Charles Buckley

My name is Charles Buckley, I: (Hm mm) I was born in 19^th of May in 1931. I have three other siblings two sisters and a brother. My parents died, I went to the air force, but before that I went to the national guard. I remained in there until November 1948. I: But what branch of medical training did you go through? I went to training and receptoral phase and became ill with the mumps I was hospitalized for a month. They selected me because of my IQ. I: Were you able to operate? I could put eye balls back–I: You mean eye balls? Is it difficult?-in muscles aren’t hard. I: Where did you arrive and why were you there? In Korea? I arrived at Kimpo and got off the plane I went to Sole university. I: Sole Universety, it’s a Korea university. Charles: Yes. I had medical people there to take care of airmen. I:(ok) As a technician my typical day was to wait around for someone to get shot or hurt. We moved out of sole to Ulsan. When I entered that unit there where diseases.  It was not ok to treat them. I had to go back to sole. I’ve been all over Korea. I learned a lot. I had an opportunity I traded someone, and I gave them some medicine, but as far as what I saw, I saw the country side, the grass, the trees, the damage that was done, mass grave sites, in fact there was one at k55, they leveled off the runway, when they did the initial runway, and they started to level the grounds to cover the remains of children. I came back I think in June of 54. I was there about a year or so. I was going from k18 to k46 in the middle of the night just as the war ended. And I drove up on a group of soldiers, I’m still not sure who they were. But, eh, when I was supposed to be on the road at night I didn’t know that. They said well you made it through and I said yeah and they said well your lucky and I said why and they said there are still infiltrated areas in Korea for some time. But anyway I went from eh I started at eh sole and I went from sole the very first time to k18 then down to the radio relay. I:What were your thoughts about the war? Well my initial thoughts at the time were to get the hell out of there. After I got out I thought well what did I do and what did I attribute. Contribute to the country. And I’ve thought about that a lot, eh I had relationships with many different Korean people at different levels like I was telling you earlier about the orphanage, that we eh had a bunch a children there, I used to get in the catalog and order things for them, and have the pleasure of seeing them and also have the memories of 40-50 children in a room no larger than this with one pot can in the corner, and they didn’t miss it that was one of the most impressive things that I came across and what we could do for the people who took care of the children is giving the supplies, bringing them food and all that. And brought them gasoline which was not legal, and my thoughts were probably to provide to them, and the pleasure to help them after the war. I: (What do you think is the legacy of Korean war and your service?) I cant expand on that, haha.