Raymond L. Ayon

[Beginning of Transcribed Material]

 

I:          October 27, 2004.  And this is the beginning of an interview with Raymond Ayon at the Office of Congressman David Dreyer located in Glendora, California.  Mr. Ayon is 76 years old, having been born on January 14, 1929.  My name is Dorothy Schneider, and I’ll be the interviewer.  Mr. Ayon,

 

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thank you for being a part of the Veterans History Project.  And um, I’d like to begin the interview by having you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, your family, um, what you did prior to being involved in the Armed Forces.

R:        Um, Asuza was a small town at the beginning.  When I was a small child, and I lived through a small community at the time.

 

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In 1929.  And all the um, folks there I knew were um, orange pickers there.  [INAUDIBLE STATEMENT]. Those were depression years, and they, those were the only jobs available.

I:          This was Asuza, California.

R:        Azusa, California.  We were surrounded by orange groves as you might recall as was Glendora here.

 

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And uh, I grew up in local uh, elementary schools.  And uh, at age 15 or 16, 1941, the War broke out.  And right away, I started to get the urge to like say, reading all these uh, stories or hearing about my brothers.  They volunteered right away, and they, uh,

 

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kept sending us stories about their adventures overseas.  I um, well like I say, I kept seeing all those John Wayne movies about gung-ho stuff, and I got the urge.  And uh, I was too young.  I was only 16 at the time.  After my sophomore year at Citrus High School here, I um, I managed to get into the Merchant Marine at uh, the tender age of 16.

 

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Well, when I got there, I said, I um, am I too young to be doing this type of thing, young man of the world?  I mean, uh, growing up in a man’s world?  And uh, I went ahead and signed up and uh, boarded a ship in San Francisco Bay, uh.

I:          Did you have to go through any kind of training?
R:        Uh, nothing at all uh.  The Merchant Marine at that time was a civilian job.

 

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I:          Right.

R:        And uh, they saw fit that I would be uh, the best boy and uh, cook’s helper, dishwasher and uh, making tons of coffee for the sea men.  And uh, I spent a whole year in the Merchant Marines, uh.  A couple of voyages, one back to Japan, picked up troops, bring them back on the old Liberty ship,

 

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names US Stepas Darius. And to this day, I don’t know what Darius means, Stepas Darius.  But that was the name of the ship, Liberty.  Those ships were built in a big hurry.

I:          I know.

R:        During the War.  And uh,

I:          Kaiser built them, didn’t he?

R:        Did he, Kaiser, yes.  And uh, I sailed.  And we brought back a boat load of uh, troops coming home from the Wars in the Pacific.

 

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After that, uh, San Francisco again.

I:          The ships used to break up in the high seas.

R:        I’ll tell you the story about that.  And uh, we went empty after spending time in San Francisco, uh, our ship was vacant or free or cargo.  And it was riding high empty.

 

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So, we sailed down the coast and went through the canal.  Prior to that, I um, I had shore leave there in Panama City on the Pacific side.  And um, I wasn’t used to drinking like the grown men were, and I got sicker than all get out.  I got sick. But in fact, they carried me back on the ship, the old guys.

 

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And I said boy oh boy, I’m gonna get to see the Panama Canal.  A big adventure right there.  And all I spent my time seeing through the locks was the walls going up and down because I had a porthole where I could see the locks.  And I was busier than heck cleaning, making coffee, um, washing dishes.  And I was getting very, very busy feeding the crews and everything.  But I didn’t see much of the locks.

 

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But in the middle uh, Wantoh Lake or something like that,

I:          Wantanna, yeah.

R:        Yeah.  We went through there.  And I had a break and saw all the greenery along the sides of the jungle there, the shoreline.

I:          Wantune Lake.

R:        Wantune.

I:          Wantune.

R:        This is a weird, long story.  But something short, we got into the other side, the aligning side, and uh, the guys, um,

 

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bought a big bundle of bananas, a parrot.  And the bananas, they hung on the um, wherever anybody could get them once they ripened.  And the parrot, he ran free all over the boat.  And uh, he spoke Spanish.  Okay.  So, we traveled and lo and behold, we had a typhoon,

 

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big waves.  Our little Stepas Darius Liberty ship was like down here, and the waves were up here.  And that thing was empty.  And it was creaking and groaning and moaning.  And you’d hear the ship.  I thought surely, they, it could break in half, you know.  But uh, everybody was sick on that ship, even the skipper, old sea.  And I asked him is this very rough weather?  He says

 

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the worst it can get.  So, that must have been quite a storm.  Anyway, we passed the storm and wound our way to the anchoring at Norfolk or Chesapeake Bay.

I:          Um hm.

R:        And we were anchored out there waiting for the pilot to take us into dry dock or someplace in Baltimore.  And uh, a Navy big transport ship broke its side doors or something, and we were,

 

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In our little rooms, and I glance out and I see a big old ship had smashed us right in half.  And uh, it did damage.  But the ship was still sailable.  So, they took us to dry dock at um, Baltimore.  And uh, the ship was way up high uh, the dry dock, for the repairs.

 

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And they were getting very cold, the weather up there in Baltimore.  And uh, the proceeding orders, across the Bay, there was a place with a flag flying.  That was Fort McHenry.  I remember that, Forth McHenry.  Ain’t that where the National Anthem was wrote?  Athey said yeah.  And uh, I said well, as long as we’re gonna be here, I’m gonna go visit that place.

 

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So, I took a bus.  It was snow.  I walked to the Fort, and there was a sign up front said closed for winter.  So, I went back.  And let’s see.  What else did I do there?  Dry dock, being repaired.  Can’t do nothing much.  So, I took a trip to uh, D.C., Washington.  And I saw some of the sites there.  But also,

 

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we get there.  And there was about ankle-deep snow and very, very cold.  So, finally after repairs, we um, we spent uh, that’s where I had my 17^th birthday, in Baltimore, New Year’s or a little after New Year’s.  And uh, I remember everybody was blowing the big horn on the ship.  And a lot of

 

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inebriated uh, Merchant Marines were all over the place.  Anyway, um, it was soon that they loaded us down with coal of all things, coal.  And they’d taken all the armaments off the ship.  Our Liberty ship had two guns on the end, big ones, and about six 50 caliber machine guns.  So, they dismantled

 

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all these uh, these weapons and made it a true Merchant ship.  So, with this cold, we headed South.  And as we went down, the weather was getting warmer.

I:          Were you in a convoy?

R:        No, no, no.  It was uh, now civilians.  The War was over.  And we went to South America.  And uh, took time to unload the ship.  So, I visited quite a bit of uh, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Brazil.

 

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And then in Santos, they loaded up with um, loaded the uh, coal and then reloaded with coffee, a lot of coffee.  And uh, I made some friends out there, the uh, civilians.  Brazilian guard invited me to his home, and he says I’ll show you the town.  He did.  It was enjoyable, and I learned what Brazil’s all about more or less.

 

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That area.  We came back, and the Union, Maritime Union, nailed me and said you are not qualified to be a Merchant Mariner.  So, they let me go in New York.  And they gave me passage back to California.  So, that was my end of the Merchant Marine adventure.

I:          Well then, when did you enlist or?

R:        Huh?

I:          When did you enlist

 

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in the Armed Forces?
R:        Okay.  So, I came back, and I had left school after my sophomore year, and I went back one year later to rejoin my classmates as a junior in high school.  And I finished after three years.  After graduation in 1948, I um, joined the Air Force [INAUDIBLE].  I don’t know.

 

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I was still young and adventurous.  And my high school sweetheart, she wanted to get married.  I said no, no, no, no until, a lot of things that I would like to do.  So, I joined the Air Force.  And uh, after basic training over here in San Antonio or Lackland Air Force Base,

I:          Um hm.

R:        On basic training, they shipped us directly to the Far East, Japan.  So, should I continue with the Maritime story?

 

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I:          Well, are we leading towards Korea here?
R:        Yeah.

I:          Let’s, Merchant Marine is interesting, um.  But I’d sort of like to hear about the, your experiences in Korea.

R:        Oh yeah.  Yeah.  After um, about a year, we were in Japan, we kept, I was assigned to the 36^th Fighter Bomber Squadron.

 

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I:          What was your capacity?
R:        Um, nothing yet.  They couldn’t find a spot for me or uh, all my buddies were sent to uh, Aircraft Mechanic School.  But I uh, I couldn’t qualify.  I didn’t have the aptitude.  So, the guy who was trying to send me to school kept trying.  And on one occasion, in the meantime, they had placement of the um,

 

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refueling unit um, crew or, what they called the base for fueling.  I was driving a rig with a big tank of gasoline, uh, refueling um, mostly uh, the B51 fighter planes and other big aircraft.  So, one day they tell me boy, we found a place where you could go to school.

 

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And uh, in my writings, I’ve written that um, we are sending you to Shiprin Mechanic School.  I knew nothing what a [INAUDIBLE] was.  That’s uh, and I was elated.  Hey, I’m going to Mechanic School sometime.  But no.  The supply was at, it was a medical school.  A shanker is some type of VD infection.

 

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Guys get.  And they were, of all things, they were sending me to a medical laboratory technician school along with either corpsmen or giving aid to the wounded and stuff.  And here I am placed, the only Air Force guy amongst about 150 Army servicemen taking the uh, medical schools, the um, the corpsmen school.

I:          Um hm.

 

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R:        So, I give aid to the wounded.  So, I am taking the longer course in lab tech school.  And uh, I had no idea what I was getting into.  The lab tech, what he does in civilian life, he does in the Service also.  And in the training, they partnered me up with one lonely black

 

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uh, soldier, black.  And uh, she would be my partner.  That’s the way it was cause they’d pair them off because in class, they would uh, have us stick each other.  And in those days, they used 20-gauge needles which is a big needle.  So, the girl, she probes into my veins and oh,

 

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did it ever hurt.  We were, and then I tried to find her little old veins with that big old needle.  And that was torture.  Poor kid.  She, to me, she was the biggest girl I’d ever seen.  Go ahead, Ray.  Don’t be scared.  She turned out, go ahead.  Get your blood.  That only occurred once as the instructors found that we were hurting each other pretty bad.  So, we’d take samples of blood and uh, type them and uh,

 

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count corpuscles and stuff like that.  Um, but anyway, we finished the course.  And that was after about a year.

I:          Pardon me for interrupting.  It seems like kind of an odd jump to go from driving a refueling truck to basically medical course full.

R:        Well, there was a story behind that, too.  I had uh, my

 

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high school grades with me.  And in Biology, I had straight A’s.

I:          Uh huh.

R:        I loved the course Biology.  And apparently these guys that gave me the assignment to another school, uh, saw that.  Your instructor at [INAUDIBLE] High School was uh, Dr. Sturgiss?  I said yes, a very good teacher.  So, maybe that’s what turned them on to sending me to lab school.

I:          I see.

R:        But it wasn’t a whole lab.  It was also the training of taking care of

 

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wounded GI’s.  So, I finished the course.  And uh, I had on-the-job training at uh, Air Base called [INAUDIBLE STATEMENT], the biggest air base.  That’s where our squadron was.  Um, they sent me to the base.  They called it the dispensary or infirmary or something.

I:          Um hm.

R:        Anyway, I had a lot of good practice there

 

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doing my diagnosis of um, different ailments, mostly venereal.  And there’s so many stories to tell about that, um.

I:          Well, this is a G-rated uh, audio.

R:        Anyway, that’s where I met my very good friend and buddy Mike.  I uh,

 

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I called him my guardian angel, old Big John Crabtree uh, big, strong man, still a young man.  He showed me the ropes.  And this man, he loved to give penicillin shots with that big old needle.  They would bend over, and he’d um, he would handle the injection of the wonder drug penicillin at that time.  And uh, one or two doses of that penicillin stuff, that would cure them of uh, their ailments.

 

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So, after a while, I had been working at the base in the infirmary.  And then uh, on a Sunday, the War broke out in Korea.  A couple of days later, I found myself on a C47 transport plane.  And we had no idea where we were going.  We landed in an airstrip, uh,

 

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a place called Suwon.  And the battle was near by us when we departed the plane.  We could hear cannon fire, artillery going off nearby.  And we were loading uh, wounded, casualties.  And what struck me the most was pine boxes.

 

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They had numerous pine boxes, none of this fancy metal casket-type thing.  Apparently, they um, hired Korean carpenters to bang out a whole bunch of wooden caskets, pine.  And I recall the wood smelling green still, pitch coming out of the boxes,

 

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blood oozing out, mixed with the pitch.  And we loaded a whole bunch on the ship, wounded coming in aboard ship.

I:          I know how difficult this is.  These are painful memories.  It’s alright.

 

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You’re a brave man.  You’re a brave man.

R:        That was my first sight of war.

I:          That’s horrendous.

R:        Guys without arms, legs.

 

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That’s where I learned to give them Morphine shots.

I:          How ‘bout if we turn off the video for just a minute?  Then we can start it again.  Would you want to?

 

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R:        I’d been around 19, 20-year-olds, you know, some 18, just kids really.  And these kids have been, I knew some of the Army guys, none of them that way.  But maybe they were there.  But they were also marching with uh, gunpowder and smelling of gun powder.  And uh, it was a horrific situation there.  A bunch of caskets, blood

 

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oozing off their sides.  You had all these wounded and injured people.  And uh, the one kid had no arms and bandaged up.

I:          Did you sense that these were North Koreans?  Or did you sense they were Chinese that were doing the attacking?
R:        Oh, it was the North Koreans right away.

I:          Cause we interviewed one fellow who said that

 

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when he was in the jungles in Korea, that he would run across the Chinese with the red stars on the caps.

R:        There were no jungles in Korea.  There were no jungles.

I:          Was that Viet Nam?

R:        Viet Nam.

I:          Oh well.

R:        Anyway, they

I:          They were being supplied by then.

R:        They had said that this was going to be a police action.
I:          Right.

R:        That it could be done, uh, the War would be ending in a big hurry.

 

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They um, said oh, go do your job, and we’ll bring all the bodies back and all the wounded and stuff.  And uh, then they had some police action.  It turned into a conflict.  Then the Korean incident or something, something minor.  But in time,

 

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it would turn into a full out war.  Anyway, the uh, when it was, the beginning, when it was a, the uh, a police action, they said oh, we’ll bring all the bodies back to Japan and uh, at the hospital in [INAUDIBLE].  They would lay them out in the courtyard there.  And uh, I didn’t tell you about the

 

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body parts.  And it’s true that sometimes they would make up a body by getting different parts.  It was gory and gruesome, bloody mess.

I:          How about the MASH units in Korea?  I mean we

R:        I uh, I eventually wound up in a MASH unit.

I:          Uh huh.

R:        The Army needed a lab tech.  So, they sent for me, and I got stuck with them for months at a time and years.

 

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I was in Korea so long that I say the four seasons.  The wintertime is cold, deadly cold.  And uh, us guys from sunny southern California weren’t used to this stuff.  And not only that, we weren’t prepared clothing-wise for the elements.  We had

I:          They didn’t outfit you with

R:        Combat boots, like uh,

 

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combat boots each used to have a little strap.  And uh, even my folks at home sent me some heavy sweatshirts to wear underneath to try to keep warm. But that’s when, a different story.  I wrote down in my memoirs that the uh, how deadly napalm is.  You’ve heard of napalm?

I:          Oh, sure.

 

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R:        Okay.  That, that burns forever.  So, they sent us out on a detail to pick up firewood.  And the armies ahead of us had already cleaned out the area of firewood.  So, we were out there in no man’s land looking for firewood of all things.  Excuse me, I got to go to the bathroom. [INAUDIBLE]

 

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I:          Okay.  Tell me about the, the napalm and collecting firewood.

R:        Okay.  Uh, one of our guys, we could find firewood.  So, he said let’s go to the strip and rip off a drum of napalm.   He’d seen it done before.  So, we had um, a tent.  We had a drum um, gasoline fuel drum.  Anyway we, we made a stove out of it.  And by experimenting how much

 

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material to put in there, the napalm, it would light up.  And sometimes it would stay for hours and hours burning.  So, that was a perfect, uh, heat source cause we were shivering.  We were cold.  And you get into situations where it’s sub-zero cold.

I:          How about the fumes?  It smells so

R:        Um, well, there was a vent.  We’d um,

 

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in order to get the heat, we, I don’t remember the smoke or stuff like that.  Anyway, it was a good source of firing our fuel, keep it warm from freezing.  So, this type of thing went on and on.  And I, I made several trips with the uh, caskets, pinewood caskets.  And uh, I’ll never forget the

 

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load of caskets I had in Japan to take to the morgue or the hospital.  The uh, the caskets were behind me, about six high.  And uh, there’s a sign that says uh, stop in case of low flying aircraft.  And I wasn’t paying too much attention, and here comes a plane land.

 

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And I slammed on my brakes, and here comes a casket.  And that casket might have gotten me fright in the neck if it hadn’t been for the back of the seat.

I:          Oh, my goodness.

R:        It, it slammed into the seat and put me against the steering wheel.  So, that was a close one.  But I had to push back and push that casket back where it belonged.  Just needed to be more careful next time on

 

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trips crossing runways.

I:          But you were with the MASH unit.  And of course, we all know that the tv series MASH lasted three times longer than the War did.

R:        Well.
I:          Um, was it like that?

R:        In cases, yes.  Like uh, my commanders in the MASH unit were uh, an Australian.  Now remember this was a United Nations war.

 

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And we had troopers from all different parts of the world.  My commander was uh, named Kader, Commander Kader, an old veteran soldier whom I’d get to know real well.  He carried a gun with him all the time [INAUDIBLE].  Um, then after having left Commander Kader behind,

 

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we were going up to uh, another place.  And this time, they uh, recruited a civilian.  I wrote about him last night, a civilian.  I don’t remember his name.  But they made a captain out of him in charge of us.  He was a missionary’s son who had a leprosarium in Taegu, right in the middle of town.

 

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I:          A leprosarium being a leper colony?

R:        A leper colony.  And he gave us, our commander, the captain, gave us a tour of the place.  That’s a place to stay away from.  A leprosarium.  Anyway, at Taegu, I um, I uh, had experience of uh, taking care of

 

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uh, enemy POWs.  We would, uh, give them a bath with hoses, delouse them.  I remember this, I don’t remember if it was a North Korean or a Chinaman, that had a big wound in his face, his eyes.  And the poor guy was peeling out maggots out of his eyes.

 

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Anyway, we treated him as best we could and then gave him an inoculation of something.  I don’t recall what it was.  But when they saw me coming with that needle, they were scared terrible.  They were frightened that my syringes and uh,

I:          Well, they probably had never seen them.

R:        Yeah.  Well, we gave

 

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them the treatment.  Treated all their wounds and sent them on their way.  So, this story goes on and on.  Two years off and on.  Uh, the Pusan Perimeter is when the North Koreans almost shoved us into the ocean.

I:          Right, yeah.

R:        And we were, had very little real estate there in Korea at that time.  In fact, our squadron was sent back to Japan.

I:          How did people feel about MacArthur?

 

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R:        I got a glimpse of MacArthur.

I:          Was that enough?

R:        Yeah.  In one of the uh, crossings of the Han River which is the main river separating Seoul from the south,

I:          Um hm.

R:        There’s the Han River.  All bridges were down, and uh, we were waiting in live to cross a pontoon bridge.  And here comes a motorcycle and a

 

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lot of horns and sirens and like make way, make way.  And here comes a staff car with the flag’s three stars, I mean four stars.  I don’t know how many stars MacArthur had.

I:          Five stars.

R:        And a guy says oh, there’s General MacArthur.  And they gave him the throughway.  As he went past, I do remember seeing his corncob pipe.  Naturally, all the young guys,

 

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all the soldiers, everybody was waving and whistling and cheering.  But uh, he paid no attention to us, MacArthur.

I:          Well now, speaking of battles and five stars, tell, can you tell us a little bit about some of the medals that you received here that you brought with you today?

R:        Oh, you know.

I:          You can pick it up if you want to.

R:        These are the original, these are the originals I was given over there before my departure from the War.

I:          Uh huh.

 

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R:        And

I:          These are tags.

R:        Yeah.

I:          And tell me about these medals here.

R:        That’d be um, Air Force number one.  And this is um, the Korean Presidential Citation, which was uh, brought back, I guess.  The original had these colors.  And this one has these colors.

I:          Right.  The Korean flag, uh huh.

R:        Yeah.  It’s about the same as this one,

 

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you know, the original, given to me about, what was it, 60 years ago, when I left.  And uh, this one, Korean uh, United Nations.

I:          Right, blue and white, um hm.

R:        Uh, the Fifth Air Force was what I was in, Good Conduct, Japan Occupation, um. [INAUDIBLE]

I:          That looks like United Nations.

R:        United Nations, yeah.

 

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And uh, this is the uh, Defense, National Defense medal.  And the one I’m lacking is uh, Purple Heart cause I got hurt over there, too.  And during the commotion of wounded and everything, I never received my Purple Heart.

I:          Well, it’s not too late.  There have been other people that

R:        I believe that uh,

 

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I:          Congressman Dryer

R:        There’s allowances made for things that happened during the War.  I was involved in a very nasty crash, uh, not a crash but uh, automobile accident.  I wrote about it, uh.  We were, anyway, there’s my original dog tags and my uh, rations can cut in two.  And I must have cut open hundreds of cans acquiring a taste for tuna.

 

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And these were leftovers or uh, from the Second World War.  Everything we had was Second World War stuff.

I:          Um hm.

R:        Um, but anyway, I’m pretty proud of these.

I:          Yes, you should be.

R:        What’d you say about MASH?
I:          Oh, just if the tv show that we all kind of form our opinions if it was really like that.

R:        It was an idea.  But uh, to me,

 

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It was a very different cause we were there.  And we saw what it was really like.  And I never saw any pretty nurses.  No pretty nurse in the real thing.  And uh, the leading characters were uh, dressed properly, um.

I:          I guess what I was thinking more of is the oh, you know, sometimes the kind of black humor in the,

 

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in the face of all of this and in the artillery barrages they’re still making jokes and uh,

R:        Well, then I have something to say about that, too.  I would say there’s a lot of don’t tell the truth.  I won’t call them imposters or anything like that.

I:          Well, it’s a movie show.  We know that.

R:        Because I know guys myself that uh,

 

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like I was asked, there’s a picture there, did you see combat?  And that’s what irks me.  Is War all that is, combat?  Everybody wants to see somebody shooting somebody else, combat.  Combat, in war, there’s um, a lot of things happening behind those uh, front lines.  And people don’t seem to realize.  All they want to see is a gung-ho, John Wayne-type thing.  I uh, I [INAUDIBLE].

 

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There’s guys marching in parades here that I know wearing a whole bunch of [INAUDIBLE] or campaign ribbons that they either, I uh, I’m spilling the beans now because I know the uh, imposters have.  That’s why I found there’s hardly any service organizations at this time.

I:          I was gonna ask if you joined any.

R:        No cause uh, I went there once thinking that I might join.

 

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Oh Ray, where’d you see combat?  I didn’t see no combat.  I was a medic, although even as a medic, I carried a weapon.  Mine must have been the dirtiest weapon in all of Korea.  I never fired that thing.  It got rusty.  And during that accident, I was in the truck that landed on me, landed on my rifle, bent it in half.

 

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The uh, big part, when they were chasing the Koreans out of South Korea.

I:          In Inchon?
R:        Oh, yeah.  MacArthur made his Inchon Landing.  But we were moving forward.  And the word was that he would have us home by Christmas.  So, everybody was hurrying to chase uh, Koreans, North Koreans out of South Korea.  And I was in a truck convoy.

 

0:39:30

And we were the last vehicle in that convoy, trucks, ambulances.  And our weapon carrier, uh, in the rear.  We were catching all the dust.  It was a summer day.  And there was a makeshift road grater trying to clear the road.

I:          What’s a road grater?
R:        Road grater?  Uh, they had a blade in front of a

 

0:40:00

truck pushing dirt out of the side of the way.  And the brooms [INAUDIBLE] was very narrow.  So, gingerly all the convoy went around in good order except this nut that was driving our truck stopped at a little uh, supposedly liquor store.  But they sold him a little bottle of

 

0:40:30

Korean booze they called Santori.  So, really a macho man, he was drinking that stuff.  In time, we reached him, that stuff was poisonous.  Uh, it got to him, I guess.  When our turn came to go around that road grater, the broom gave way, and I says Jesus, we’re going over.  So, naturally I tried to jump.

 

0:41:00

But the momentum of the truck going over threw me with it.  So, there I go, flying through space along with the two teenage thieves we picked up as hitchhikers.  And the driver hung onto the wheel.  And I said whoa, wait.  I landed, and I knew I was gonna die then.  It’s a fact that

 

0:41:30

When you feel that you’re gonna die, you say uh, you can relive your whole life through.  I found that to be true.  And all of a sudden, I saw the shadow coming down on top of me, the truck.  See, we were towing ahead of the truck.  And I remember seeing the kids and the baggage all flying down

 

0:42:00

with us.  So, I could barely open my eyes.  When I got up and I saw that truck rolling, rolling twice, and it landed in a river bottom there with its wheels on the ground.  I uh, heard crying and moaning and groaning and um,

 

0:42:30

I felt myself for broken bones, none.  I was bleeding all over my head, my side, and aches and pains.  So,

I:          But you survived.
R:        Yeah.  Then uh, there was a whole bunch of refugees on the road, and the workers that were up there.  I waved them down for help.

 

0:43:00
And they uh, came down to help us, took all our belongings up there, took out the casualties, one of the boys.  And the other one was about to die, too.  They took him up.  That guy in the truck, he hung onto the wheel and rolled it all the way down.

 

0:43:30
And the truck was a good one, I guess.  And he got it going again after all that tumbling down.  And he managed to find his way up.  And uh, I got my aid kit, medical aid kit, and I got some compress bandages and wrapped my face.  And uh, very recently my wife had our wedding picture redone.

 

0:44:00

And in our wedding picture was four years later, ’56, I still got that scar that I got in Korea.  My right eye was banged up pretty bad.  It’s officially blind now.  If I were to go this way, I can’t see you.  I’ve got one good eye, the left one.  Uh, I guess it was me

 

0:44:30

that punched myself like this and uh, in the head, I banged myself, two big black eyes.  I had head wounds, dripping blood all over my face.  My side especially was breaking down.  So, finally we, we took the kids to a Korean hospital in the next village or town.

 

0:45:00

And uh, they wouldn’t accept them.  We’re already full.  We’re already full with head wounds.  We can’t help you.  I said well, what are we gonna do with these, this dead kid and the one that’s hit?  The other one’s about to die, too.  So, reluctantly they accepted them.  Finally, we got to a MASH unit where they patched me up pretty good.   [INAUDIBLE] But my work was needed

 

0:45:30

as a life tag. So, I got started.  I was a walking wounded, all bandaged up and doing my job already.

I:          How did you deal with the stress?
R:        The stress?  Of this accident?
I:          Just in general.

R:        Well, you saw me bawling here a while ago.  And uh, taking back, wow.  The guys should know that.  And uh,

I:          It just seemed normal at the time?

 

0:46:00

R:        No.  I was glad to be out of there.  Did I experience all that?  Certainly I did.

I:          How do you feel it’s changed your life by having been in the Armed Forces and being in Korea?
R:        Um, how has it changed my life?  [INAUDIBLE] I thought I did a job in a faraway place, and I’m quite proud of what I did.

I:          Um hm.

 

0:46:30

R:        Um, that’s why I frown on these guys playing soldier over here wearing ribbons they never earned.  I for one don’t know the, these two stars were on my, what’s the name?  They’re not battle stars I don’t think.  Was it for the two years, a star for each year, the Silver Stars?

 

0:47:00

Um,

I:          Isn’t there a book?
R:        Yeah.  They sent me a

I:          They usually send a book that explains the whole thing.
R:        Yeah.  These are taken care of at Randolph Field, Texas.  And uh, whatever they are, I must have earned them because uh,

I:          You got them.

R:        I don’t know.  Like I wrote,

 

0:47:30

like when I left, they handed me a handful of medals or awards.  And uh, the medals I didn’t get till recently.  They sent them to me from Randolph Field.  But there’s so many stories to tell.

I:          Oh yes.

R:        Like um, we, there’s a train ride, a train ride, like I titled in my story on that one of trains, I mean, uh,

 

0:48:00

planes, trucks, ambulances, trains.  This idiot that went off the road would get me in trouble again.  He said you and you and you, you, you’re gonna ride the train and guard that boxcar full of medical supplies.  This was in a place called Yeongdeungpo, the city next to Seoul, Korea.  And we were, our train boxcar

 

0:48:30

was right alongside a brewery.  And what we didn’t know was there’s a dumb guy.  He went in and emptied our water rations and ruined what we, thinking he was being smart.  So, the train rolled up and gets across the river, Han, and makes it to, well, we started on our journey.  And Seoul, Korea and Pyoung, the North Korean capital, are pretty close.

 

0:49:00

And it was about a day drive I think, two hundred miles at the most.  Anyway, here we were in the middle of the week and three days had gone by and we’d uh, eaten our rations.  And eventually we wanted water, fresh water from our supply.  And here we opened this container, and it’s all beer, rotten beer, like vinegar.

 

0:49:30

Man oh man, those two other guys that were with us, there were four of us, wanted to kill the GI because we needed water.  Do you know how we can get more water?  Go to the engine and have the guy blow his whistle or something, and the water would spurt out.  So, that was our water supply for once, and melted snow.  Then our rations ran out.  And there was no communication with anybody.

 

0:50:00

We’re out there in North Korea, and I uh, I remember being uh, sidetracked at Panmunjom. That’s where they had the Armistice or what’s still going on over there

I:          Right.

R:        The demarcation line.
I:          Um hm.

R:        Panmunjom was just a village then.  And further off, we ran out of food, we ran out of rations.  We were hungry naturally.

 

0:50:30

You wouldn’t believe [INAUDIBLE]  We went out searching for wood and food from farmers that were just in worse shape than us.  But they were pretty smart, and their refrigerators were big holes in the ground, those cellar-type things that were frozen stiff.  So, that’s where they kept their food stuffs.  We managed to get

 

0:51:00

a chicken, bag of rice, vegetables of any kind, chili peppers that they love, the Koreans do, chili peppers.  So, here we come back.  And you know what we were using for money?  We had no money.  So, we were swapping blankets which they wanted badly.  So, we swapped blankets

 

0:51:30

for foodstuffs.  So, we boiled that chicken in uh, makeshift containers, defeathered it and cut him up in pieces and put him in the pot.  And anything that would cook the vegetables that we’d gotten.  And that was a good, hot meal.  Uh, to this day, I go to Mexican restaurants, and I ask them

 

0:52:00

Do you have Arroz Con Pollo, rice which chicken?
I:          Um hm.

R:        Always remember that.  So, after a week, we arrive at Pyongyang which is the capital of North Korea.  Snow all over the place.  We weren’t there about three days, pack up.  We were heading South because the Chinese are coming in.

 

0:52:30

Coming in strong.  And once again, we could hear the artillery going off, boom, boom, boom, boom.  The Chinese came in real strong.  And uh, all these retreats we went on, I went on about three of them, three retreats.  But they called them strategic withdrawals.  We were running for our lives.  The Chinamen were, we’d get wound up in the prison some place

 

0:53:00

or killed.  Also, that boxcar was set, go and destroy that boxcar.  You know where it’s at.  So, we set it on fire, everything in it.  All they asked for was to get the [INAUDIBLE] and my microscope.  So, we all filed into our ambulance.  The guy ahead.

 

0:53:30

And I believe we were going out of Pyongyang.  They had a big parkway in between, [INAUDIBLE]  So, they had it all stacked up with ammunitions, the emergency or the uh, United Nations troopers.  And that was all going up in smoke.  Boom, boom, boom all over the place.  So, up arise, out of town we could see back, and we saw like in this movie of Sodom and Gomorrah, that place

 

0:54:00

was burning up, Pyongyang.

I:          Well, this has been a very, very interesting interview.  And uh, you certainly have a lot of memories and experiences um.  And I’d just like to thank you for sharing just the portion of everything that you did and certainly what you did for your, for your country, um.  And um, our grateful nation.  So, thank you very, very much for coming in

 

0:54:30

today and speaking with us.

 

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