours.  Needless to say, the vending machines were completely empty when we left.  I'm thinking the flight home must have been either nine or fourteen hours of sitting on the plane.  I don't remember for sure, but it was very long and very boring.  It was a military plane, by the way, and had only a couple of small portholes to see out of, so fourteen hours looking at the front bumper of a deuce-and-a half was no fun at all.

We landed in McCord Air Base in California to cheers and yells, just like when we took off at Kimpo.  Then we went through customs, which was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  Some people had to unpack their duffel bags.  I prayed I wasn't picked to do that, otherwise I would have to spend my entire leave trying to get it packed up again.  We took a bus from the airport across a large bridge which I think might have been the Bay Bridge.  Now I'm not sure anymore.  My idea was to catch the first thing going east.  It worked the first time--I got out of California within an hour.

My first 24 hours after landing were taken up walking through airports.  When I got off the plane in Chicago and Minnesota, I encountered the Hari Krishna's--or so we called them. They tried to sell us books and beg money for their cause, whatever that was. I got really close to taking a swing at one of them because he was almost in my face talking trash and calling me a war junky.  I don't remember what all he said, but he came really close to getting a highly polished #9 combat boot shoved in a place where the sun don't shine. They were hippie types, which I had never encountered before.  They wore tie-dyed tee shirts and head bands, and most of them were barefooted. The whole idea of their existence irritated me. I remember thinking, "Why are these kids not in school or Vietnam, like they should be?" I found out after I got home that I missed a huge rock fest in a place called Woodstock, New York, that I might have been interested in attending.  I thought, "Well, maybe I can go next year."  Ha!

When I landed at Chicago, I went from airline to airline trying to get the first thing going my way.  My luck again.  There was nothing until around 7 a.m.  I remember doing a lot of walking around.  Fortunately, Chicago had a serviceman's lounge where I could get coffee and, of course, a doughnut.  I watched a little television, but I was too wound up to sit in one place, so I wandered around looking at the same displays for rental cars, insurance and other advertisements until finally I got to check in and go to the gate.  There, I sat again. By now I looked like a homeless person.  I needed a shave, and Lord knows a shower and definitely a beer. The best I could do to get out of Chicago was to get to Minneapolis--just a short hop, but it was closer to home. Then I got lucky again--or so I thought.  North Central had a flight going to Eau Claire right away, so I took it. Well, the next flight out of there wasn't until 2 p.m., so what to do?  I wasn't going to walk around that airport as I did the last, so I thought about a bus. I called the trusty Greyhound station and presto, I could get on as soon as I could get there and go right to my hometown within about three hours. Taxi!!  On the bus, I slept. I woke up with every stop and slept in between. Finally, feeling like I had been dragged behind a train and looking the same, we made it to my last stop, where I was greeted by my father, sister, and one of my friends.  Party time!

Mickey McGuire

I reported for duty at Ft Carson, but I don't remember the date.  When I first got to Ft Carson, I was assigned a sponsor to guide me through all the crap involved with signing in and retrieving my field gear and the rest of the red tape that was involved in reporting in. I couldn't have gotten a better person than Mickey McGuire.  He was a short, stocky E-5, and we hit it off right off the bat.  He was somewhat quiet, but he did some of the wildest things imaginable.  He had a Volkswagen bug which he abused to the max.  I saw him drive down sidewalks, jump curbs, and go across country at given times.  There was one particular time when five of us packed into the bug and went bar hopping.  Someone found an unopened can of Dinty Moore beef stew under a seat, which inspired Mickey to plan a move which I will never forget.  After planning it out, we stopped at a Pizza Hut.  One guy concealed the can of beef stew under his shirt.  When we sat down and the waitress took our order, the one guy said he just wanted a glass of water because he didn't feel well.  As you can imagine, by the time the pizza came, he had the can opened up.  The waitress reached over the table to put the pizza down and just then, he made an awful barfing sound and, keeping the can out of sight, he threw the contents of the can splashing across the table top, at which time we all began to grab handfuls of beef stew and shoved it into our mouths like starving Neanderthals.  We got kicked out.

Mickey was an intelligent and motivated NCO, but we never knew what was going on in his scheming little brain.  When we got assigned to the same Recondo class, we hooted with excitement.  I couldn't wait to see what Mickey was going to do to upset the entire operation.  Then to be assigned as Recondo buddies was better than ever.  As Recondo buddies, we were responsible for helping each other in any way needed to make sure the other didn't get hurt or to motivate each other if/when needed.  Too bad Mick went out the first day of school with severe tendonitis.  The class will never know what they missed with him gone.  God knows he would have made something totally unexpected happen.

Mortar Platoon

Before entering Recondo school, I was assigned to the Mortar Platoon again, this time as a gunner. It was a great unit and we had an awesome CO named Captain Feist.  Colorado was a beautiful state and I loved the unit and the duty.  We reported in for physical training at 5 a.m. and were normally off at 5 p.m.. The first guy I saw in my squad was wearing a Recondo tab on the pocket of his fatigue shirt.  When I inquired about it, I found out that it was a school that everyone wanted to get into. Recondo stands for RECON-COMMANDO.  The school in the 4th Division was designed after another Recondo School that was in Vietnam.

As time went on, I found myself surrounded by some of the best NCOs I had ever encountered. They were very professional and took very good care of their troops who, in turn, acted as professionals themselves. We were inspected in ranks at the first formation of the day after PT. The best dressed soldier from each platoon was set free for the rest of the day. It was quite the competition, with the company commander making the final decision in most cases.

The NCOs were a very tight bunch, and I seemed to fit in with them very well. Within nine months I was made an acting E5 and was recommended for Sergeant.  Meanwhile, on a personal note, by then I had met a girl back at home and was writing and phoning her frequently.  One day the First Sergeant asked me if I wanted to go out to Camp Red Devil with him to check up on one of the NCOs who was attending Recondo school.  I jumped at the chance to see what I had heard so much about. A half hour drive took us to a quaint little camp in the middle of nowhere.  It was not much different than the one I had left in Korea. The class was assembled on the ground around a large (fat) E7 named SFC Self.  He was swinging a live chicken around by the neck as he talked. We weren't close enough to hear what he was saying, but as we watched, he bit the head off of the chicken.  The class hooted and yelled "hooah" a hundred times.  I reconsidered my need to attend Recondo School. The class finished with the guys jumping to their feet, yelling, slapping, and hitting each other like they had gone completely mad.  They were very dirty, covered with red clay and dust. I thought again, "Do I want to be like this?"  Then they all ran off at top speed to the confidence course and started running the obstacles, totally without supervision.  SFC Self walked over to us and shook our hands.  He and the First Sergeant were old friends.  The first thing the First Sergeant said was, "Sergeant Oleson here was wondering if you needed any help with that chicken."  That got him an elbow in the ribs that made him grunt and chuckle. SFC Self told us that he had an opening in the very next class because someone came down with a sudden case of appendicitis and couldn't attend.

What made me decide to attend Recondo School?  The chain of command and my peers.  My First Sergeant, SFC Washburn, the CO, Captain Fiest, my platoon sergeant SFC Oceanas, and all of the other NCOs were more like friends than anything else.  They persuaded me to attend Recondo by telling me that I was in the best shape physically and mentally at that time, so I should go then rather than wait until a later time.  And, SFC Washburn had me signed up for the class before I even made my mind up to go, so I didn't have a lot of choice in the matter.  My biggest fear was that I didn't want to disappoint any of them.

Wild Times

I guess Recondo School, which lasted from March 1-April 11, 1974,  was where I spent my post-Korea wild times. I can't think of a better term to describe that course.  It was six weeks of wild-ass fun and torture.  The school was definitely wild.  We did things differently than the normal "proper" Army.  We didn't march anywhere.  We were told when and where classes were to be held, and it was up to us to get there on our own--and ten minutes early was "on time."  It was also up to us to get up on time when we stayed in the so-called barracks, then run the obstacle course without supervision.  One of the instructors posted the day's activities on the bulletin board.  We had about 30 minutes to prepare for the day after eating whatever C-rations we could find.  Normally we had a couple of boxes of C's sitting by the door of the hooch when we returned from the obstacle course.  That was our breakfast.  We split the rations up to share them.

The 4th Infantry Division developed this school out of what I think was sheer boredom.  The way I heard it, some General flew over this quaint little deserted camp located on the fringe of Ft. Carson, Colorado, and said, "Hey.  That would be a great place to start some kind of school for the troops."  When Generals say things like that, there is always a pile of officers clamoring to see that something is done about it.  Ft. Carson housed some very elite officers and NCOs--some that came from Special Forces and who were Ranger types that could no longer perform as Rangers due to physical problems or had just resigned from the program. They recruited a Major whose name I can't recall, but he had awesome credentials as far as combat experience and covert operations.  He was involved with General DePeau (spelling?) who was trying to develop new movement techniques for infantry squad and platoon size elements. These two officers recruited a number of hand-picked NCOs and built what finally became Recondo School.

The school was commanded by the Major, which was unusual as a Major was usually an executive-type rank. The XO was a Captain named Star who had lost his right arm from the elbow down. The rest were E7s, one of which was SFC Self, who was the senior instructor.  Another was SFC Horvath, and there were a couple others that I can't name.  There was also one E5 named Sergeant Bull. Sergeant Bull was the only one that wasn't overweight. These NCOs were given the chance to become instructors because of what they knew instead of what they could do. The camp was named Camp Red Devil, I guess because the 5th Infantry Division named it that and it sounded appropriate, so they kept it. They rolled it all up into a very proficient package and started recruiting the best people from each company on post to attend the school in a starting class size of 40 people.

Myriad of Subjects

What was taught was General DePeau's new concept of movement, the "Over Watch" and "Traveling Over Watch" techniques.  The technique used was based upon the probability of enemy contact.  Usually the A (alpha) team fire team leader led and the rest of his fire team moved into a V formation behind and to the left and right of him at a distance dictated by the terrain. The B (bravo) team leader led his team in the same fashion, which gave the element the most maneuverability if enemy contact was made.

We learned mountaineering, rappelling, making knots in ropes, and how to use them.  We were taught how to build an A frame to gain artificial height, how to ascend and descend a cliff or steep slope, and had a multitude of practice for each. They gave us a class and a demonstration of an Australian rappel (coming down a cliff facing down). This demonstration was particularly impressive since Captain Star performed it with his one arm, while firing an M60 machine gun on the way down.

We studied medical subjects for all different situations, such as how to handle a medivac, finding clearing, and marking a landing zone.  We learned survival, escape, and evasion, which was the torture element of the school. SFC Self did his thing with the chicken again.  Since I saw him do it before, it was funny to watch everyone gasp when he bit the head off the chicken. Then he tossed the chicken to the troops, who tore it apart and ate it all right on the spot.  One guy who was a Filipino took the undeveloped eggs and popped them into his mouth one at a time.  We were hungry. At this point I should interject that on the first day of school we received an hour-long orientation, then were fed grilled steaks and baked potatoes.  After that, food was scarce.  They wanted to put us under stress, very little rest, and very little food.  We saw the mess hall that one time on the first day, then again on the last day.  In between, we shared C rations and whatever we could scrounge. One guy sneaked in a phone call to his wife and in the middle of the night she brought five pizzas out to a spot on the road and dropped them off for him to pick up and bring to us. He was our hero. They also promoted the use of one's imagination, improvisation, and thinking out of the box, so he didn't get into trouble for the pizzas, even though they did find out about it.

POW

This phase also included a three-day stint in a POW camp as part of a Survival, Escape and Evasion class.  We were loaded into the back of a covered truck with nothing except the fatigues we were wearing.  Then we were dropped off somewhere in the foothills that we had not seen before.  We were to make our way to a point that was in "that" direction without being detected, and that's all we knew.  About four hours into the movement, we were captured.

The people who captured us were MPs who were trained to detain captured personnel in a POW type posture.  They didn't give anyone a chance to escape with the exception of one guy.  I think his name was Baxter.  With his hands tied behind his back with lock ties, he managed to hurdle the concertina wire and run off into the night.  As of graduation day, no one had seen him or possibly have ever seen him again. They put us into a deuce and a half and trucked us to the POW camp, then jerked, pushed, or pulled us out of the truck so that we fell all over each other. As we lay on the ground struggling to get up, we were kicked and hit. One guard hit me in the jaw with the butt of his M16. This was to be expected.  We were told that it was part of the course and we signed a waiver saying that we agreed to being treated to the extreme necessary to accomplish a goal.  But it was no fun. They took our boot laces away and, as simple as it sounds, it was very demoralizing.

We had two 55-gallon drums used as burn barrels.  We had absolutely nothing to do except for occasionally being granted permission to gather wood--and take the harassment of the guards.  We were nearly starving when they turned three live chickens loose in the compound.  They didn't live very long.  We got to practice SFC Self's technique of biting the heads off and eating them raw. I did something to catch the eye of one of the guards--I have no idea what, but I ended up in solitary for four hours. Solitary was a old style metal wall locker that was half buried in the ground, with the top one foot of the door cut off. I had to slide on my stomach down into the locker barefoot, then stand in there while the guard stood in front of me eating a ham and cheese sandwich, and kicking dirt in my face.  Every so often he took his baton and pounded the hell out of the locker.  The major problem was that they put snakes in the locker.  They crawled around my feet and there wasn't enough room to reach down and throw them out. Of course, they were non-poisonous, and I didn't get bitten, but I thought of places I would have rather been at the time.

Periodically they took someone in for interrogation.  We could hear them scream from inside the small building that was there.  It was very unnerving wondering who would go next. I got my chance to be interrogated.  They blindfolded me, stripped me naked, and took me into the building. With hands tied behind my back with lock ties, two guards dragged me in and stood me against a wall.  I was not allowed to lean against it.  Then came a voice I knew to be a black female, asking what unit I belonged to. I didn't expect that, but I didn't say anything.  Then she yelled at me and said I was standing on a metal plate.  If I didn't answer, I would be shocked.  Knowing they could only go to certain extremes, I didn't say anything.  Finally she yelled to the guards to bring in the next pig, and I went to the next station--where they tried to make me sign a form saying that the Red Cross would notify my parents where I was.  I refused, and feeling rather proud of myself, back to the compound I went. Others had a rougher time than I did.

Navigation & Intelligence

We also learned land navigation in Recondo School.  What a nightmare.  We had to run for miles, over some of the worst terrain one can imagine, looking for yellow barrels.  We had to climb and rappel cliffs, and wade through streams and ponds in the worst weather possible.  The instructors actually planned the compass courses for the days and nights when the weather was the worst, including one night while battling wind that was hard to walk against and rain so heavy we couldn't see four feet in front of us. And, that night we had to carry an anti-tank mine filled with cement, along with a full rucksack, weapon, and steel pot.  Then we had to try to read a map with no light. At one point, the distance between barrels was nine miles, and we had to finish before daybreak. There were five different points we had to find. We must have run five to eight different compass courses throughout the class.

In addition to land navigation, we were taught how to gather intelligence and what to do with it, patrolling, weapons, and communications.  We spent the last week doing combat operations where we had to use all the things we had been taught.  The class was broken down into an administration section consisting of an S-1, S-2, S-3, and S-4.  I was picked to act as the S-4, meaning I had the responsibility of getting supplies to the five patrols. I was given a Jeep and a driver, as well as the use of a helicopter if I requisitioned it in time--which, as it turned out, was only one time. The patrols called in every 24 hours on the radio (in code, of course), and each patrol had a different code book. They told me what they needed and where to drop it off.  At times I got ambushed by another patrol and had the supplies stolen, then I had to start all over again.  These guys were like wild men.  I had to get at least one hot meal to each patrol that week.  When I got ambushed, the guys opened the containers, reached in with their hands, and grabbed a handful of chili-mac before they unloaded the entire meal and sent me on my way.  Some even filled their pockets with the wonderful chili mac in case they couldn't find where they hid it again.  I got maybe a couple hours of sleep that entire week. If I got lucky enough to go to a drop point that the driver knew from a previous drop, I could sleep in the Jeep on the way.  At one point I fell asleep, tipped over, and fell out of the Jeep, which made the driver laugh hysterically for the next couple of miles.  Most times he could reach over and catch me before I fell out.  So it was an exciting week.  I was kept on the run constantly, but we all knew it would soon be over and we could get back to a civilized lifestyle again.

Part of the graduation was walking the 20 miles back to Ft Carson, then standing through the ceremony. It was a proud day for me.  My company had more people attending the graduation ceremony than any of the others, and they all cheered like mad when I got my Recondo patch from the Commanding General. That made it all worth the effort.  I learned a lot about myself in Recondo School.  It was hard, to say the least, and I felt for the first time that I actually had earned something.  I earned my Recondo patch through sweat, blood, and tears.  I overcame fears I didn't know I had.

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Second Enlistment

I hadn't thought much about reenlisting.  In my mind, with the exception of Recondo School, my three years in the Army were a waste of time that I could have spent working and gaining seniority. So on March 27, 1969, I ended my term of enlistment and bid beautiful Colorado goodbye for the last time--or so I thought.  My plans were to go home, get a decent job, settle down, and raise a family.  I had gotten married by that time to a girl from home who I brought back to Colorado with me and married in Colorado Springs.  I was happy to be going home.  I knew that I would miss my old unit and all the guys, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. I missed my family and the old dead town with nothing to do except go to the bar and meet with friends.

For the next four years and two daughters, I went from job to job trying to find one I didn't despise, which didn't work at all. I worked in a couple different factories, drove gravel trucks for a number of different people, but couldn't find anything that held my interest for any length of time.  It took me four long years before I finally made my mind up to get back where I belonged.  With my family's support, I re-enlisted in 1974.

I had to go back through basic training in Ft. Leonard Wood because I had been out so long.  This time I made up my mind that I was going to be an E5. The Army had changed a hell of a lot in four years.  I was made a platoon leader right off due to my prior service and the fact that I got caught by my Drill Sergeant showing the new recruits how to make their bunks and polish boots, which must have made an impression on him. Basic training the second time around was a blast. It was very easy compared to 1966. I was nominated for trainee of the cycle, but declined it.  I told the Senior Drill Sergeant that I declined it because another trainee platoon leader with no prior experience was doing as well as I was and deserved the honor more than I did.

After Basic number 2,  I was off to Ft. Carson again with family in tow.  We rented an apartment in Colorado Springs.  I spent the next year or so performing as a fire team leader in an infantry squad.  Later I was assigned to the Mortar Platoon in C Company, 1/61 Infantry, 4th Infantry Division, which was the very worst unit I was ever assigned to during my Army career.  About a year and a half and one son later, I got orders to Germany and was assigned to B Company, 1/54 Infantry, 1st Armored Division in Bamberg.  I stayed there for the next three years.  It took almost six months to get my family over there. My new son was hardly crawling when I left the States, and when I met them at the airport in Germany, he ran up to me.  Quite a shock there. We spent the rest of a great three-year assignment with me going to the field for a month at a time, which wasn't too awfully bad.

The time with my family in Germany was the best.  We now had two beautiful daughters and an awesome but spunky son. The children, all with blond hair and blue eyes, went to an American school on post and did very well there. it was a great assignment with awesome friends and a fairly good unit. By then I had made E6 and was a squad leader in the Mortar Platoon. My platoon was selected to go to England for a month to learn how to operate the British version of the 81MM mortar.  It was a great time.  I got to visit Berlin for a month and train in combat in cities, which helped me get a later assignment after returning to the States.  I met and was interviewed by none other than Colonel Charley Beckwith, who was at that time forming the Delta Force.  I found out that I held a position within the top two percent of my peer group as an E6. Delta was totally voluntary and I was interested, but I decided after researching it that they were crazier than I was, so being a family man, I declined.

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B Troop, 1st Battalion, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment - Ft. Bliss, TX

We left Germany in 1978, when I got assigned to Ft. Bliss, Texas, after a month long leave at home partying.  We drove off into the sunset to our new home in the desert, where I was assigned to B Troop, 1st Squadron of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment. B Troop was an active company, as was the entire 3rd Squadron.  We had practice alerts and had to be ready to move within a 15-day window--bag and baggage, and tanks.  This was a Cavalry unit, basically meaning the eyes and ears of an entire division.  It was like an overgrown scout unit with tanks.

This was totally foreign to me. I was by then a Senior E6 and on the E7 promotion list, which landed me a Platoon Sergeant slot. Now I had four M60 A2 tanks and an entire platoon. I asked myself, "What the hell did I do to deserve this?"  I knew nothing about tanks or how the Cavalry operated. I did know how to handle troops.  I guess that's all that got me through that experience--plus I had a good Lieutenant named Sandridge and some good NCOs. I have to laugh every time I think about 2LT Michael C. Sandridge.  He was sort of dorkey, but he always wanted to learn, and he listened to his NCOs.  On a particular training exercise, he wanted to attack a battalion-sized element with his five tanks.  I said, "Sir, maybe you should think about this." After he realized the situation, he said, "Okay, then let's advance to the rear and find some lunch."

As a platoon pleader, I had to learn the tactics of employing five tanks, how to maintain them, and most of all, how to give the proper commands and actually fire the weapons systems.  I learned tanks.  I learned desert.  I learned what hot is.  I learned what sun poisoning is.  I learned you can sweat like crazy and not know it.  I learned that even the Cavalry can use infantry tactics.  The officers in charge of a tank platoon had a very hard job.  They had to command their platoon as well as their own tank.  It got very hectic at times.  During field exercises, I yelled tank commands over the radio that were meant for my crew, and called my CO on the tank intercom.  But as time went on and I got worked into the routine, I managed to make it all fit together fairly well.

I did a good job with the Cavalry and, believe it or not, they also learned from me.  Ha!  I instituted General Depeau's principals of movement, which I had learned in Recondo school.  It worked great using tanks--primarily the over-watch and traveling over-watch, which I discussed in the Recondo school section of my memoir. I researched the fact that whenever the troop went to the desert for training, they always got lost, which is not a good thing in the Cavalry. I found the answer, trained the NCOs and drivers, and that solved the problem. The primary problem had been simply the right-handed rule which the infantry has known about for many years.   When a right-handed person walks through the woods, nine times out of ten he will walk around the right side of a tree, pond, or whatever is keeping him from walking in a straight line. Same with tank drivers.  When they had to go around a sand dune or some obstacle, they always went to the right. I took my drivers to the field and one by one I told them to go straight south.  In most cases, within 3/4 of a mile they were headed straight west. To correct that, I told them to look as far ahead as possible, find a reference point, and head for it.  Again, the Infantry used that constantly. Problem solved.

On the subject of getting lost, an interesting incident happened to my troop.  We trained hard all day about 30 miles out in the desert.  One day we were just lying around waiting for hot chow to be delivered by the 1st Sergeant.  It was around 6:30 when the 1st Sergeant radioed the CO saying that he was where he was supposed to serve chow, but no one was there. In turn, the CO told him, "We are where we are supposed to be and you are lost."  The 1st Sergeant said, "No, you're lost.  I'm where I'm supposed to be."  After arguing for about a half hour, the 1st Sergeant said, "Uncover a search light and turn it on and off one time.  I'll see it and come to your location."  It was getting dark by the time we did that.  He called back and said he saw nothing.  "Okay, turn it on and leave it on."   He saw nothing.  "Okay, turn it on and spin the turret."  We did that, thinking surely he would see it and we could eat.  He saw nothing.  The CO called and asked, "Are you in Texas!!?"  The 1st Sergeant said,  "Of course.  I'm right where I'm supposed to be.  Where are you!!?"  Another very senior NCO who was with us had had enough of it and took the radio.  He told the 1st Sergeant to stand back to back with his driver, one looking south and the other looking north, and he would send up a signal. No one had a clue as to what he had in mind, but evidently he had done this before. He started stripping out of his boots and pants.  Now we are really curious and watched intently. He stripped out of his underwear and asked my tank driver, who was standing on my tank, to pull the antenna down so he could reach it.  He took the cover off the CO's Jeep, dipped his underwear into the gas tank, hooked them over the tip of the antenna, touched them off with his cigarette lighter, and let 'em fly.  "Swooosh!"  They went flying into the air.  I was amazed at how high they went.  While everyone else, including the CO, was rolling on the ground laughing hysterically, the 1st Sergeant called and said, "I don't know what the hell that was, but we saw it.  We'll be there in about a half an hour."  Thanks to the experience of an old NCO, we finally got to eat.  It was also funny seeing a gray-haired old E7 walking around in the desert, naked from the waist down.

The tanks crews had to qualify as a crew.  Instead of qualifying with a weapon/rifle, we qualified our tanks.  We went to a range specifically set up for tank qualification, which consisted of a day and night phase.  We engaged targets such as moving vehicles, other simulated tanks, and troops.  It usually meant a week in the field.  There were different levels of qualification.  With the help of some good people, my crew qualified "distinguished."  I don't remember what the other levels were.  I had a great, hand-picked crew.  Me being a grunt and not having the slightest idea of the workings of a tank, I figured I better have a good crew to pull me through qualification--which they did.  At one time during qualification, we came upon multiple targets.  My job was to quickly diagnose which target was the most important and give the commands to the crew.  Instead of yelling, "Driver, Stop.  Gunner, Heat Tank," all I got out of my mouth was "Gu..." and BANG!  The main gun went off and the machine gun fired just as fast.  I had no idea what was happening, but the crew (mainly my gunner) had acquisitioned the targets and fired on them before I could even think about it.

My #2 tank had a loader named Maxx.  He was a very good soldier who got injured during qualification when his pant leg got caught in the turret ring about halfway through the course.  The skin on the inside of his leg was ripped open from ankle to hip, like someone took a razor blade and slit his leg.  It took over 200 stitches inside and out to close it. He was laid up for months and had to show everyone the zipper they installed in his leg (which was exactly what it looked like).  This was the only crisis of a serious nature that happened while I was there, although another time one of my drivers took his tank to the wash rack to clean some mud off of it, but had the turret turned.  The main gun took the top off of a trailer that was parked a little too close.  I saw it coming and yelled, but no one heard me until it was too late.  There was an incident in C Troop where a tank overturned when it ran one track into a deep hole that the engineers had dug for practice and didn't bother to fill.  It killed the tank commander and hurt the other crew members.

I left B Troop due to the fact that the Army in its infinite wisdom thought I would make a good drill sergeant. I got drafted into Drill Sergeant School and had to go to Ft. Benning where, after completion of the drill sergeant academy, I was to be assigned to a training company at Ft. Benning. This was the first step to my downfall as a Senior NCO.  There is an old saying, "What's the best way to make E5 at Ft Benning?"  The answer is, "Go there as an E7."  Luckily I managed to get out with my E7 intact.  Unbelievably, I also got picked for promotion to E8 before I left.  I was more or less holding my own in Drill Sergeant School, but I totally hated it.  We got inspected every morning and got written up every time for something. I got gigged one time because I had thread in my button holes.  Guys even got gigged for having hair in their ears.  Boots not shined were an everyday problem, even though guys spent half the night polishing them. It was the most nit-picky course I had ever seen.  We had to give classes on things like physical training, for example, and every word that was written on the lesson plan had to be said--in order, and not one more word added to it. I thought it to be ridiculous and chicken shit.

One day I ran into an old friend I had met somewhere along the line.  I don't remember where.  His name was Hollander.  He was a command sergeant major, and was looking for good NCOs. He told me of an opening he had in one of his battalions that required a 1st Lieutenant or a very good E7. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up when he told me it was a scout platoon. That was something I had been wanting for the longest time, but I was supposed to become a drill sergeant. Well, although he advised me against it, I wanted that job and dropped out of Drill Sergeant School.

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Scout platoon, CSC Company, 3/7th INF. - Ft. Benning, GA

CSC Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Scout Platoon was a glory assignment.  Being at Ft. Benning, they had a lot of money allocated to the unit. All I had to do was tell the CO what I wanted to do and when, and most of the time we got to do it. My first mission was to get some helicopter time, my true love. The new Black Hawk helicopter was just being tested at that time, and I wanted to see what it was all about.

I talked to the Battalion Commander and he had his training people develop a scenario that required my scouts to be airlifted to Aniston, Alabama, where there was a very large ammunition dump.  Infiltrators had supposedly gotten into the ammo dump and were planning to detonate some of the bunkers there.  My scouts were to be the saviors. We went on alert at 3 a.m. and had 30 minutes to load and be on our way. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way.  The operations guys at the helicopter company had their numbers all wrong. My scouts were lined up waiting for the birds when they flew overhead and kept on going out of sight. We stood there scratching our heads until finally we were informed that the birds had too much fuel on board and had to burn some off before they could pick us up. A half hour later, we sling-loaded our gun Jeeps and clamored aboard.  When they came back for us the second time, I told my NCOs to make sure they had all the information concerning who they had on board.  After burning off a half hour's worth of fuel, I figured we were going to end up in some woods halfway between Ft. Benning and Aniston, Alabama. That turned out to be the most fun I have ever had in a helicopter. Fifteen minutes into the trip, they decided they wouldn't make it on the remaining fuel, so basically they floored it. Flying at tree top level, they had those Black Hawks at top RPM.  I don't know how fast they flew, but when we landed and inspected the slings that held the Jeeps, we found they had all been burned through to the last remaining strap.  If we had flown another half mile, we would have been able to watch our Jeeps fall to earth. When we landed at Anniston, I asked the pilot how much fuel he had.  He said, "Ten minutes reserve."  In other words, in ten minutes we would have been out of fuel.  We continued with the training exercise and, to make a long story short, we caught all the bad guys.  This time, the air crews had enough fuel onboard to give us a civilized flight back to Benning.

Another time, one of my young troopers (I think it was Nue) brought up the idea that we should go 'helocasting.'  I had no clue what that meant, but I was interested in what he had to say since he was a very good soldier. He told me the Rangers did it all the time--jumping out of Black Hawks over water.  My first thought was, "Okay.  Next idea."  But he explained that there was a Ranger demonstration coming up and we should go watch them, which we did.  They jumped out of a Black Hawk helicopter at a height of eight feet, but we noticed they did it "Hollywood" (without any equipment, weapons or rucksacks). They jumped only in fatigues. All my little troopies agreed that it would be a blast.  I was skeptical, to say the least.

We kicked it around for about a week.  I wanted to have every aspect covered when I went to the CO with the idea. We, the troops, wanted to jump with rucksacks.  I said it couldn't be done safely and the CO wouldn't go for it, until Nue came up with another idea.  (Actually, I had seen it done before.)  When guys wanted to cheat on long forced marches, they took their air mattress and blew it up inside the rucksack.  That way they didn't have all the weight, but it looked like the ruck was packed full.  Again, I told the men that it wouldn't work.  I said, "The ruck will rip your head off when you hit the water."  One of my airborne soldiers suggested tethering the ruck like a 'weisi' bag (a type of packing bag).  To explain, when airborne troops jump from an airplane, they usually have a weisi on a tether snap linked to their harness.  When they get so far from the ground, they drop the bag, then try not to land on it. I thought it might just work.

It took a lot of talking with the CO, but we got it put on the training schedule and rehearsed it a million times before the day finally came.  There were two guys at the door on each side of the aircraft and rucksacks on the floor in front of them tethered on a ten-foot line to a pistol belt which was worn around the waist.  We were to kick the ruck out and jump behind it.  There were two jumpers directly behind the guys at the door.  When the first four went out, the next four were to move into place and jump.  Then the next four.  This required two Black Hawks. The aviation operations officer thought we were completely daffy, but since we had everyone's approval, he went for it as well, not knowing that we basically had empty rucksacks and they would float in case anyone got into trouble. We had an audience waiting as we approached Engineer Pond where the Rangers did their jumps.  It looked like about 60 to a 100 people were waiting to see a helocast with equipment happen.  Thanks to all the rehearsing, it went of as precisely as we planned it. No one thought until we got into the water that we couldn't swim to the shore where our transportation back was because there was a crowd there.  In order to not be found out about the rucksacks containing air mattresses, we had to swim to the opposite shore, then walk around to our trucks after everyone left.

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Training in Alaska

B Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry was ordered to attend the Northern Warfare Training Center near Fairbanks, Alaska, from 4 January 1982 to 22 January 1982. They didn't have enough people to fill the commitment (I think it called for 200 troops), so my Scouts, along with some support personnel, were attached to B Company to augment the needed amount of troops. We were mostly all excited to go, but with reservations. Remember, this was in January. We flew from Ft Benning, where it was 40 to 50 degrees, to Fairbanks, Alaska, where it was 50 degrees below zero. They opened the airplane doors and no one wanted to get out.  The wind was treacherous and, at -50, it was like getting hit in the face with a shovel. We were dressed only in fatigues, field jackets, gloves, and baseball caps. Buses were waiting to take us to our new home for the next month, which turned out to be a tent city.  They had hard barracks there that were heated, but the B Company commander, Captain Loghie, volunteered us for tent city (for which the NWTC instructors said we should take up a collection to hire a hit man and have him shot).

We were off to a poor start.  They were short-handed because five of the instructors were on Mount McKinley, retrieving the bodies of a couple of mountain climbers that got stranded. The tents were GP Larges, with a Yukon stove near either end. We got off the buses at NWTC and were assigned to our tents.  Then we waited for the instructors to come around to each tent and give us a short class on how to light the stoves.  We were then on our own to get our field equipment issued and settle in. The field gear was basically cold weather clothing which saved us from certain frostbite, and we got into it as quickly as possible.  After an orientation, we went back to the tents and huddled around the stoves for a bit before setting up cots and rolling out sleeping bags. I had a meeting at the command post (CP), which happened to be a heated building where the CO now lived and where meals were served.  We had to eat in our tents due to the space problem, so at -50 and having metal trays, the food was at the least very cold or frozen by the time we got back to the tents.  At the meeting I was told that my scouts had a change of mission. Evidently, the Battalion Commander had an idea that the entire battalion could get nearly the same training that we were receiving in Alaska by going to Ft. McCoy in Wisconsin.  Instead of going home to Ft. Benning after our training in Alaska was over, my scouts were to meet the rest of the battalion at Ft. McCoy and give them the training B Company had received in Alaska.

Now everything had to be changed around.  The NWTC instructors had two groups to teach and had to adjust their schedules and lesson plans in order to teach us as instructors and the others as students. This made my scouts and I the king pin to a successful training mission at Ft. McCoy. I knew we could handle it.  Even my bad troops were good--and the good troops were excellent, so that was not a stress point for me. But we had a lot to learn in a short time.  The lesson plans we had to write and learn were how to properly wear and maintain winter clothing, how to maintain our weapons and fire them in frigid conditions, how to load, unload, and travel with an ACHIO (basically a sled loaded with equipment), how to set up an arctic tent and set up and light a Yukon stove, how to build five different field expedient shelters, winter survival, how to ski and snow shoe cross country (up hill, down hill, and all around town), and other subjects too many to remember. We had to learn all of that in a month.

It got dark at 2:30 in the afternoon and got light at 10:00 a.m. My scouts trained until 10:00 at night and started the next day at 6 a.m.  Sometimes if the lights worked on the ski hill, some of my guys skied until midnight or later. We actually had quite a bit of fun at times. We got the privilege of becoming members of the "50 Below Club" due to the fact that we had to build and sleep in improvised shelters out in the woods when the temperature was 50 below or lower. My scouts built one large shelter by scooping the snow away to make a circular snow bank, snapping their ponchos together for a roof supported with skis, then rolling out sleeping bags in a circle with all their feet meeting in the middle.  This wasn't taught--they improvised it themselves.  But, they left no room for me, since I had to go around to see what the others were building to make sure it would work and to make sure the rest of the company was surviving.  Everyone did well except the CO. He tried to build a snow tunnel, which would have worked except he tried to light a fire inside it. He even made a small hole in the roof to let the smoke out.  I guess he didn't realize that snow melts. After about 15 minutes of being comfortable it caved in, so he went back to his heated building. I was out in the cold.  I had no time to build anything for myself, so I simply kicked the snow away down to the ground, rolled out my sleeping bag, covered it with my poncho, then used my arms to drag the snow back over the top of me.  I slept warm and comfy.

We were in Alaska the month of January.  We didn't get to go anywhere except to the town of Delta Junction.  I, myself, didn't get a chance to get out of the training area at all.  A couple of my guys got the chance to go to town on a shuttle bus that ran a couple times a day, but there was no real sightseeing to speak of.  We had no time off before we left for McCoy.  We packed up our gear, got on the plane in Fairbanks, and landed at McCoy.  The rest of the 3rd Battalion, which consisted of A Company, C Company, and Headquarters Company, was waiting for us there.  We had one day to prepare for training.

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Month at McCoy

We stayed at Ft. McCoy during the month of February.  I was an hour from home and my sister lived a half hour away.  I stayed with my sister for the month of February, commuting back and forth to McCoy for the day's training, then returning to her house for the night.  Back at Ft. Benning, my family stayed warm and happy.  I called them almost every night from my sister's.  By then they were used to me being gone, so it wasn't a real big issue.

My scouts did a tremendous job at McCoy.  They were the teachers.  I had PFCs in charge of officers and NCOs. They earned their respect and taught them well. As luck would have it, one of my scouts--PFC Prunier, was a ski instructor from Vermont. During the orientation I held at the bottom of the ski hill at McCoy, where the entire battalion minus B Company assembled, I started the orientation with a fantastic demonstration. The ski hill at McCoy was divided down the middle by a five-foot high snow fence that ran from top to bottom.  I told the battalion that, as a result of our training in Alaska, we learned to become competent skiers and would demonstrate this fact. As they watched intently, I gave PFC Prunier, who was waiting at the top of the hill, a wave.  Off he went, speeding down the hill.  He did tight turns both left and right, kicking up a rooster tail of snow at every turn.  Then about halfway down, he jumped the snow fence and came sliding sideways to a halt in front of me and the battalion. If they weren't already standing, he would have gotten a standing ovation. The Battalion CO was very impressed (little did he know....).

There were quite a few times when we laughed so hard it hurt.  (When you get a bunch of soldiers on skis for the first time, it's hilarious.)  We learned cross country skiing first.  Guys fell and put their hand down in the snow to push themselves up, but they just sank up to the shoulder.  We reinvented the ostrich plant--when your ski tips cross and you tip over forward and end up with your head stuck in the snow.  At one point we got fairly good at skiing.  The instructors led us over some pretty rough terrain.  There was a very steep hill we had to ski down, which we managed to get down if we went slow enough.  But the next hill had a ditch at the bottom made by a small creek.  The ditch was almost as wide as our skis were long, so we had to go fast enough to glide over the ditch some.  I didn't do that and got stuck halfway across the ditch.  So there we stood, unable to move for fear of tipping over, and held only by four inches of ski on one side and four inches of ski on the other.  Now what to do.  Some tried to jump, which landed them at the bottom of the eight or nine foot deep ditch.  Others just fell, like I did.  All in all, we spent about an hour at the one spot, helping and laughing at the guys trying to get across that ditch.

The training at Ft McCoy was a great success. We all got letters of appreciation, and my scouts got the respect and admiration from the entire battalion.

CSC Company was a great assignment for close to a year--until I got bumped out of my Scout Platoon Leader slot by the newest Lieutenant ever made.  I think he graduated the day before he reported to CSC Company. He was totally full of himself.  (He was an arrogant little snot.)  He must have been maybe 20 years old.  We first met while I was briefing my NCOs on the way to the mess hall for a fast breakfast due to the fact that we had been put on alert. My NCOs and I were walking in a tight group because I was giving them the operations order as we walked and they were copying it down.  We already had our field gear on and we had just enough time to grab something to eat before running to the motor pool to our Jeeps.  None of us saw this new officer walking toward us, hence, we didn't salute him.  He stopped us and yelled at us for a good five minutes before telling us to carry on.  By now breakfast was a bust.  I forgot something I needed in my office, and while the others headed for the motor pool, I ran upstairs to retrieve it.  I opened my office door and there he was in all his glory, laying back in my chair with his feet up on my desk with a smirk on his face.  Luckily, I didn't have time to push him out the window like I wanted to, but he started ragging at me about discipline as I slammed the door and went on my way running to the motor pool. After everything was over and the alert was over, the CO came to talk to me.  He didn't like the situation any more then I did, but the Lieutenant had been slotted as platoon leader of my scout platoon. I was fit to be tied.  This guy was a real dud, and I knew that he would screw up everything that all the scouts and I had been going.  The CO talked to the Battalion CO before all this happened and they thought they would put me in the Battalion S-4 until something else opened up within the Battalion.  I said, "Screw that," and called my old friend CSM Holander again and asked for yet another favor. He got me a job as a senior instructor at a training area named AO Black, where basic trainees were taught combat techniques.

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AO Black

My first impression of AO Black was, "What on earth is this place?"  It was located well away from the rest of the training areas.  The troops (Basic trainees) were hauled out to us on semi trailers turned into troop haulers. The range had six assigned instructors and one Primary Instructor (PI) who was in charge of the range.  When the troops arrived for training, they were formed up in a company formation, then broken down into four equal groups.  They stayed in these groups for the duration of the training at AO Black. They then proceeded to the main bleachers, where they got an orientation by the PI who, at the time, was SFC Williams.

After the orientation they received a class on individual camouflage, then broke down into their groups again.   The instructors picked up their assigned group and went to the woods where the troops camouflaged themselves and each other.  Once camouflaged, they spent the rest of the day on Lanes 1 through 4, where they were taught individual movement techniques like how to cross obstacles such as wire and log walls.   In the last class before evening chow, they ran a fire and movement course using the techniques they had been previously taught.  After the evening meal, they went back into the bleachers and were given a class on reaction to flares, both ground and aerial types. After a practical application, they left the range. I was outranked by three others at AO Black, therefore I was simply a senior instructor, which was fine with me--no headaches, just teach the classes.  It was quite fun.

Then the day came when I was moved to the Military Operations in Urbanized Terrain (MOUT) complex. They had lost some instructors and needed NCOs.  This was my downfall. Ft. Benning had built a very nice training facility located next to an old air strip.  There were eight or nine buildings made of cement block.  A couple of them were three-story and a couple were two-story.  The other buildings were all single story. In the photo album of my memoir, there is a photo of the way it looks now.  This complex was very high visibility.  There wasn't a day when we didn't have dignitaries visit and, being short-handed, we were always burdened with commanders yelling that the troops were not receiving the proper training--which, in fact, they were.

After SFC Sanders (then the range PI) got orders for Germany, it was up to me to run the range. It took only a couple months before I walked into the Battalion Commander's office and told him, "I quit!"  What broke the camel's back was a day when we were training troops from Sri Lanka.  I had just enough instructors to be effective when I got a call from the S-1 to have four of my people sent into the Battalion Aid Station to weigh in. I told them the situation, but it didn't make any difference. We struggled through the day and when the troops left, I went straight to the Battalion Commander. I said, "I quit--and I will NOT go back to that range. You'll have to replace me or fire me or something."  He gave me two days off to think things over.  I was due to ETS, and after talking to many good NCOs and officers, I made up my mind to just get out. I was guaranteed a position with the battalion when I returned--not at the MOUT site, and I was to lose no rank or time if I returned within two years. I went back to the MOUT site for about four more weeks, and every day I hated it more. Then the time came to start clearing post and get my things in order to leave, which I did in March 1985.  I got out of the Army that year as a promotable E7.

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Civilian Life

We packed up bag and baggage and left wonderful Ft. Benning. I had my E7 intact.  While processing out, I discovered I was on the E8 promotion list, which I didn't want anyhow. I was guaranteed my rank and time in grade, and I was happy to leave the heat and humidity of Georgia for the heat and humidity of Wisconsin. The kids were excited to be going home, but the wife was not happy at all.  She wanted me to stay in and get the next five years over with so I could retire. The kicker is, if one of all the professional people that I talked with at length while making my decision to get out for two years would have said, "What if you get out and get hurt somewhere along the line?", that would have made me stay. As it was, no one even mentioned that, and I never thought of it.  But that's exactly what happened.

I needed a job. I applied at a couple factories around town and was accepted at a local window and door factory. About the fifth week working there, I fell off a ladder and ruptured a disc.  "Poof!"  There went my retirement from the military. I now had a 12 percent disability and the military didn't want me anymore. I couldn't believe what had happened. In an instant all those years were wasted on a stupid decision.  Before the accident I had planned to go back to the military after my two years were up--or possibly sooner. Being 12 percent disabled didn't work.

After I ruptured the disc, I couldn't work for three months.  I had surgery to fuse two vertebrae together.  Although the medical people gave me a 12 percent disability, I made a complete recovery except for the fact that I had0 to be careful doing certain things such as lifting and bending at the waist.  I still must visit the chiropractor now and again.  Luckily the accident happened at work, so my workman's compensation insurance paid me almost the same as what I was making before it happened. I don't know that the accident had any great effect on the family other than the fact that I couldn't play ball or Frisbee with them at all. I basically had to stand, sit, or lay for a limited amount of time.  I couldn't stand for too long or sit for too long.  Sleeping was done at maybe an hour at a time, then I had to get up and sit and stand.  It took a long time before I got the privilege of sleeping an entire night, so I guess that part of it was a pain for the wife.  When I finally returned to work, I was light duty for about three weeks, then got moved to the maintenance department, which was neither good nor bad. I could do some things, but left the heavy lifting to the farm boys.

I don't think I had a problem adjusting to civilian life at all.  I did, however, notice that there was a definite difference between being a senior E7 and a poor working civilian.  I made suggestions at work, but no one listened.  I wasn't part of the leadership clique.  My suggestions and comments fell on deaf ears.  Other than that, I rather enjoyed knowing when I had to be at work and when I would be able to go home.

As of right now, I am still working at the same place I started at in 1985.  I have four of my own children, two of which have children of their own.  The other two are not yet married, so I am grandpa two times. I am also stepfather to a set of twin girls afforded me by my second marriage. They keep me busy running to Girl Scouts, pep band, volley ball games, and swim meets.  Retirement is hopefully somewhere in my future. With the economy going as it is, who knows. I still like to hunt and fish when I get a chance.  I have two ATVs which the four of us use mostly in the summer to go trail riding.

I didn't do anything to further my education after I left the Army.  (I don't think I mentioned that I took many correspondence courses along with attending Basic and Advanced NCOES.)  One of the courses I completed was the Army Pre-commission Course, which gave me 110 college credits.  I even got a couple of credits for my incomplete drill sergeant school.  I never did add everything up to see exactly what I had for college credits.  I guess I won't get a chance to use them anyhow.

The only club or group of a military nature that I belong to is the VFW. I joined the local chapter in 1985. A couple of years later, my wife got me a lifetime membership for my birthday. I was the adjutant for a while, but now I mostly just support the club by donating to the bar in the club house.

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Final Reflections

In a nutshell, Korea was an experience I am glad I had, but one that I would not want to do again.  Serving in the Army has had an effect on my life in the fact that I have an incredible amount of patience. I have no idea why this happened, but prior to the military I couldn't wait for anyone.  If I had to do something, it had to be done right now. I could not stand to be held up or stand in line for anything. My family knew of this.  When we went to a store, we went in, grabbed what we needed, and left. Now it's totally different. We can go to a store and if they want to look at every item there, it doesn't bother me at all, with the exception that my back gets tired and painful if I have to stand around for a long time. I have possibly become more patriotic, and have gained more respect for veterans.  One other idiosyncrasy that I got from Korea is that I cannot stand to have anything sticky on my hands. If the kids leave a spot of jelly on the counter and I put my hand in it, I have to get it off right now or I freak out. Maybe you can tell me why that is.  I don't know.

My strongest memories of Korea are of losing my teeth (which I am still trying to get fixed), carrying blood-soaked ponchos back to the gate, recombined milk, C-rations, the smell, the cold when there was nowhere to go to warm up, the heat when there was no where to go to cool off, the fear when I didn't know what was following me or sneaking up on me in total darkness, walking knee deep and waist deep and falling face first in the rice paddies, and the trust we had in one another to do what we had to do in order to keep each other alive.  And sometimes, the fun.

I think Korea changed me.  My father told me that I was a quieter person after my Korean tour.  He wanted to know why. I had no clue.  I didn't realize I was any different at the time.  Seeing how poor its people were and how they had to live made an impact on me.  I know Korea has changed drastically over the past 40 years, but still, when I see or hear someone whining about the cost of something, it irritates me.  I think the Korean people are much better off now than if we had not stepped in to help in 1950-53. We lost a lot of good soldiers there, but as a whole we saved an entire population from communist oppression. The Korean economy thrives today, whereas if held under communist rule, I believe the poverty would still exist.  I would truly love to return to Korea. I absolutely cannot believe how much that country has changed.  In 1967 there was one paved road called the Main Supply Route (MSR).  Now anyone can take a tour of the DMZ. Villages such as Unchon-ni and Munsan are now modern cities.  I would love to see the places I saw in 1967-68 and see for myself the change that was afforded by the hardships of the American GI, as well as many others.

It is my belief that we should have troops on every continent and in as many different countries as practical.  How many kids of today get to see Asia or Europe?  I agree that far more people travel to other countries now, but how many US citizens get to live with the populace of another country, work beside other nationalities in their own habitat, see their daily life, and eat their native food with them?  It is an education that cannot be taught in a classroom. Then those troops take that knowledge back home to small towns and cities and share it with whoever asks, "How was it over there?"

I would like anyone who reads through my memoir to realize that the Korean War did not end in 1953. There were American soldiers getting wounded and dying many years after. American soldiers on the DMZ suffered extreme cold and extreme heat, monsoons and humidity--and they had to work in these extreme conditions under the threat of being ambushed, bombed, shot, or booby-trapped at any time. Our engineers were blown apart while trying to clear landmines that were planted in the 1950s. In one case, troops were blown up while they slept in their barracks, such as they were. We had to wade through sticky mud that was at times over the tops of our boots, as well as through snow that was deeper than that. We had to sit all night in the freezing cold, too scared to move in an ambush position.  We had to wade through rice paddies filled with human excrement--the smell that wouldn't wash off. Mere words cannot make anyone feel these conditions. It has been said hundreds of times, "You just had to be there."  I think the training I had in Basic and advanced infantry training was adequate enough.  We had to adapt to the situation we were in at the moment, and each situation was different, but basically I believe that the training I received did me well.

On occasion I have had to answer questions that my kids asked about Korea, but not at length. Mostly they are not interested in what went on there.  They are more worried about their cell phone battery running low. I told them about some of the funny times, but no one ever asked me about any bad times.  I guess it's not anything of interest to them, so I don't talk about it. They wouldn't understand anyhow.

Personally I didn't get squat in the line of awards or medals for my service in Korea. I got promoted twice and was awarded an Imjin Scout certificate. Later the Department of the Army discovered that I had been in Korea and gave me the Armed Forces Expeditionary Forces Medal--which was nice of them, since it allowed me to join the VFW.  Other than that, all I got was crabs and the ability to smell kimchi a mile away.

I have been searching for buddies--not only from Korea, but from all of my assignments.  I found a couple of guys that were in Korea when I was there and who belonged to my company.  We have swapped e-mails and I've called George Gandelli on occasion.  I also found Dale Patton.  I can't for the life of me figure out where I was when Dale Patton and his guys went through that ambush.  I must have gone somewhere or I certainly would have heard about it, but I don't remember it.  Maybe that's just it--I simply don't remember it.  I would love to find Doug Wray from Chicago, who was in C Company 3/23 in Korea with me.  While doing the online interview which led to this memoir, Lynnita Brown of the Korean War Educator located another buddy I have been searching for--Steve Selfridge of Eugene, Oregon.  Steve served with me in Weapons Platoon, C Company, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, at Ft. Carson, Colorado.  Steve was also in the 9th Division with me as well.  I'll keep looking for others, and one day someone will find me.

Whether or not the country of Korea was worth so many Americans dying over there is a damn good question.  The first thing that comes to mind is the old saying, "Mine is not to reason why.  Mine is but to do or die." I volunteered for the infantry and wanted to go to Vietnam. In the eyes of a mother, father, brother, sister, or wife, no country is worth the death of a loved one. In the eyes of a grunt, "Let's go get 'em."  if I die trying to do my duty, so be it. Someone has to do it. If not me, then who? It's a shame GIs have to die during combat, no doubt about that.  The bloodshed, the gore, the mud, sweat, and tears all go along with it. It's also hell on the natives. So I really don't know if it was worth it or not. If you look at that country now, I don't think the Korean kids would be going to the same kind of schools they are now or going to the hospitals they have now if we hadn't gone in there and fought for them. So I guess it depends on how you look at it.

So that's my story.  I feel that it is an honor for my memoir to join all the others on the Korean War Educator website.  During my military career, I encountered a couple of life-threatening situations, but nothing like some of the stories I have read on this website. The guys with the Purple Hearts, Silver Stars and Medals of Honor--and the ones that lost limbs and lost their lives--are my heroes.