Korean War Legacy Project

Elvin Hobbs

Bio

Elvin “Al” Hobbs was born in Reserve, New Mexico, on July 8, 1945. After graduating high school, he worked at a veterinary clinic before enlisting in the US Army in 1963. He was trained as a combat medic and was deployed to Korea in November, 1964 to 121 Hospital in Ascom City working as an x-ray technician. Over the next year, aside from his normal duties, he joined an Army skydiving team. He returned to the United States and finished his twenty-eight-year career in the Army serving on every continent except for Australia. He finished his service as a battalion commander at the rank of Sergeant Major at Fort Bliss, Texas. He served as Commander of VFW Post 812 in El Paso, Texas.

Video Clips

Less Than Modern Hospitals

Elvin Hobbs describes his job as an x-ray technician at 121 Hospital located in Ascom City. He describes the layout of the hospital. He explains the challenges he faced while working with less than modern medical equipment.

Tags: Impressions of Korea,Living conditions,South Koreans

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Daily Life in Seoul, 1964

Elvin Hobbs describes Seoul after the conclusion of the war in 1964. He talks about the rebuilding of the city and its transformation from total destruction. He expands in detail on descriptions of transportation and Korean daily life.

Tags: Incheon,Seoul,Civilians,Impressions of Korea,Living conditions,South Koreans

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Maggot Medical Innovations

Elvin Hobbs talks about the innovative ways they treated patients at 121 Hospital in Ascom City, Korea. He describes one such technique involving maggots as a treatment. He explains that these insects were used to help burn victims.

Tags: Impressions of Korea,Living conditions

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Exploding While Searching for Metal

Elvin Hobbs describes the most common injuries they saw at 121 Hospital. He describes how many Koreans were injured while scavenging for metal. Many civilians were drastically wounded when they came across live ordnance that had not exploded during the war.

Tags: Civilians,Impressions of Korea,Living conditions,South Koreans,Weapons

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Video Transcript

Hobbs, Elvin

0:37:20

Transcribed by Ellen Resnek 4/17/19

00:00:00 [Beginning of Recorded Material]

Elvin Hobbes: [00:00:00]

My name is Elvin R. Hobbs and I go by the name of Al nickname. I was born in Reserve New Mexico small town in the Hila Wilderness. I was born 8 July 1945 grew up there moved to Albuquerque when I was a junior in high school and worked for a Veterinary Clinic there until I went into the military and was going in with the intentions of gaining some medical knowledge and getting out and going to veterinary school but things change, and I found out that I was really truly loved the military and and I stayed there for 28 years, so.  

Interviewer:

Did you enlist right out of high school?

Elvin Hobbes:

No, I went to I was working, like I said at a veterinary clinic or an animal hospital and and I was going to night school at electronic school kind of a family tradition that had couple of cousins and graduate from there. Brother-in-law [00:01:00] and it was like everybody thought that’s what our to do to and but I was just totally dissatisfied with what I was doing. And so talking with the veterinarian that I worked with and he always wanting me to get into veterinary medicine because I guess he thought I was pretty good at it and suggested I go into the military get my military service over with because I would have been drafted probably anyway and, and go into the medical field and get some medical knowledge by [00:01:30] doing so too. So that was kind of the reason I went in. Yeah. 

Interviewer:

And what branch did you choose?

Elvin Hobbes:

I chose the medical field at first I went in and I was trained as a combat medic and at the time they, I went through operating room technician technical course, and then just at the time I graduated they the Army decided they were overstocked in operating room so they sent me. to [00:02:00] x-ray technician school and then so that was basically how I went to Korea was as an x-ray technician had gone from training to 4th division in Fort Carson, and was there about eight weeks and all of a sudden I go to orders for Korea. So headed off to Korea and took a little delay in Japan kind of went AWOL for 12 days hoping I’d get assigned with Japan, but it didn’t work. So they sent me home to Korea and I arrived there just before Thanksgiving 17th [00:02:31] of 1964.

Interviewer:

So you were a young kid when the Korean War was going on?

Elvin Hobbes:

Yes.

Interviewer:

What do you remember anything from that time?

Elvin Hobbes:

I had one Uncle that served in the Korean War Lonnie Wright was his name and I remember the family talking about him being in the Korean War but and then when I talked to him and after I found out I was going I called and of course what he had to say is, you know, it was cold. It was Frozen and Frozen Chosin and I [00:03:01] really wasn’t too excited about going, you know, I wasn’t excited about going to Korea at all. And that’s kind of the reason I was got off the plane in Japan when it landed try to get him to keep me there but they wouldn’t do it. So even though my bags and I already gone to Korea so they run into a smart master sergeant. I knew where I was supposed to be and that’s where I ended up going. So yeah,

Interviewer:

When and where did you arrive in Korea?

Elvin Hobbes:

I went arrived at Kempo on the 17th [00:03:31] or 18th of November in 1964. Kemp Air base and from there. They moved me on to Askcom City, which was Army support command. It was in a little village closest Little Village to it was Sinjon and it was kind of between Seoul and Incheon and I was assigned to the 121 hospital at that point in the x-ray department and work there and then [00:04:01] in March or April Colonel Chapman ask if anybody be interested in doing some skydiving and it would be on Saturday mornings when you normally would have to do a full Field layout of all your first section and that was in every Saturday thing and if we joined them then I wouldn’t have to do that. So I joined the skydiving team. I found out that it was something that I enjoyed and we [00:04:31] liked so we would we went down in every weekend we would jump out of airplanes. Well, they I was getting pretty good at it. So I made they made me part of the team. So the majority of my time there I spent doing demonstration jumps and that sort of thing for the skydiving team. And then when the weather got cold again, we went back to the 121 hospital and finish my tour up at the hospital there. So [00:05:01] So that was basically it I had so lot of Countryside and and it really enjoyed it. It’s probably to me. It was one of the best kept secrets going because not everybody had the opportunity to do what I did but you know jump out of airplanes weekends and stuff, but that was that was a fun time and enjoyed it as a new environment that the people welcomed as I didn’t have any problems there and got along well learn to speak a little bit of the language, you [00:05:31] know necessary to get by on and and it was it was fun. It was a fun time

 Interviewer:

When you first arrived in Korea. What were your duties? 

Elvin Hobbes:

Well, when I first arrived there, I worked at the like I said the 121 Hospital which was the major Hospital in Korea. It was a large cantonment of Quonset Huts there was probably four to five miles of corridor because the Quonset Huts were separated [00:06:01] in doing so it was built during the Korean War so they they built it so that if a bomb hit it would knock out the whole hospital it only knockout maybe one or two wards and when so I worked like I said as an x-ray technician, yeah, and I would take pictures of anything and you know that mean the body and injured soldiers. We took pictures chest x-rays and stuff of any Korean [00:06:31] that was applying for duty to include the prostitutes in the local villages. We in the surrounding area and they would bus them in, because at that time they had a you know, they had to be tested before they could get their their card in order to work any of the nightclubs and be around any GI as they wanted them to be as is free from any disease as possible. So we’d the hospital would do all those things. And so [00:07:03] Then you know I worked just as we’d be on call you do emergency room duty. And in some days you would work 24 hours and then you have day off and the thing was that we had antiquated equipment compared to what I was trained on in the states. So you had to learn to to just kind of do things differently like for if they were taken an exam where they put air [00:07:33] in your spine and it goes up to your brain in the United States, they had a chair that would flip the patient all the way over so that the air would go up into the horns of in the brain and it would be the contrast that they would use there we had to physically pick the patient up and flip them over ourselves to get the air into the proper space to do it. So in the wintertime, we had to haul hot water from the dining facility to keep [00:08:03] our chemicals warm enough so that the x-rays would develop properly in the summertime. They would have to carry ice down to keep them cool enough they would develop properly so, you know, there was a lot of trial and error in doing so and. But it was it was interesting and like say we had time off and after I became part of the team, I got to see a lot more of Korea than I would have. You know, if I had just been in [00:08:33] that surrounding area at the time the largest building. I remember in Seoul was about four stories, you know, and then one of the places we went to was a silk market and it covered about two city blocks where they sold different types of silk and stuff, you know souvenirs type thing and it was it was in downtown Seoul, you know, and you most of the buses were military vehicles that had been blown [00:09:03] up during the war and scavenged in they would make buses and stuff and just out of take metal parts and build a seats and it was it was fun to ride those buses and you’d be right along and they’d haul or something everybody get out and use the bathroom side of the road. Then you get back in take off again, you know, so it was it was different. People, transportation course was limited to. Right after the war the trees were about four [00:09:33] foot tall where they transplanted trees have been blown up and burn away. So they were about four foot tall and people used… I have pictures of bicycles with 20 cases of beer on the back of one bicycle stack very strategically in peddling. So that was the delivery truck deliver the beer, to the carts full of dishes. That would be sold there in the streets. A different [00:10:03] thing like that. I have pictures of them unloading a coal ship and Incheon and they were doing it by a frame where each man had an A-frame he would walk on board the ship and they would shovel coal into the back of his a framing and he would come off dump it in. So it was just a big chain and they unloaded the whole ship that way.

Interviewer:

Was that local Koreans doing that?

 Elvin Hobbes:

Yes, you are not the military because the military bought their coal from Koreans, but most of our [00:10:33] heating was done with diesel fuel. We had stoves it sit in the middle of the Quonset Huts and they would put five gallon can on them and that would last until about midnight and each Barracks had a Korean attached to the US Army so they were called [ketusas]and they were ours were x-ray technicians that were in our Barracks with us. And so but they got the nice [00:11:03] job of getting up in the middle of nine and change in the heater over, you know, and we had house boys at their laundry and you know, the clean their barracks and stuff. So to me it was it was good duty and I was young 18 years old, you know, so it was a it was a different new and different experience, but originally didn’t want to go at all. So..and then like I said Colonel Chapman, ask volunteers and I [00:11:33] could rather jump out of an airplane to do the full Field layout, you know, and so tried that and that was fun. It was it turned into be something that I wanted to continue to do when I got back to the States, but it was very expensive hobby and I got back. Yes, you had to pay for the plane and for these chutes and everything else there the Army gave us old chutes and we would modify them to our expertise.

Interviewer:

So what was the atmosphere? Like, you [00:12:03] know, it’s about 12 years after that the signing of the Armistice. What was the feeling? What was the atmosphere like? 

Elvin Hobbes:

You know it, It would be like being in I think like a barrio in Mexico or even El Paso. If you go to the Barrio and the people there are poor and living on limited income and limited food. There [00:12:33] was a lot of begging going on. There was a lot of eating rats doing a lot of other things that that probably right now they couldn’t believe but like we did during the depression we got by eating jack rabbits and doing a lot of things here that we probably wouldn’t do today, but it was necessary for life and limb and moving on the people. Like I said, we’re very and you know it they did different [00:13:03] things to make make ends meet, you know and whatever they could find to make a living feed their families and do those sort of things. That’s what they did. It was a culture shock for all of us coming from even though I came from a small town. It was still a culture shock to see you know, there was no indoor plumbing. There was no you no hot water in most of the places. They only hot water was what they cooked on their little stoves and a lot of that was done through charcoal and and of [00:13:34] course, they could cook a lot of rice and and they had the beef that was there were used as working oxen and not necessarily for to eat. Although you could get beef at some of the some clubs that you get, you know, like steak and eggs, but steak was very thin and very not very flavorful, but it was it was different and new. But the atmosphere and the countryside like I said the trees were four [00:14:04] to five feet tall. You see women with clothes made out of OD blankets, you know wool blankets in the wintertime that their pants and and even men so they utilize whatever they had to do whatever they could with, you know, and so it was it was different like I said, it was a culture shock for me, but great people and in a lot of the a [00:14:34] lot of the GI’s ended up marrying, you know into the Korean and bringing them back to the United States and a lot of the Korean gals that was their mission to go to the land of the big PX, you know, so but it was a fun time it was fun time, but yet, you know, you could see still still see the after effects of the war and what he did then to to a culture into a in the influence that America [00:15:04] had placed on them by by the occupation of their country for so long and and the number of camps and forts and stuff that we had there and the military vehicles were like I said, you know, you have a deuce and a half going down the road and you had to put guards in the back of it because they would jump in and if there was they could get into the back of it, there’s things that could throw out and then jump out after [00:15:34] him they do that just and it but it but it had to be it was a way of life for them, you know, because they were trying to live the best they could with what they had so.

Interviewer:

Where were you stationed at exactly?

Elvin Hobbes:

Ascom City, Sinchon, was the name of the closest village and Ascom. We called it a Ascom City because it was the Army support command. So supplies would come in by ship are by airplane and they would [00:16:04] come into Kempo air base are they would come in to Incheon Harbor and then they would be brought in to Ascom and bullets food. Whatever came in and then it was distributed out of Ascom the Army support command to the rest of of Korea. So there was trucks and stuff come in and go in there and that just so happened is where they had the 121 hospital and like I said, that was the only true medical facility. We had [00:16:34] operating room x-ray lab any support that you needed was there and if it is then the next evacuation would be to Japan if it if we couldn’t do the do it there, it would be sent to Japan but most most items. We took care of it that the 121 hospital. Like I said, you you learned a new innovative type of medicine. For instance. We had a soldier that [00:17:04] was burnt and and you use in the United States. They would debride and go in and take out the old tissue and we’re there we could use things like fly larvae, maggots to eat away. So you just place the larvae the maggots on the wound and let them eat away the dead tissue and stuff for if someone saw that in the United States, they would go berserk. You know, what are you doing? You know, it was one of the best in less painful [00:17:34] debridement procedures you could use and and I got explained earlier, you know having to flip patients by hand and you know do a lot of things that It’d be an Innovative because of just you know lack of the best equipment in the world. But yet we managed to get it done and hospital.

Interviewer:

What were people getting injured from?

Elvin Hobbes:

Maneuvers and stuff. And and there was a lot of we [00:18:04] had a lot of Koreans that that would be out scavenging of metal and they would come across unexploded ordinances and they would take them back and try to melt them down and they would blow up and are they would be beating on them and they would blow up and so there was a lot of still a lot of shrapnel wounds and that sort of thing coming in from the indigenous people the locals most of the Americans were told, you know to mark and [00:18:34] calling EOD if we were out on maneuvers and we were marching like over a hill or something. We’d come across an unexploded ordnance of some type we would mark it and call EOD and other words mark it on the map get the coordinates and everything called the the EOD people in and have them exploded take care of it do whatever was necessary. But again, the indigenous people that Korean Nationals there would if they found them that meant money if [00:19:04] they could get the metal out of it or whatever they could sell that but some of them were like I said unexploded ordnance, you know, and and it takes I don’t know they probably still cleaning up some of it, you know, I mean, we have a range right here on El Paso that no one’s allowed home because it has unexploded ordnance on it from years past and now it’s almost sinner sinner town, you know on the side of the mountain. So so, you know, it wouldn’t [00:19:34] surprise me if they didn’t still have more ordinance in some of those places that closer to the DMZ. You know.

Interviewer:

Where are you based at the same place the entire time?

Elvin Hobbes:

Yes, I would say I’ve had the same bunk the whole 12 12 months. I was there. Yeah same and even though I was just you know, like I said attached to the skydiving team. I still came there every night to sleep and eight in the same dining facility and that sort of thing. So,

Interviewer:

and how long were you there?

 

Elvin Hobbes:

[00:20:04] a year? I was derived in November and left in November. So it’s just his like a year in 12 days because I told you I was spent some time in Japan that I wouldn’t supposed to so they didn’t count that as part of my tour but they didn’t hold it against me because I acted pretty stupid, you know, so, yeah, but so it was about a year and 12, a  year and 15 days and I came back and from there. [00:20:34] I was assigned to Redstone Arsenal, Alabama from there.

 

Interviewer:

So what was the military’s main work in Korea during your time there?

 

Elvin Hobbes:

I think that you can really think of the word but just rebuilding rebuilding and relationships and and I know we did a lot with building new barracks and you know, the 121 after I left moved [00:21:04] to Seoul and so they were building new new hospitals and new Forts. And you know, I mean just trying to re rebuild the country, you know for the Korean people bridges that have been blown out. The engineers were doing a lot of those; American engineers, even the military engineers were doing a lot of road building just infrastructure type taking care of of what needed to be done to bring [00:21:34] the people back to some normalcy because you know, I don’t know what it was like down in Taegu and Pusan. I never got down that far down but where I was at the you could see still see a lot of the devastation bullet holes in any brick walls and and exploded, you know, buildings and stuff that we’re still being trying,  to be rectified and rebuilt the [00:22:04] homes and houses were if they’d a had a hurricane or something there. They would go on like that or like matchboxes you could they would use paper walls. I mean, it could see see through the walls, but it worked for them that you know, the heating type and heat in the floor. And like I said a lot of coal and charcoal was used to heat homes and cook with and it’s worth it and the rice paddies, you know, they [00:22:34] some of those they had mindset in the rice paddies. So the to go through and clear those so your EOD teams are going through with mine detectors finding minds and and digging them up on roadbeds in sides of roads and in rice paddies anywhere the enemy could have got to to Make it hard on the south Koreans. That’s what they did. So the Chinese and North Koreans.

Interviewer:

And [00:23:04] what did you do after your time in Korea?

Elvin Hobbes:

Well, I stayed in the military for 28 years. So I worked as an x-ray technician in Redstone Arsenal and then wanted to get promoted. So I moved back to my secondary MOS. So while I was there, I went from E5 to E6 and about a year, a year and a half time. And then from there I went to William Beaumont Army Medical tiered  and [00:23:34] was trained as a 91C and then they gave me additional training as kind of an independent medic what they would call now would be a physician’s assistant, but at the time they didn’t have that program. So but I was a trained to do a lot of you know, suturing deliver babies, you know minor surgical things and medications lot of medications that that I could give without physicians and then from there they sent me to Vietnam And I worked [00:24:04] as they’re in a river Patrol unit. And I was the the senior medical person Barrett and so I had three other Medics that work for me and and we took care of a river Patrol Mike Boat Company and navy unit and the Coast Guard unit there in what I was in Vietnam. And then from there I came back went to a tank unit in Fort Knox. And then from there I went to nuclear power in Panama and [00:24:34] then from Panama to Antarctica, Antarctica back to Panama. And and then from there I went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky and if they’re to Germany in Germany back to here in this is where I retired at after after that.  

So, it’s quite a varied very job could say yeah. 

Interviewer:

What were the dates that you were in Vietnam?

Elvin Hobbes:

I was there in 1968. [00:25:05] I got their November 68 November 69 return back. So it was a year because year they’re also so they always like to send me so I can spend my first Christmas early and get it over with a kiss with it seem like I always shipped out in November I did that. I shipped out in November going to Germany to so it was you know,

Interviewer:

What your time in Antarctica, that’s kind of unusual. What what did you do up there?

Elvin Hobbes:

I was I was assigned to nuclear [00:25:35] power program for the US Army and the Navy had a nuclear reactor in in Antarctica and it was underground. So we went underground for six months to run the reactor and produce electricity for The Radars in any research labs and that sort of thing. So you spent six months underground and then you came out and they shipped you back to wherever and I took the place of a Dramatic the Navy medic. It had some psychological problems about [00:26:05] being underground for so long. So that was what I did there and an in Panama of Zone the USS Sturgis, which was a nuclear power barrage, which was a Navy vessel that they’d taken the engines out of and put a nuclear reactor in and we produced electricity. Therefore the canal zone is what we do there at one time. The Army had eight nuclear reactors around different parts of the [00:26:35] country most of them in the United States. In the Navy had their program also. And so,  and that was just an in like I said, I went from there to Aerosol unit in Fort Kemp in and work there and worked in a hospital at Fort Campbell plus the aviation unit and infantry unit. And then from there to Germany where I was assigned to the 1st Armored Division again and and worked with tankers, but [00:27:06] there I was the first sergeant so I was kind of out of the medical field anymore. And then from there I was sent to Sargent Majors Academy to the course there and then I was kept on and I was a director and CEO evaluation and then I became the Battalion Commander there and then I’m retired out of there. So that’s what kept me in El Paso.

Interviewer:

Have you been back to Korea since?

Elvin Hobbes:

No, I have not almost did I worked as a military relations person [00:27:36] for a banking group and I was going to go over and do a NCO Soldier of the year program for the eighth Army and CEO of the year, but there was some technical difficulties because of the banking group that was in Korea didn’t want an outside banking group coming in and presenting to their so I didn’t get to go. So it would have been right at 40 years. I mean that I would have got to go back and see the difference but didn’t wasn’t able to do [00:28:06] that. So, no I didn’t go back would love to sometime.

Interviewer:

What do you think of US Korea relations today? 

Elvin Hobbes:

It seems great. I mean everything that I’ve seen I think it’s wonderful. I mean I drive a Hyundai so that’s that’s pretty good. You know, I mean, they’ve I see pictures. I talked to a lot of troops that come back. I’m very active in different military organizations. And so I see soldiers and work around and [00:28:36] volunteer for soldiers all the time and so talking to them and seeing pictures and you know, it seems like it’s the relationship is great seems really close now. I mean probably one of our strongest allies and I truly believe that I think they truly believe in and recognize what the war did for them, you know in their freedoms of being able to be a the country that they are. I think that if [00:29:06] it hadn’t been for the war the Korean conflict as we call it, I don’t think It would be as a stronger country as it is today. So those guys that did fight in the war they if they could see it today, you know, most of them some of them can but if they could see it today, I think they’d recognize it. It may have been the Forgotten War but I think what they’ve done is has been recognized by the Korean government and the American government [00:29:36] to you know, that we’ve come a long ways baby so to speak and I think that’s that they’re being there and doing that then in holding off the North the way they did just shows you that it’s pretty strong country. The economy is great and everything you know, from everything I’ve seen and heard you know just the pictures and everything, It’s a strong economy.

I am the commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars post 812, here. And it’s an elected, annually elected Position, and we serve the Veterans of Foreign Wars, any wars and you would have to serve in some type of conflict and or Korea during the periods of time. And we work hard for the veterans we try to maintain their benefits, and that sort of thing. Locally, the one, the post that I belong to we do a lot of work actively to support soldiers that are leaving and coming back we fed Somewhere right now around 130,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, that are being deployed via the deployment Center here giving him send-off parties, welcome home parties and we do that free of charge through donated money. So this Thanksgiving we’re going to be feeding somewhere around 300 returning from Afghanistan. We’re going to have turkey day for them so

Interviewer:

And why did you choose to run for that position?

 Elvin Hobbes:

Actually, I was asked to by some of the people involved there, actually I’ve been very involved in volunteering since I retired and while I was in active duty, actually the 32nd Air and Defense Command has an award named after me; Sergeant major Al Hobbs volunteer of the Year award. And so I’ve been involved with the association of the United States Army The Elmer Bradley chapter here, I was President three times here and State president once with that. I’ve been the past commander of the veterans of foreign war post 8919, and then transferred. And the past Commander there was getting a little tired, he asked me if I would run for it and I did. And I was elected so that’s what I’m doing now so I’ve been at it about 7 months now. So, I enjoy it it’s volunteerism but I it keeps you busy it keeps you going for a 70 year old fat man I have to keep going you know.

Interviewer:

What year did you retire from the military?

Elvin Hobbs:

In 1991 July of 1991, I was going to retire in January and then Desert Storm broke out so they extended everyone to the end of the war and for me it worked out six months. Cuz it only lasted 90 days but they extended me six months. And at the time I working, had already done my chain of command at the sergeant majors Academy. So when they extended me I didn’t really have a job. So I was the president of the NCO Museum Association at the time so I we contracted and built the new NCO museum on Biggs field. That was my last who were active duty wise. So that’s what I did there.

Interviewer:

How do you feel like your time in the military even wartime in Vietnam? How has that affected your opinion or your views on military service?

Elvin Hobbes:

I wish we had never got rid of the draft. And I am very proud of my military service and I’m very proud that I joined because I go back and look at the guys that I kind of ran around with. (33.44) And I’ve just done eons beyond what they’ve done you know and I’m talking about someone’s about the same mental capacity education wise that I had. I’m the only one that ended up with a bachelor’s degree and I owe that to the military the travel the experiences that I’ve had. I’ve been in every continent except Australia during my tenure. I think that I would have never done that. So I felt that I owed a lot. And that’s one of the reasons I volunteer is to get give back to the military for what they’ve done for me a little country boy from New Mexico. (33:40) I truly believe that that you can see the difference in people that serve and those that have never serve the discipline the drive everything it kind of you just kind of see it. It makes a difference. It truly makes a difference. And when you think about it only 0.8 % of all Americans serve in the armed forces. That’s not very many. So you know you walk down the street and out of 100 people one is going to say they’ve served you know that’s not that’s that’s not a big number. But I think it did a lot for me and I’m proud I you know I thought I could be a recruiter but it takes that person and that mom and dad to allow those things to happen now because it is a volunteer force. I have a son and a daughter in law that and two grandkids and you know they don’t want them in the service you know and although I think my grandson may go and he’s he’s an Avionics high school now. So he may go. We’ll see. But I owe I owe a lot to the military. I truly do.

Interviewer:

Is there any message that you would like to communicate to younger generations?

Elvin Hobbes:

(35.48) Yeah I think. Never let history repeat itself even though it’s going to. But I truly believe that if they would just come in and do three years in the younger it join up do three years that they would see a whole new change in their life. Naturally do but it was fun it truly was I met a lot of great people I worked closely with [Sargent Home] to use the new seven to a very very intelligent guy and we went out to dinner a lot. We you know he showed me a lot of of the Korean culture and of course he had to learn to speak some languages and just I mean I could still tell somebody how to take a deep breath and hold it in Korean you know because it’s been about 50 years ago just about you know so so certain things you don’t forget you know and certain people you don’t forget you know those that made a point in your life but. But I know I’ve, and I still have a cousin is married a Korean lady and we’re still very close and good friends. And I just enjoyed the country you know. I mean she’s a lot younger than I am, so when I talked to her about my experiences over there about the way the country looked and showed her pictures and stuff. It’s a lot different than it is today They’ve came a long way. (37:20)