Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [43]
April 10, 1951,
...You asked if I knew anything about what happened to Norman Johnson [buddy from home]. We’re not supposed to write anything about what happened to anyone over here, but the letters aren’t censored. As far as I know he’s missing in action. He was in the infantry when we were trapped up north and no one saw him after we got out. He was either killed or captured as far as I know...This is just between you and me.
Pusan, Korea
May 4, 1951,
I’ve been here about six hours and I’m ready to go back to Masan. This place is located just south of the refuse dump and there is a strong wind blowing from the north. What a terrible odor! The natural smell of Korea is bad enough but this is worse...
Masan, Korea
May 17, 1951,
...The middle of May and again I, with everyone else, starts hoping they’ll make the June draft...But the odds are greatly increased on being selected as now there remains only six-thousand of the original division over here and there will be around three-thousand leaving in June.
May 21, 1951,
...Today’s the twenty-first—exactly eight months in this place, much too long...
July 2, 1951,
Looks like the communists are going to cooperate this time on a cease fire in Korea. Talks start next week, between the 10th and 15th of July...
July 29, 1951,
I thought I was in rear-echelon...far from the fighting front. Well, after last night I’m wondering. We had an attack by communist guerrillas, around a hundred of them. It didn’t last long but while it lasted, rounds were flying all over the place...
August 28, 1951,
Remember that poem I finished my last letter with? I guess it paid off cause I’m not sweating it out any longer—I made the list!...
September 4, 1951,
Here I am in Pusan, here for the last time! I’m not going to have tears in my eyes when I have to leave here...We’re going on the USS General Mitchell, a large troopship...
USS Mitchell
September 20, 1951,
We’re out here somewhere close to San Francisco but we can’t tell, we’re in a dense fog. The fog is so thick you can’t see from one end of the ship to the other. Scuttlebutt has us close to the Farallone Islands, not too far from the entrance to San Francisco Bay. We know land is close because we can smell it and there are more seagulls flying around. Everyone has a bet down as to when we’ll land. I’m on deck like everyone else waiting in anticipation of seeing something.
I just looked up and there was the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge.
I’m home!
I’ll call you collect as soon as I can get to a phone.
Thank goodness, Arlee’s sister—Barbara—worked for the phone company and she was able to get us a 50 percent discount. So, for the next fourteen days our bill came to seventy dollars. I stayed in San Francisco until the 3rd of October, so in the meantime my aunt and uncle wined and dined me. They even took me to the Stanford homecoming football game against California.
I left San Francisco on the 3rd of October, and arrived in Tacoma the following afternoon. Standing in the same place where Arlee and I said our goodbyes in August of 1950—stood Arlee. What a joyous homecoming!
On October 20, 1951, Arlee Curtice and I were married.
I was separated from active service on February 19, 1952, and received my final discharge from inactive service on July 18, 1958.
~~Fourteen~~
Carroll Everist
5th Cavalry Regiment
1st Cavalry Division
U.S. Army
I was born in Mason City, Iowa on September 8, 1931. And at the age of seventeen I volunteered for the Iowa National Guard, which was divided in two different sections—Army or Air Force. I chose the Army National Guard. I received training at the Armory with summer training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
When I turned eighteen,