John Atkins

Atkins, John

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Transcribed by Jennifer Morgan on 7/22/2025

[Beginning of Recorded Material]

John Atkins: I’m John Atkins J-O-H-N  A-T-K-I-N-S

Interviewer:  What is your birthday?

A:  7/23/33

I: And where were you born?

A: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

I: And tell me about your family when you were growing up, your parents and your siblings.

A:  My father

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worked in the Douglas Aircraft Industry during World War II. He worked for industry after World War II. He worked some more for Douglas. My mother was a registered nurse. She graduated from St. Benedict’s Hospital Skilled Nursing in Jonesboro, Arkansas. My father was from Siloam Springs, Arkansas. I had

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one sister. Her name was Katherine. She married an individual named Marlon Rhodes. He was from Drumright, Oklahoma. They lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She passed away this year. He passed away several years ago. My sister was four years younger than myself

I: You told me that your father worked at the

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Douglas

A:  Aircraft

I: Whoa!

A: During World War II. Yes.

I:  What is the exact name of that company?

A: Douglas Aircraft,  I guess.

I: Yeah

A: So it’s a big building which is now part of Tinker Field, which is the repair depot for the Air Force in Oklahoma, which is Midwest City.  Midwest City before it became a big place like it is today

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was a place I used to say if I would hunt for rabbits, if she hunted on the south side of 29th Street, you pretty much ran into jackrabbits. If you hunted on the north side, you ran into cottontails. Douglas was built during World War II.  First of all, it built C-47 cargo planes, and then later o,n toward the end of the war

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the C-54 came into existence, and they built the C-54s.

I:  So your father worked during World War II.

A: Yes.

I:  So tell me about what you know about the national sort of mobilization of U.S. people, American people during World War II. How do they work? I mean, they were all paying attention to the World War II, right? They were all mobilized.

A: They was mobilized. Basically

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everything was geared toward being unified, united to win the war. We had a European war we were fighting first of all fought the country called Italy. And then we after Italy surrendered, we went in to fight Germany, the other fear

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we had was just fighting the Japanese. The Japanese invaded our country on the Island of Hawaii, Pearl Harbor on December the 7th, 1941. On December the 8th, I believe Theodore Roosevelt, not Theodore Roosevelt. President Roosevelt declared war, had Congress declare war on Germany and

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Japan. First of all, it was Japan and later it was Germany, as I recalled. Everything was geared toward being united. The American flag became a very rallying cry around. People saved everything. We had stamps. You couldn’t buy a pair of shoes unless you had a stamp to buy it. You couldn’t buy tires unless you had stamps to buy the tires. You couldn’t buy petroleum for the cars

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etc, and they quit making automobiles and started making war machinery. I believe we became very devoted towards making boats, planes, vehicles, and training troops and building military buildings and installations to train troops in. Tinker Field was where I heard the individual Professor Atkinson

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who was a journalism professor from Oklahoma City University talked about he got the idea of developing Midwest City, Oklahoma because he found out that the Air Force was going to build somewhere in the Oklahoma City area a repair depot for the airplanes and he checked it out and looked all over Oklahoma City and decided that place most likely would be and it had not been announced

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and strictly his thinking. It probably in the southeast part of Oklahoma City where there are a lot of family farms and sector and he wanted to start buying land out there so he could develop the city called Midwest City, Oklahoma to house the lives, etc of guys who’d be coming into Oklahoma City in the military and also the civilians would be coming in there to repair planes and then

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Douglas was going to build a big plant there in part of town so he figured he needed to build a lot of buildings and my village so he got interested in buying land in that part of the country and he decided since it was old farmers have owned the land and it was farmers he had to deal with, he had to learn how to milk a cow. So for $20, this college professor went out and learn how to milk a cow so they can go talk to the people

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at that part of the country or that part of the city, who owned land, and he wouldn’t talk to him about selling it, so he could buy it, and he would milk cows and talk to him all at the same time. That’s really the way Midwest City was developed, which came about, sure enough, the Air Force developed Tinker Field the Douglas Aircraft Company developed the building there on Douglas

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a building which was 3/4 of a mile long, if I recall correctly. I mean three-quarters mile or something or other. You have to remember that was back in 1942. In ’42, I was a nine-year-old kid the building was built in most of a short period of time. I remember there was only one window in the whole building that was on the second floor, for the CEO of that plant lived with his

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family everything was. Everything was rationed, like I said before, and everything was being patriotic- patriotic parades, patriotic music, and we had nightly, we had periodic presidential radio conversations that were called Fireside Chats back from President Roosevelt.

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The war ended in August.  Germany surrendered in May 1945. The war ended with Japan’s surrender in April of 19, excuse me, August of 1945.

I: So World War II was the war of the whole nation.

A: The whole nation was involved

I: and everybody was anxious to win

A: and everybody had  one thought in mind

I: and you won it.  Actually, we wouldn’t meet

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A: We won the war.

I: But when the troops returned, you’d really have a big one

A: We had a big parade. I remember talking to men who had been with the 45th. They went to Angelo, went in through Germany when they were disband, had their final formation in Germany, it. . . what was the name of the city?

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Outside the city,  Germany had the concentration as Dachau inside the

I: Auschwitz

A: No Dachau. Dachau was a German prison camp, but this is in Munich. In Munich, they had a big place where Hitler used to go, and he would close it. They’d lock up the bars and people who drink, and he would speed off, so it was a big place where they had rallied the troops for Germany.

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we had our final formation. The 45th Infantry Division, there in Munich in 1945.  The 45th came home. There was a big parade down Main Street, and everybody was very definitely interested in Hey we’re home, the war is over with that war to end all wars. Bingo.

I: and then the Korean War came after that, and it contrasts so much, so different, right?

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the American people didn’t pay attention to it

A: it never really was a war. See, you have to remember. Harry Truman figured he could not get Congress to declare war, so he did not declare war. He realized no way he could do this was making use of presidential powers that he had, so he declared it a police action. And when he declared a police action, we started sending troops. Now I have to say that I had an inside

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idea of what was going to happen to me in Korea by an uncle of mine who had been with the 24th Infantry Division, 24th or 25th, I do not recall which, but he had been with one of those two infantry divisions as an engineer. He was sent to Korea right after the war was over. Actually, he was on a ship. . .

I: You mean World War II

A: After World War II was over with he was on a ship headed to the Far East to be involved

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in that war, but in place of going into Japan to fight, Japan had surrendered by the time he got to thePacific, and he ended up in Korea with the 24th or the 25th ID.

I: What’s his name?

A: His name was, ah, let’s see, last name was Sammons

I: Salmon?

A: Sammons. S-A-M-M-O-N-S. He went

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by the name Jay. Jay Salmons

I: Okay. That was your uncle?

A: That is my uncle, who is my mother’s brother. And so he was one of the first troops to go into Korea after Japan surrendered.

I: Right.

A: In 1948, when Truman and General Eisenhower decided that we were going to cut down our troops that we had in Korea, he was sent home on leave to go to Japan

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to be part of the occupational forces. At that time, 1948, I had a paper route, and he visited my parents in Oklahoma City. And one afternoon, while  I was delivering my papers, I said “Where is Korea?”

I: You said it?

A: Yeah, I said, “Where is Korea?” I don’t think we knew where Korea was. Korea was somewhere in the Far East, but la-la-land as far as most people were concerned

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in this part of the country, we knew where Pearl Harbor was, and we knew the Philippines and some of the other parts, but Korea was not a part of our vocabulary other than it existed somewhere on the map. I said where is Korea? He’d begin to give you some information. I said “What’s going on over there, and why are you coming home? ” He said, “Well it has been decided that we have too many troops over there, and so they’re pretty much going to take care of themselves, and we’re going to Japan they have no occupational forces

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there. However,  there’s going to be a war there, John.”

I: Your uncle said that?

A: In 1948, he told me there was going to be a war there in 1948, and you are going to be a part of it. I said what?  I said you are going to be a part of it. Now I was in high school at that time. I said no, I don’t think, and he said yeah, there’s going to be a war there because the country has been divided north and south, and therefore Korea has always been a country that’s been involved

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one country or another country, China and Japan or somebody’s been occupying them and one of these days they’re going to be a united country but Russia’s got the northern part, we’re occupying the southern part andone of these days the north is going to try to invade he says this is what we hear from the help from the people that we have come in contact with. You have to remember, I think enlisted means probably have more contact with the civilians in the city than officers do

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and I think he had a pretty good contact with a lot of them people in Korea than he had dealt with. According to them, there is going to be a conflict where they will unite Korea as one country, not two and if that occurs, that war is going to be fought. World War II did not end all wars. He says this is going to be another one. And you’re going to be a part of it. I said “What about you?” He said,  “I’m going to be home I’m going to Japan, and I’m going to be

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up my enlistment’s going to be up in two years and I’m going to be back home and you’re going to be the one who has to go over and fight in it.” It turned out that he was one of the first troops to go into Korea from Japan because the war occurred much quicker than he had thought it was going to occur. It started in June of 1950. In July of 1950, he was in Korea. He was one of the last. He tells me he’s probably one of the last individuals to see General Dean

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and his driver before General Dean was captured.

I: So was he first a cavalier or task?

A: No, he was not for.  He was General Dean was General for the 24th

I: Yeah

A: The 24th Infantry, so General Dean was a commanding officer for the 24th Infantry Division. General Dean was at a train station with a bazooka and his jeep driver. And his jeep driver was going to load the bazooka, so they could not get tanks at that train station.

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He says if tanks come through, we’re going to knock the tanks out. The GA said I said my uncle’s name was James,but he also went by the name GA. GA said, “General, if you will go with us, we know how to get out of here, and we can get you and your driver out of here, and we can get back down to Pusan.” He said, “No you all go ahead. If you three can make it, you go ahead, you go ahead and make it back to Pusan, we’re going to stay here and knock out the

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Russian tanks that are coming through here to make it easier for y’all guys to come back and win this war.” He left General Dean. He made it down to Pusan and then later on in September of 1950, because his enlistment was already over, he had his enlistment extended twice while he was over there going into Korea. He was brought home and discharged in October of 1950 so

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basically like I said, I had some idea that we were I was in fight a war, and he gave me, he said I’ll tell you what, there’s two things I’m gonna give you. I’m going to give you a ring that I have made from a stainless steel nut that you wear, and you can wear when you go into Korea, and you can remember what I told you. And also, I’m going to give you because by the time that happens, you’re going to start shaving off more frequently, so here’s my razor. When I get home, I’m going to give you my new Gillette razor that I bought in Korea before I came home, so I ended up with two things, and I still

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have the ring. I do not have the razor anymore. I gave my I gave the ring to my youngest son when I gave him some souvenirs of mine from Korea, such as my dog tag, my infantry patch, my uncle’s patch, etc. so he has it in his bedroom. So that’s how I knew about that we were going to fight a war in a place called Korea before it was ever announced.

I: What a story! What a story! Your uncle must have been a kind of

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prophet.

A: I don’t know, he was a prophet, he just like I said, you know.

I: He knew what was going on.

A: Enlisted men knew what was going on, and I’ve heard several enlisted men make such a statement as that.

I: You said,  so were you writing a paper when your uncle visited your home in Oklahoma?

A: Was I writing a paper?

I: Yeah!

Year

I: Why did you ask that question? Because he was there?

A: Because he was there. The two of us we was walking along with me while I delivered my

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papers on my paper route, and so you know. Where have you been? What’s going. .? Where is it located?  What’s going on there? And what did you do? Why are you there? typical kids

I: You and just like me, asking you questions.

A:  I knew that during World War II, my mother was a nurse. I remember when the nursing nurses came to interview her because, according to her records, she was still single, and once they realized that she

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was married and had two children she was exempt from going on to active duty but they made her a civildefense nurse and as a civil defense nurse she was issued sent in the mail a web belt with a canteen, a canteen cup, and military belt that was used by the medics in World War I which you see you see that belt in World War II, World War I Memorial here in Kansas City.

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At the very end of it, you’ll see a belt that was worn by medics in World War I. My wife’s grandfather wore about like that, so I had some idea from the Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts are very militaristic. We had inspections in our uniforms, man we then we were sharp-looking soldiers as kids in the Boy Scouts

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I: but school didn’t teach you about Korea, though?

A: No. Korea was. . . we learned about just what we learned about Pearl Harbor, and the Panama Canal was something that was being built. There in the Dakotas where they built the memorial for the four presidents, statues of them.  We learned about, and we saw it constantly being built. We saw other things much more we saw other things being built at that time.

I: But not Korea?

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Korea was never really a part of World War II.  It was Japan that occupied it, and Roosevelt made a treaty with Stalin that if he would declare war on Japan, they would get part of i,t and so after the Germans had surrendered, my recall is correct, Stalin one day woke up and said, “Hey I’m about to lose out

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on getting some free land. If I would just declare war on your area and play war on

I: Japan?

A: Korea. Japan. Declare war on Japan and I can get some Korean land for free because they’ve already dropped two atomic bombs, and since they dropped two atomic bombs and their emperor’s always say let’s surrender, we lost too many people are ready. We need to surrender, although the Japanese were not interested in it, the people were interested in surrendering, and so

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it’s. . . Stalin says we will enter the war, and he declared war and he never put a single troop into Korea during that period of time, and just got freebie land

I: So when your uncle told you that you’re going to be there and you’re going to wage a war there, did you believe that?

A: I figured the guy knew what he was talking about. You know, these military men don’t know lot so as a kid

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yeah, I figured well probably. We’ll find out something about it in due time.

I: When did you… when were you in Korea?

A: I was in Korea in December of 1951, and I came out and in July ’52.

I: July ’52? So, tell me about Korea, you just came to encountered and ran across this country named because of your uncle

A: That’s right.

I: You were there for about a

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year and six months or seven months. What is Korea to you now? The Korea that you heard from your uncle, now what is Korea to you?

A: Well, the Korea I saw. I went back to Korea in ’99. I returned on a return trip.

I: Was it a government invitation?

A: Yes, it was, and when I got to Panmunjeom and looked over, because I spent my time in a place called

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Taewanne. It is up there by Pork Chop Hill and Old Baldy. I spent most of my time on the Old Baldy area. I was in the GRS section of the 45th Infantry. I was the new quartermaster of the 45th Infantry Division GRS section, and I spent most of my time probably up there in the line where we were recovering bodies from either Americans,

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allied forces, the enemy’s forces, and I probably one time I got to talk to a couple of Chinese while I visited China in 1992 who we probably looked at each other across the field of no-man’s land at one time so if I went back in 99 to seek Korea at their invitation and I look from across at the

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38th Parallel. It hadn’t changed. It was still dirt roads. The old six bys had a hard time finding enough space to keep all their duels on the road. A couple of cases where we had six bys turned over because the road gave way on them, but when you got down to Seoul, Seoul was like going into New York City, except as a miniature of New York City. They had

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street vendors. They had people who were very cordial. When we came back from Korea in ’52, nobody said, “Hey, welcome home. The question was where have you been. I was a high school dropout, not that I planned to be a high school dropout, but in 1950, whenHarry Truman activated, I was getting ready to go into my senior year in high school.

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and I was activated. I was in the, I joined the 45th Infantry Division National Guard in May of 1950. In June of 1950, North Korea invaded. In July of 1950, I turned 17. In August of 1950, I started the summer camp. Noon en route to summer camp, eaten Chiklis in a box chicken lunch. The commander, our company commander, came

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surrendered hearing down the hill- say “Hey, get back in the vehicles, we’re going back to Oklahoma City, we’ve just been activated. We’re going to start training as a unit again, as a division for combat, so go back to Oklahoma City. On the 22nd of August, I put my hand up and I swore allegiance to the American flag and to the president, to our country, and we were

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activated. Went to Camp Polk, Louisiana.  Trained in Camp Polk, Louisiana, went to school, and of course, we were being trained. At the same time we were going to training,we also had to go to school. I spent more time in school, I think when I was in the guards in the military than when I was going to school because I went to Fort Riley for school. I went to Fort Benning for leadership school. We got on a ship down in New Orleans to go

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through the Panama Canal, which I had seen the Panama Canal being built during all the various stages of it. During weekly newspaper readers, we wrote in junior high and high school

I: So, when did you leave for Korea?

A: When did I leave for Korea?

I: Yeah.

A: I left for Korea and Japan from Japan on about around the 10th of December

I: of?

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A: ’51

I: ’51? So, where were you landed in Korea?

A: Incheon.

I: Incheon and

A: And I remember the skipper saying when we got off the ship, it was a little after midnight. He said, “Dress warmly it is 40 degrees below outside, and some guy in the line, as we were getting ready to go down the gangplank, said, “Is that Fahrenheit or centigrade? And I later found out since

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I majored in chemistry in college,  minus 40 degrees, that’s the point where the two scales come together and, but then we got up into the Old Baldy, Pork Chop Hill area, then. . .

I: What was your unit again?

A: The 45th Infantry Division

I:  45th?

A: ID. Infantry Division and

I: The regiment or. . .

A: I belonged to the 45th Quartermaster Company

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and I was attached to I think the 279. I’m not sure what I was attached to when I was up in Korea, because we were attached to some outfit that was a line company.

I: Right, and what was your MOS?

A: My MOS number was. . .

I: No, no, you don’t need to tell me the number, but what did you do? What is your specialty?

A: What did I do?

I: Yes.

A:  I was involved with going out and picking up bodies

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and then we would do patrol at night, and patrolling the we’d pick up bodies that had been killed sometime during the period of time. We picked up bodies that had been burnt by a flamethrower. I used to think when I saw John Wayne during World War II movies, “Man, that flamethrower was a weapon I’m going to have”. It just burned up everything. Didn’t have to worry about. I come to realize that the flamethrower is not a good weapon to carry. It weighed about 70 to 80 pounds.

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it has six to eight two-second bursts in it, and then you had a dead weapon. But I realized from going out and picking up bodies, we picked up bodies at this burned. We had picked up bodies that had been hit by rifle M-1. We had dead patrol. We did scouting work when we went out. Sometimes we would go with the scout patrol. We’d come back and do the paperwork because, according to the

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Geneva Convention, you have to bury your dead, so we have a we established a cemetery there in North Korea and we would bury the dead we saw

I: Wow!

A: We if there was a “C” anywhere on be part of their dog tag or anything we could recognize, we had a cross. Otherwise, it was a marker that the person and we would put as much of information on that dog tag

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that we put on the cross, another marker that we put on the grave. All the bodies were buried with heads point for the east like we would see here in our cemeteries. All of them were buried with basically, we’d blow a hole because it was ice cold. Dig a hole in the ground and stick a stick of dynamite or two in the  ground and the hole in it and bury the person in it and

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take care of the mess.

I: So you were in Korea as your uncle predicted, and when you were picking up the dead bodies, burned and killed, brutally killed, what were you thinking to yourself?

A: War is hell.

I: Huh?

A: War is hell. I saw, you know, we saw all these here latel,y for we’ve seen ISIS go in there and cut off heads and sever the head from the body.

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Yeah, I dealt with some Greeks and some Turks, and they were really bad about wanting to know where their artillery. They were going hit a certain place early in the morning. They wanted to know what the firing pattern was of the artillery. If I could figure out the firing pattern for them, I could relay it to the commander.  He’s going in, and they’d take their bayonets and their sword,s etc. and into the

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into the field they would go, it without any respect for the artillery company. I came to realize real quickly I did not what the fact those kinds of guys. They had no respect. I also came to realize that the first time I got fired at was by a second lieutenant.

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They were lieutenant and three of us out on patrol and going to pick up a body, and that was a small shell just passed me and we decided, look we’re equipped to catch that so and so and we’d get to go on R&R; because if captured you got three days R&R;

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so we were going to catch that individual, and it turned out to be after a couple of bullets came pretty close to the lieutenant, I said, and he was an ex-Marine from World War II.  He said I said, “If you’ll give me permission, sir, I’ll knock that boy I’m not that bad boy out of commission. I got hand grenades here and I can hit that ole boy real quick like. No, we’re going to capture, but turned out to be, I thin,k he was the lieutenant

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he kind of went a little berserk, and he would I know, we sent him back. He got, he went back to the rear, but that was the first time I got shot at. Another time I got, we got involved with right after I landed in Korea, I think the national game of the Korean GI was Black Jack

I: Your duty picking up

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dead bodies does that bother you now? Does that come up like a flash or a nightmare?

A: I think when I was in college, I was taking comparative anatomy and I had a comparative anatomy course final coming up. And I had a dream the night before the exam.

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Yeah, I am have you talked and some of the things that you would see. Most of us are frozen because it’s cold, very cold, but I reached a point that you know

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I’ve been asked the question when I spoke to some small groups occasionally with young men, and some people are asking the question, well, “how many did you kill?”  I don’t know. I know nobody killed me. I’m not so much interested in  how many I killed, I’m interested in coming back home, and I felt very

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confident that I was coming back home. I remember on the night before we landed in Incheon, the next day I was going to be back home. I might want to come back home, it’s in part of my body not being there, I felt like I stayed intact, and  I did. I’d yet but

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I stop and think about today, as we think about I have a grandson who just graduated from high school, 18 years ol,d and I think you know, when I was his age I was learning about surviving not from a textbook, I was learning how to survive in field and what’s going to happen to him?

I: Hmm

A: So I, yeah, I don’t haven’t thought too much about all of that until

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I think about my grandson today. I have a son who retired from the Army is a bird Colonel. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure what he was interviewed for yesterday, but he’s interviewed for something. He’s retired and he works in Washington, DC

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Has an office at the Pentagon. He’s involved in something to go back to Korea to be involved somewhere there. And I think about it and what his role will be in Korea.  When I went back in ’99, and the way that we were received, etc. I came to realize you know it was worthwhile. Well, there was times I wondered what in the hell are we doing here and why

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would we shed so much blood when I was younger, but today I come back and say you know freedom is not free and somebody had to pay, and I’ve seen I’ve seen blood being shed on both sides of the street.

I:  You went back in 1999, and Tom Stephens was sitting beside you in Korea so many times very recently

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and the Korea you saw in 1999 and now is completely different. Are you aware of that?

A: I know it, I know it. Of course, when I saw it at night when I saw know what South Korea. Like I said,  I spent the bulk of my time in North Korea. I mean, I asked the question, you might like North, hell, I have nothing to gain from it.  I spent nine months in North Korea, so why should I want to go back, but we got into Incheon

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we got to Incheon late, early in the morning, we got off of ship.  We walked right on board on train boxcars that were unfit for cattle because when daylight came, you’d see cracks in the floor. No wonder was was so cold, there’s no heat in this thing, so we felt cold as that, or we had I think one of the main things that we worried about

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so much was how cold it was and how we had to keep our weapons from freezing up because even the oil just kind of, so that was the thing we had to worry about. Then I take a look at what I saw at Panmunjeom when I looked over at North Korea. It didn’t look any different than it did when I left. When I went back then in ’99, it was still there.

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Old Baldy and Pork Chop Hill, no, I didn’t see them, but I saw that area. I saw South Korea, which basically was, as I  said before, the only thing I saw in South Korea was going to replacement depots and coming home. And I remember I talked to when I was having lunch with a group of individuals from Lipton Tea, and so one guy asked me about Korea nicely,

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“What do you remember about Korea?” I was one thing I remember was helping to feed the youth of Korea when I was going through replacement depots. I said it was never the replacement depot going into Korea because we had already decided what we were going to do. Coming back home, we had to come through the replacement depot and one of the

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sites that I can see is the mamasans and kids standing there at those barbed wire fences and the kids with their hands out wanting one piece of fruit because when I first went through that first replacement depot I went through was outside Incheon and I wasn’t too interested in having an apple and some big old mess sergeant says you better take an apple boy

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and so I took an apple, and after I got out, I wished I had two or three apples because I only had one apple to give away.  I saw kids sliding under those barbed wire fences and reaching into those garbage cans and scooping it all up, and so I said that’s one of the things that really struck my mind, all these kids having to hard time to make living and

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I said whenever I went to the mess hall, I took two to three apples, I’d have taken more if they’d let me. We had no problems giving apples because there never was enough apples for all the hands around for an apple. This one guy said I looked at the table this ole boy had a tear coming out of his eyes. He said, you know, you may have fed me one day. He said may not have, but somebody did because I

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remember taking those apple and that was a touching moment. And that individual and I had a very close contact with each other over the years, so that’s probably the thing which hit me most of all that because if I went back. South Korea’s beautiful. I have to tell you one thing, my wife and I went back to South Korea and

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went one afternoon we had an afternoon off and she wanted to go into downtown Seoul to see what it was like, so we got on the train and took the train down and took the train down and got off the train there and were pretty close to go to gulf. We sashayed through department stores and street vendors, and we ate food and everything. At about two o’clock, 3:30 in the afternoon, my wife says you know I think I’m about ready to go back to our apartment.

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or to the Ambassador Hotel.  I said well I don’t know exactly how to get from here back to train station, Now look, I know how we got here, but I don’t want to go through all these, so I said that this morning I saw four young men in their early twenties, college students and I said to them, “do any of you speak English because my wife and I would like to know how the best ways to get from here to

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the train station, and when they hear one says, “Mr. Veteran, I speak English better than anyone. You wait here, I’ll be right back with you. So he went over and talked to these guys, and I had picked up the idea that he was leaving them and they were going somewhere. He said, “I will take you to the train station.” I say you’ve just dismissed yourself from your group. He says, “That’s all right,” in English. “That’s all right.

0:43:00

I know where they’re going, and after I get you taken care of, I will meet them for going on some fun”.  So anyway, and as we turned, he says you were at train station, I says no, I don’t know a train station because that train station was not here when I was. He gave us a real tour; we went from where we were to the train station, and we got to the train station. He says, “Mr. Veteran, if you give me so much money (I forgot how much), I’ll get your ticket for you.

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This is where you buy your ticket.”  I said fine, so I gave it to him. He says, now, and we will go down the steps here, and I will take you, and he got my wife. We get down to where the trains come and go, and he says now this is the side you want to stand by this door here. You want to stand on the platform here on this side because the other side will take you out of town

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But this will take you to your hotel, and so he stayed there with us until the train came. This was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon now. The train was loaded, and there was somebody sitting in a seat, and he says, “You get up, this veteran’s wife’s gotta sit there. And the young man jumped up, my wife sat down sit down there and we got great, we were received the very best.

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We were received in Korea like the President of the United States would be, except we just didn’t go in a limousine.

I: So you know, such contrast we made right, the great transformation from 1950 to 1999 and current. Despite sucha  successful outcome, since World War II, name any war that you can remember

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that came up with such a successful outcome the US has ever achieved. I don’t think so, right?

A: Probably not. I don’t know of any country that’s ever invited us back and  paid for us to come see their country to see what we did for them, so therefore that respect, I say yeah. I don’t know of anybody who’s said, “Hey, we thank you,”  and I don’t know of anybody.

I: Despite such success, in high school world history textbook

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Korean War is just about this. . .

A: cuz

I: And why is that, and how can we overcome that?

A: I don’t know. We can’t. You take World War I  is even smaller today. I think the whole point was that America was not ready to fight another war. Truman knew America was not ready to fight another war. Truman knew that

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Korea could not be invaded by the communist country. If I understand correctly my history, in 1948 North Korea wanted to invade South Korea, and Stalin was the person who kept them from invading. In 1949, they wanted to invade. In 1950, they gave permission. He promised to be in and out of Korea

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in 90 days, a maximum of 120 days.

I: After Dean Acheson excluded defensive parameters from the Korean Peninsula.

A: That’s right. So the situation was such that we never declared war, and I think in the 90s we finally declared it war, but it’s all over with. All of us, my guys, had already died, of natural deaths, who’d come back home from war from Korea.

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you have to remember that a few years ago, World War II veterans were dying very prolifically. Today, it’s the Korean War veterans who are dying. It’s just a few because only a few veterans from World War II are left, and this gets to where it’s fewer and fewer of us being left. Korea was not a country that had any real significance in the life of most Americans, and did not have any significance until they had somebody who was involved with the conflict

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and it’s only been within the last few years that we’ve seen Korea know. Korea did not immediately come back into the prosperity it has today, but as the prosperity became more and more common, more a prevalent thing that we had to deal with in the world of where is this economy going where’s that economy going. Korea has become a very economical power in the world, in the financial world

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so but Korea was never thought of to be a powerhouse. I know that the Koreans will not like what I’m saying, but I really have to say that the Japanese did you all a favor when they transported, they putKorea on wheels on the train because Korea was . . . the way  I understand was not a very progressive country until Japan came in and put them on wheels of a train and I know

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the. . . there is always some good that comes out of everything bad. The invasion of Japan into Korea was bad, no question, but the idea for this country on wheels and making them mobile. This country here would not be where we are today if we hadn’t have anyone to bring trains, the cars, the planes, the ships etc. Years ago, countries were only great if they were on waterways because ships were a really important thing

I: but if you know the history of imperialism and colonial

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history, you see that the Japanese case is uncomparable, the most atrocious form of colonial control, and so let me wrap this up. I think you are one of the most sort of how can I say, you actually knew what I want to ask, and the typical question that as I’m ready to ask you already talk to me, so it is wonderful case.

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A: I may have talked too much.

I: Country that you didn’t know, but you came to know through your uncle and now you seem to have a very comprehensive understanding how Korea was divided, how the perception was of U.S. leaders on Korea and you’ve been there, you’ve been there again in 1999, what is Korea to you and how do you think that is the legacy of the Korean War can be kept alive.

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A: I think the legacy of the Korean War is because right back to the motto that came out of Korea by the veterans, “freedom is not free”.

I: mm-hmm

A: and I think this is where any time I have made talks about my experience in Korea, my experiences in the military about national. . . my first often comment is “freedom is not free”. This country here was not, we did not become free because

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blood had to be shed. You go back and take a look, you know. I’ve been to Singapore several times and Singapore Fort Sentosa, the British held it before the Japanese invaded. Fort Sentosa, they had guns in there that could knock out anything in the harbor. The Japanese. . .Singapore

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felt like, the British felt like the Japanese would come by sea. The Japanese did not come by sea. They came across the causeway on bicycles, and those bicycles had machine guns mounted on them. Now that there’s a tank, so to speak, machine guns on a bicycle, Singapore surrendered just like that. The Japanese immediately queued all the men and the men

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were separated by looking at their hands. And those he had rough hands went to this side of the street, those that had smooth hands went this side of the street, and all those with smooth hands were put on trucks taken down to the ocean front and loaded down because they did knock them around, and so they got rid of them. They took the labor and they were able to have free labor, so the Japanese imperialism was very damaging, it was

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very careless

I: so go back to your point “freedom is not free”, and what are what are the other things that you think is the Korean War legacy?

A: I think that probably the thing that we will see how Korea has made use. . . they have taken the lemon and made the lemonade out of it.

I: mm-hmm. John, very nice meeting you.

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A: Same here.

I: It’s a wonderful time. Great, thank you so much!

A: Well, I thank you, sir.