Anthony Vaquero

[Beginning of Transcribed Material]

 

A:        Alright.  Anthony “Tony” Vaquero.  I just turned 78 a couple of days ago.

I:          Okay.  Well, happy birthday.
A:        Thank you.  Didn’t know I’d make it this long, this far.

I:          Seems like you’re healthy.

A:        Yeah, reasonably so.

I:          Enough.

A:        Well, I, when I first heard about it, I thought this was a great idea.  Let’s preserve this history.  As you know, the Korean War picked up the nickname The Forgotten War.

 

0:00:29
And that’s basically true among a lot of the public.  So, this is something that’s gonna keep the history alive and anecdotes from veterans and so on.  It’s a great project.

I:          And that’s our goal.  I  mean, we’d like to bring as much attention to the service that you paid for our country in Korea, over in Korea.  Why do you think it’s called the Forgotten War?

A:        Well, the first place it happened it started on June 25, ’50, just five years after World War II.

 

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And as someone who was a young kid during World War II, I can remember we were pretty war weary by the time 1945 came along.  So, I guess it’s only human nature to, that was only five years before the other war, and people didn’t want to hear too much about it.  And unless your family had a son or you know, husband, whatever, in Korea or serving at that time, there was not that much interest.

 

0:01:30

I:          Uh huh.

A:        You know.

I:          And so that’s clearly a stark contrast to nowadays where I feel like the younger generations are,  maybe the  media is an aide to that.  Everyone’s very aware of war and what’s going on.  It seems like

A:        It’s incredible that you could even take a cell phone into war,

I:          Yeah.

A:        Call somebody at home the next day after something’s occurred over there.  It’s amazing the communications.

 

0:01:59

I:          Uh huh.

A:        Back then when we were there, you, we used the old World War II walkie talkies were about this large.  And you were lucky if you could, somebody heard you a mile away.  Now you’ve got GPS.  You got all these satellites and so on.  It’s a different world.  Well actually it happened, I think, in 1996.

I:          Okay.
A:        That after pressure from Congress and veterans’ groups, he kind of snuck in and the Defense Appropriations bill in Congress, the fact that the Korean police action were henceforth be called the Korean War.

 

0:02:36

I:          Uh huh.

A:        So, this is about 1996.  And that was a good thing.  But a lot of people still continued using police action.  If you look at the obituaries in the Syracuse Post Standard, once in a while you’ll see he was a veteran of the Korean Conflict.  Now believe it or not, I called up a number of the funeral directors of the county and I said please start using Korean War.

 

0:03:02

I also contacted the State, I guess there’s a State group of funeral directors and they publish a newsletter. I spoke to a woman there and I says how about telling your funeral directors around the State to call it the Korean War.  And she said she would.  But once in a while, that comes back to us, police action, conflict, things like this.  Well, to justify our entrance into the War, President Truman called it a police action.  He didn’t have to ask Congress for a Declaration of War.

 

0:03:31

He wrote an autobiography years later and he said one of his regrets is not asking Congress for a Declaration, having it known as the Korean War.

I:          What  do you, how do you feel about the fact that it is acknowledged as a War now?  What does that mean to you?

A:        Well, the memory for most people is so hazy, I, among the general public, I don’t think it matters to them whether you call it a conflict, police action or a war unless old timers like us are relatives.

 

0:03:59
Most people rarely think about  it.

I:          It almost seems that nowadays any conflict we have is considered a war anyway.  Whenever our soldiers are in some kind of line of battle

A:        Oh yeah.

I:          Whether it’s a conflict  or a police action or a war, there’s still that respect that goes out to the soldiers.

A:        Sure.

I:          Maybe it’s a little different mentality then.

A:        I think so.  After all, we did lose over 34,000 guys during the police, I almost said it myself,

 

0:04:30
Truman’s police action.
I:          Uh huh.

A:        And as John mentioned before, pardon, my coming on here, 8,000 are still missing in action, and over 100,000 wounded.  Not to mention the poor Korean civilians.  There are estimates of maybe a million civilians were killed during that War on the crossfire and.  So, it was a devastating (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

I:          Yeah.

 

0:04:55

A:        Okay.  I was 18.  I enlisted in the Air Force foolishly thinking that if you join the Air Force, you’re gonna fly.  I think I had seen too many World War II movies in my.  What I wanted to do was get on the Airborne duty and become a radio operator or a gunner, whatever.  I wanted to fly in the worst way.

I:          You wanted some action.

A:        But I wanted to be in an airplane.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        And so, I joined, went through basic at Samson Air Force base, which is no longer here, in Lake Geneva.

 

0:05:28

And near the end of basic training, there was an announcement.  Anybody wants to get into Pilot School, report to barracks so and so and I, so I went in there.  And there were guys lined up in the barracks and doctors came along and examined us.  And to this day I still remember this young Air Force doctor saying I’m sorry.  You won’t be able to fly, pilot at least.  I said why. So, he mentioned something, a physical problem that I never knew I had.

 

0:06:01

It didn’t prevent me from going in the Service or playing sports when I was younger or anything.  But I said sir, what does this have to do about flying?  He said I’m sorry, son.  He patted me on the shoulder.  He was kind of humane about it, and he says but that’s enough to knock you out of flight duty.

I:          So, the altitude and the speed just would have taken its’ toll on your body?

A:        I, he didn’t explain what it would do.  But that was it.

I:          So, what’s that like?  I mean, you must have been a little disappointed.

A:        I was devastated.  That’s why I joined.

 

0:06:29

But later I, after basic, I was sent to Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Mississippi to Radio Operator School.  And we had to learn Morse Code, operating radio equipment. It was a huge school, and there were three shifts.  I mean, you could be midnight to six, or you could be three to 12 and, big shifts.  They were pumping out radio operators by the thousands.  So, near the end of that school, they passed along a clipboard, and they said anybody want to be an Airborne Radio Operator?

 

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Now I thought I had it made.  So, I signed it.  And I still remember the fella next to me from Pennsylvania says I didn’t join no Air Force to fly.  Guess who got the flight duty?

I:          Him.

A:        He did.

I:          Huh.
A:        We were at the same code level.  Everything was the same.  We were graduating.  But that’s the way the military goes.

I:          Yeah.

A:        So, we did a, two or three of us did a foolish thing if you want to hear this.

I:          Yeah, of course.

A:        Okay.

 

0:07:27

We went down to the Orderly Room, and we wanted to see the first Sergeant.  Of course, this is a guy who was in World War II, stripes all over the place, grizzly.  And they said okay.  So, we waited a while, and three of us went in his office.  He was behind a desk.  And he said what do you guys want.  Like a movie, what do you guys want, barking at us.  So, we were petrified.  Eighteen years old in front of this guy who’d been through everything.  And I, no one spoke so finally I blurt ed it out.

 

0:08:00

We want a transfer to the Army.

I:          He probably wasn’t happy when he heard that.

A:        Oh, I can still recall his grabbing the edge  of the desk, the knuckles turning white, and he yelled out get the hell out of here.  And he literally started running after us, chased us through the Orderly Room and down the street.  We were 18 years old.  We could outrun him fortunately.  And there were so many of us in that school that he didn’t know who we were.

 

0:08:30

So, we made it to the barracks, and that was the end of that.  So, I never got Airborne duty.

I:          Oh.

A:        Close to it, though.  I was stationed in the mountain, excuse me, in Korea.  I was on a 5.000’ high  mountain.  And the Pacific Stars and Stripes magazine, I showed Dr. Han this article that said that this is the highest Air Force outfit in Korea outside of being in an aircraft.  So that’s as high as I ever got.

 

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I:          You were close.
A:        I was close.
I:          So, I guess you, obviously you never transferred to the Army then.

A:        No.  You couldn’t do it anyway.  But we didn’t know.

I:          Yeah.

A:        We didn’t know any better.

I:          Yeah.

A:        When I went to Radio Operators school, I think the end of May in ’52.  And it was a fairly lengthy school, five or six months.  So, I got out of there, I think, in November.  Then we had a 30-day leave, and then I got the orders to report to California, Camp Stoneman.

 

0:09:28
There’s a port of debarkation waiting for the orders.  And then we’re on a troop ship, the Mitchell, to Korea.

I:          Um hm.  And what was that like?  You know, unless maybe, it seemed like you spent a lot of time in preparation to be shipped to Korea basically.

A:        Right.

I:          But you know, obviously it’s a different mentality where you’re training versus when you’re on your way over there.

A:        Yeah.  But

I:          What was that like?

A:        Well, the ship?
I:          The experience going to Korea, you know, maybe the fear of actually seeing battle or anything like that, actually being you know, in the

 

0:10:05

A:        Well actually, that didn’t even, the time didn’t occur to me. I do remember once we landed in, went into the Port of Yokohama, I can recall in the distance Mount Fujiyama, very impressive.
I:          Um hm.
A:        And they put us on a troop railroad train that took hours and hours because we were a low priority, to an Air Force base.

 

0:10:28

And I can recall we marched to breakfast, chow one morning, and a group of us.  And another group was coming a different direction.  Somehow, they knew they were just, we were going to Korea.  They were just coming back.  And they all yelled out you’ll be sorry.

I:          That’s pretty strange.

A:        So, after a few weeks there, we were loaded on what was then the largest aircraft in the World.  It was a C124 Blowmaster, like a couple of the modern aircrafts, the front of it tilted down,

 

0:11:01

And you can drive in jeeps and tractor trailers and so on.  And they loaded about 125 of us each side of the fuselage in two layers.  And this stays in my mind because we started to take off, and the aircraft wouldn’t take off. So, they had to pull over, and they worked on a generator or something, got it going again.

 

0:11:29
The second time we started to take off, and an aircraft coming in from Korea crash landed on the runway in front of us.  So, they had to wait till the runway was cleaned.  So, we were wondering if we’d ever take off.

I:          This is great.  This is what Korea is all about.

A:        It’s a good start, isn’t it.  This is a good start.  But we flew to Taegu.  And then they, different men scattered according to the orders.  I went to Kimpo just outside Seoul, Kimpo Air Force Base, where they put me to work building bunkers, filling sandbags and bunkers to protect the aircraft and so on and.

 

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Then they put me on another aircraft from Kimpo to Kengtung which is on the East coast.  And after a couple days there, I was assigned to Detachment 4 of the 608 Aircraft Control Warning Squadron.  So, about a four-hour truck ride going like this all the way to the top  of the mountain.

 

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And that’s where I spent the next probably eight or nine months, ten months.

I:          On the top of the mountain.

A:        Yeah, as a radio operator.

I:          So, it seemed like you kind of got a chance to travel around, I mean not necessarily a chance, but I mean, you went from place to place at first before you stationed down.

A:        I didn’t get to see too much of Korea.  Remember, I was in one aircraft to another, one base to another.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        And then to Kengtung and then up the mountain top.  So other than a couple of short leaves to Japan, that was it.

 

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I didn’t see that much in Korea itself.   I was telling Dr. Han that I’d never tasted Kimchi in my life.

I:          Oh yeah.

A:        Until the Korean church had an activity for us veterans a few years ago, and they  put on a buffet, and there was Kimchi.  It was the first thing I headed for.  I loved it.

I:          After all these years, I gotta try it.
A:        I gotta try it. It was very good, yeah.

I:          So, what was it like on the mountain?  Was it kind of isolated or

A:        Well, the mountain was very isolated and very, it was very vulnerable.  Luckily, we weren’t that close to the action.

 

0:13:31

But we could see the flashes in the sky from the harbors on the East coast being bombed. And we did, we had Morse Code.  Know what Morse Code is?  This and dots.

I:          I don’t know how to do it.  But I

A:        We had to learn that.   They, but then they, for some reason, they shut that down.  My job along with the other radio operators was to sit in a radio truck, and it had all kinds of equipment in it, and to monitor, to listen for any aircrafts in trouble, maydays, things like this, and then report it back through a speaker system to the radar shack where they actually had the radar equipment and could see the blips on the screen and so on.

 

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So basically, that’s what I spent till after the War.  I was there at the cease fire which was July 27, ’53.  And after the War in the Orderly Room at the top of the mountain, there was a clerk, we called them Company Clerk I guess either killed himself or accidently killed himself.  We had a, I shouldn’t smile about it.  We had a what was called a grease gun. It was like a submachine gun.  And the rumors that he had gone to Japan and met a girl, and the girl’s family wouldn’t permit him to date her and this and that.

 

0:15:00
And we were told he killed himself. I still recall all the commotion in the middle of the night.  No helicopter was able to land on that mountain top.  They had to go down; I don’t know how many feet.  There was a level area.  Excuse me.  So, he, they came in the next morning.  They, with a huge helicopter removed his body.  Now because I was a radio operator and I knew how to type, you have to learn how to type for Radio Operators school, I was taken out of the radio truck and put in the Orderly room.

 

0:15:32

So that’s how I spent the last three months or so in Korea.  Yeah.  Well one kind of sad part about it is one day our equipment went down, and we had time on our hands.  So, three or four of us took our rifles and decided to take a walk, take a hike which in the end, we were told we were stupid because there’s still land mines, trip flares, all kind of stuff, ordinants out there.

 

0:15:55

We walked a lot of times through hip-deep snow from one ridge to another but always keeping that, our site in the background.  We didn’t want to get lost.  And we came upon a top of a ridge that had been heavily Napalmed.  Do you know what Napalm is?  You know, so it was very scarred and burned up.   And I came along, and I found sneakers all over the place.  They were like mustard-color canvas sneakers.

 

0:16:28

So, I tapped a couple of them and human remains, bones, came out of the sneakers.  And we walked around some more and came across skulls. In fact, I took some pictures I gave to Dr. Han.  I said do what you want with these, whether he wants to post these on the site or not. It’s kind of grizzly.  But I put them on top of a boulder and just took photographs.  Too bad I didn’t have a shovel.  They should have been buried.  And there were no doubt Chinese soldiers.

 

0:17:00

For the most part, they wore the canvas shoes.  That’s something I won’t forget.

I:          Yeah.  That’s quite an experience.

A:        The aftermath of battle.  A year later, a few months later, I don’t know.

I:          The fact that you saw (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

A:        It’s not always at a distance.  You mean, during the actual battles, actual fighting?
I:          Um hm.

A:        Well, we had one man in my outfit.  The Army guy who was in his foxhole, and a Chinese soldier jumped in the foxhole, tried to bayonet him.

 

0:17:39

In fact, I saw a scar on his arm years ago and I said what’s that from and he says well, this Chinese soldier tried to bayonet me.

I:          Um hm.

A:        But obviously he was able to kill the soldier.  So, it was hand to hand in many of these, yeah.

I:          Yeah.  So do you think that was maybe the most difficult part of the battles, seeing that and destruction and maybe that was a hard realization.  I don’t know.

A:        Well, it has something that stays in your mind that’s for sure.

I:          Yeah.

 

0:18:00

A:        Now our site had trenches and foxholes around the perimeter.  Every once in a while, we’d have to call a Red Alert.  So, we’d have to get our rifles.  And if we worded the radio trucks, you’d have to go to pre-assigned places along the perimeter.

I:          Um hm.

A:        That was scary enough.  Excuse me.

I:          So, did you, while you were over there, did you get a chance to interact with any Korean soldiers or

 

0:18:34

A:        No. I did take a picture of one Korean soldier about halfway down the mountain.  There were a small amount of soldiers there, Koreans.  But I never interacted, no.

I:          How about foreign troops from other allied countries?

A:        Believe it or not, the only foreign troops I saw were a couple of English Tommie waiting to take an aircraft to Japan.  Somebody said let’s go watch a movie.  This is in Seoul.

 

0:19:00

All bombed out.  So, they, we went into a movie theater, and in front of us were a couple of Tommies.  And I got a kick out of their dialects, their accents.

I:          Yeah.

A:        This is a theater that had no roof on it.  It had all been bombed out.  And

I:          The theater was still operating?
A:        They’re still operating.  And the seats, I still remember this.  The seats were made for Korean civilians, so much smaller.

I:          Yeah.

A:        So yeah.  But I never, don’t forget I was on that isolated mountain top.  I didn’t meet too many people.

 

0:19:32

I:          So, it must have been great to actually, did you get a chance to talk to the English soldiers or it was just

A:        No, I regret that now.  I should have said something to them just for the heck of it.  But I never did.  Too bad.

I:          Right.  So have you had a chance to go back to Korea?
A:        Now, that’s a story.  The South Korean government sponsors returns for soldiers or anybody who fought in Korea, served in Korea.

 

0:20:00

There, they call, I think they call it the Return Program.   And they’ll pay the expenses and the hotel and meals and take you sightseeing.  Great.  So, I signed up for it, my wife and I, gave them a $500 deposit.  We got a notice we were the next group to go.  This would be in the Fall, maybe six, seven years ago.  Unfortunately, that’s the time that North Korea took to lob some missiles over Japan.  They were testing missiles.

 

0:20:30

It made all the papers.  Missiles flying over Japan.  My wife’s relatives began to call.  You’ve got to be crazy to go back to Korea.  The War’s gonan start again.  How can you possibly even think about that?  And she wore me down, my wife.  You know how women are.  And I finally had to ask for the $500 back, and we never went.  I really regret that.

I:          Is there any chance that you might go back?
A:        I don’t think so.  I don’t think she’s gonna change her mind.

 

0:21:03

Now we’re older.  But I don’t think she’ll change her mind. I just want her to see the modern Korea cause when I was there, what I saw was devastation, you know, buildings that are just torn to pieces.

I:          Movie theaters without a roof.

A:        Pardon?

I:          Movie theaters with no roof on them.

A:        Well, now superhighways, skyscrapers.  It’s a beautiful country.

I:          Yeah.  What have you heard from the stories, just that it’s so modern and?

 

0:21:30
Well, we have a number of guys who did go and came back.  Norm Champagne, you interviewed.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        And Bruce Hackman.  I think they came back last Fall.  And they were really impressed with modern day Korea.

I:          So  how do you feel about that, the fact that it’s so modern 50 years later?

A:        Well, that’s a testament to the Korean people.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        Hard working, industrious, intelligent people.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        Yeah.  More power to them.  Our number one ally in that area.  Now when I was there of course,

 

0:21:58
Syngman Rhee was the so-called President. He was more a dictator than a President.  And the South Koreans had to go through a number of governments before they finally got what we would call a democracy.  So, it’s a, I regret not going back.
I:          How do you feel about the American role then in Korean, obviously the War but then the development afterwards of, do you think the American influence is

A:        Well, every penny spent in South Korea was worthwhile.  I hate to put it in terms of lives, cause so many were killed.

 

0:22:30

But it was something we had to do, and we should have done.  We should have helped Korea.

I:          How do you think that is in contrast to North Korea?
A:        Well, there you’ve got the son of the dictator who was in charge when I was there, that real deep Communist mindset.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        People have starved in North Korea.  They’re going hungry.  Most of the food goes to their military to keep him in power.

 

0:23:03

There was a special on North Korea on one of the major networks a few years ago, not that long ago where they went into North Korea.  Streets are almost vacant, very little traffic, very little.  And you notice that the people don’t smile.  They just don’t smile.  They have nothing to smile about.  Let’s face it.  So, it’s a very oppressive dictatorship.

 

0:23:31

And this seems like it’s gonna go on for quite a while.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        Well, let’s face it.  The North Koreans under Kim No Sung, the father, were very tied closely to the Chinese, the Red Chinese and the time of Joseph Stalin, the ruler of the Soviet Union.

 

0:23:57

And he actually took a trip a couple times to Moscow to meet with Chou En-lai and with Mas Tse Tung and all these people and asked their support.  He always had the mindset that the two Koreas should be joined.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        Unified.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        And he told Stalin and he also told Mas Tse Tung, that’s the original dictator that the South Koreans, upon the invasion, and this is documented, would rise up and join the North Koreans.

 

0:24:28
He also said that the Americans, there weren’t anybody in there, but the Americans, by the time they entered if they did, it would be too late.  He’d have all of South Korea occupied with the help of the South Koreans.  Course, none of that came true.

I:          That’s right.
A:        But a big mistake was made at the end of World War II when the two Koreas were created.  The American military gave the job to a couple  officers, and they said where would you divide North and South Korea?

 

0:25:00

Soviet troops were in North Korea.  And he just arbitrarily said the 38^th Parallel seems to do it.  But the Parallel doesn’t geographically divide North and South Korea.  You’ve got rivers and valleys and so on.  And the decision was well the Russians are in there, you know.  Nothing we can do about it.  Well, the  North and Russians didn’t waste any time.  They began training the North Korean Army,

 

0:25:28

Gave them weapons, tanks, things like this.  In a way, it was almost inevitable when you had that dictator in there.  And as I said, they didn’t fear us because they thought we wouldn’t get into it or if we did, it would be too late.

I:          Right.  And the rest is history.

A:        The rest is history, yeah.

I:          Do you think there is any potential for reunification or?
A:        Well, not until the present rulers die off in North Korea.

 

0:26:00

Cause he’s designated his son, Kim Jung Ill is it now, his son, to take over if, after he dies.  But I don’t know.  It’s sad, but I don’t see any prospect of them being united.  I think I, let’s see, I think I left Korea in late November or early December on a troop ship called a Gaffney, landed in Seattle, Washington.  On the way over, it was the Mitchell we went under the Golden Gate.

 

0: 26:28
That was a nice thing to see.  I’d heard so many years about the Golden Gate, and there it was.  But I had a 30-day leave coming.  So, I went home.  And my orders then called for me, because I had two years left of my enlistment, to report to Pope Air Force Base, which was Fort Bragg, Paratroopers School in North Carolina.  And I was there maybe a couple weeks.  And then I was finally stationed or assigned to Robins Air Force Base in Georgia.  Very large Air Force base.

 

0:27:00

So, I spent the last two years of my enlistment there.

I:          (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

A:        Well, I’ll tell you.  They, another situation where we were lined up maybe six or eight of us had just shipped in outside the barracks and the, another Master Sergeant comes out, another First Sergeant with all the stripes, and he said who in this, which of you guys knows how to type/  Well, I kept quiet.  They  all kept quiet.  He said you guys wait here.  He went in the orange room, came out with our records, right.

 

0:27:31

And he started looking at these and he says who’s Vaquero?  He had me.

I:          Yeah, right.
A:        I said me, Sarge.  He says Vaquero, you were a radio operator, weren’t you, and I said yeah, Sarge.  That means you can type, can’t you?  So, I spent the last two years working in the Orderly Room.   Most people would say they’d love the job.  But I wanted something other than just type reports and so on.

I:          Um hm.

 

0:27:57

A:        And that’s how I spent my last two years.
I:          Well, I guess you’re in a little less isolation then on the top of a mountain where you were.

A:        Yeah.  We were South of Macon, Georgia.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        Yeah.  Small city in Georgia.  It was alright.  I could tolerate the weather.  It’s strange.  I took basic training, as I said, at Samson in the winter and froze.  Then they sent me to Biloxi, Mississippi where the temperatures were in the 80’s and 9’s, and the humidity would knock you over.

I:          Um.

A:        Then I went to Korea where I froze again.

 

0:28:28

I:          Oh yeah.
A:        Then they sent me to Georgia where I was in the heat again.

I:          They want to keep you on your toes.

A:        Yeah, I guess so.

I:          How was that living on the base in contrast to, you know, being in Korea for about a year?
A:        Well, let’s face it.  Living on a base is another world other than being in that two-acre mountain top.  The food was better.  In Korea, it’s just a powdered milk, powdered eggs, c-rations.  Now you’re on a base.

 

0:28:53

You’re called permanent party.  You’re allowed to leave the base at night if you want to and come back and you have, the chow is better as I said.  You had a PX, Commissary, all the conveniences.  So, it was a different life.

I:          And so how was your transition from living on the base to civilian life and your discharge?
A:        Okay.  When I was discharged February 28, ’56, back to Solvay, a village near us, Solvay, NY and back to factory work which I hated.

 

0:29:28

I worked in the assembly, not an assembly line, a billing machine which meant you put a piece of something in this machine and it did this, it carved out grooves in it.  And the other machine over here.  So, you spent the day doing this.  Not physically taking or demanding but boring.

I:          Yeah.

A:        Uh gee, I was so bored.  So, I decided to take advantage of the GI Bill.

 

0:29:56

I went to Syracuse U in ’60, Fall of ’60, I’m sorry, ’56, graduated in ’60.  And I got a job teaching in the Syracuse School System.

I:          That’s good.
A:        Then I wen to, took some more courses, got a Master’s from Syracuse U.  And later on, I was talked into going to Administration.  So, I became a Vice Principal in the Syracuse schools.  And I retired there in ’88.  When I got married, I think it went all the way up to like, I don’t know, maybe $80 or $90 a month.

 

0:30:30
Then my wife had a baby when I was going on my senior year.  We got all of $110, $115.  So it wasn’t that much.  But it helped.

I:          Yeah.  And so how do you think your experience in Korea impacted your life? (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

A:        I’ll tell you.  It, for a guy from a small village Solvay who hadn’t seen the world, it taught me a lot about human nature.

 

0:30:57

You learned that there are people to avoid and people to get along with and make friends with.  And another culture.  When I was in high school, we had a great Social Studies Department.  And we learned about the place called Chosin which is modern day Korea, right?  So, when the War broke out, we knew where Korea was.  We knew where Chosin was unlike a lot of people.  And I can recall when it broke out in June, September we came in from the last half of our Senior year.

 

0:31:30
Our Social Studies teacher saying I feel sorry for you boys.  Shortly after that, the Inchon Landing took place, and we broke out of the Pusan Perimeter and were rushing northward, and General MacArthur issued his famous statement, we’ll be home by Christmas.  So we kind of shrugged it off when she said feel sorry for you boys, you know.  The War is over practically.  We found out later when the Chinese poured in, the couple hundred thousand troops whatever that the War was not over.

 

0:32:00
We knew we’d be drafted.  And that’s when I decided I wanted to fly.  And the rest is history.

I:          She knew something no one else did. Why do you think there was so much, and you mentioned people were tired of the War.  But people didn’t even, a lot of people didn’t know where Korea was.

A:        No.  No idea.

I:          Huh.

A:        Even after the War, I was home on that 30-day leave come to think of it.

 

0:32:27

And a friend of mine said let’s go get a beer.  There’s a place in Solvay.  So, I went in with him, and the bartender looked at me and says I need your ID.  So, my friend got a little upset with him.  For God sakes, I forgot his name now, Jim.  He said he just got back from Korea.  He’s old enough to drink.  This guy, to this day I remember, his eyes seemed to glaze over, and this was just after the War.  Oh, Korea.  Oh yeah.

 

0:32:59

So, the memory didn’t stay too long with this guy at least.

I:          Yeah.
A:        Yeah.
I:          So, he didn’t know what was going on.

A:        No.  The 50’s were good times in this country.

I:          Um hm.

A:        Economics, the economy were very good, and the people were making money, working.

I:          Cause they didn’t want to worry about.

A:        Who wanted to think about the Korean War?

I:          Um hm.

A:        Except if you had family over there, yeah.

I:          Yeah.  And so, you mentioned you learning about different cultures. Is that why you think you went into education, cause you wanted to, I guess, facilitate that?

 

0:33:35

A:        I guess partially because I wanted to teach Social Studies which involved different countries and so on.  That always interested me.  And when I got to Korea, I regret that I didn’t see that much because I was usually on a truck going up the mountain if I went anywhere and coming back down.  But I could see the Korean people, where they lived.  I could see their, along the side of the road.  They were in bad shape.  I felt sorry for them.  But again, very industrious, hard working. I  admired them.

 

034:07

Believe it or not, I met my wife in kindergarten, five-year-olds.  However, we never dated.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        And uh, after high school graduation, we didn’t see each other.  But I was going to Syracuse University, and I didn’t have a car. I was on a bus coming back from classes one night and I saw somebody sitting on the bus that seemed vaguely familiar to me.

 

0:34:30

So, I asked her, and sure enough it was my wife, future wife Ann.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        We started dating and

I:          Did you get a chance to share your experiences with her and your family?

A:        Yeah.  In fact, she was worried about the CD’s I brought in today.  I said I’ll get them back.

I:          That’s good that you were able to, you know, share your experiences.

A:        Yeah.  She was perfectly willing to go to Korea until those missiles came over ,and that did it.

 

0:34:58

I:          Um hm.  So, what, I guess you mentioned, you know, education, getting to know about other people.   What else, and I guess your life in the military has influenced your life.  How has your perspective changed?
A:        Concerning?
I:          Concerning just life in general I guess, how people interact.

A:        Oh.  In a way, that’s tough to answer.  It’s, as I said, I saw different sides of human nature in the military in the four years.

 

0:35:28

I think I grew to have more of an appreciation of this country, too, by going in the military.  And not to take things for granted.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        It affected me.

I:          Do you think that appreciation of the military has changed over the generations?

A:        Uh, I think so.  Thank God for these young people volunteering today.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        I’ve always felt, you may not want to hear this, that there should have been a draft.  Truman wanted to have a draft, 18 months compulsive, compulsory military training.

 

0:36:01

Never passed in Congress.  With your exception, of course, I feel too many of these young guys today are wild, don’t, can’t take orders.  They’ve got to go in the military and learn to get up at a certain time, follow orders, do what you’re told, and just calm down and be a human being.  So, there’s a different mindset today.

I:          Uh huh.

 

0:36:25

A:        Some of the things I see these young guys doing today would be enough to get you hung in my day,  Outrageous things.  I think it’d be a good thing.

I:          So, military would teach that.

A:        Oh yeah.  Or else, the brig.  Or Fort Leavenworth.

I:          Pay the consequences.

A:        Yep.  Court martial or something.  But I think it’s needed.

I:          Um hm.

A:        Yeah.

 

0:36:51

Never occurred to me actually. I do know that let’s face it.  The Korean War was the first war, hot war, against Communism.  It’s important because it did show the Red Chinese and the Soviets that we would resist,

I:          Um hm.

A:         That there was a line that they could come up to, but they couldn’t cross.  So, as I said, I think it’s important to remember that.

 

0:37:16

I:          Yeah. And for those future generations of children and family members that will be checking out the project and the data base and doing research on the Korean War, finding out that it is, in fact, a War and not a police action, do you have a specific message that maybe you’d like to

A:        Well, again, who was the diplomat, famous diplomat who said war is a failure of diplomacy, right?

 

0:37:46

Which is true.  And there are so-called wars that are just and so-called wars that are unjust where we shouldn’t’ be poking our noses.  I won’t mention modern days.  But

I:          Feel free to.
A:        Might be one or two there.  I always felt that Afghanistan going after Bin Laden made sense.  I was very queasy about going into Iraq.

 

0:38:11

I had an interview with Richard Case, Dick Case of the Post Standard.  You see his columns occasionally, a few years ago. At the time, the War hadn’t started.  But we were mobilizing to go into Iraq.  And he called me and asked me the question.  What do you think about this?  And I said there’s no question in my mind we’ll win.  But I worry about the aftermath.  And that’s the thing that haunts us every time we get into other engagements around the world, the aftermath.

 

0:38:40

I:          That’s what a lot of people talk about, exit strategy.

A:        Yeah.
I:          Not just getting out of the war, but what’s going to happen to that country once

A:        Well look, an example of Egypt.  There’s another old saying you better deal with the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.  Mubarak was a dictator.  There’s no question about it.  What’s gonna happen now?

I:          Um hm.

A:        With those extremist groups gonna take control of Egypt?  You just don’t know.  You open up a can of worms when you do things like this.

 

0:39:06

I:          So, you would say then that the most important part is to actually try to avoid war at all costs, try to solve any kind of conflict through diplomatic solutions

A:        Right.  Or as a last resort for it.

I:          Well, I think that’s a good final message to your interview.

A:        Very good.

I:          I appreciate you taking the time.

A:        Thank you.  I appreciate taking the time.

 

[END RECORDED MATERIAL]