meeting korean war veteran
Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 7:07 pm
so we got invited to have dinner with this Korean war veteran and it was really cool.
Its hard enough to shake hands with a Korean war veteran and have dinner with him. Its even harder to shake hands with a Korean war veteran who also served in the air force.
So he says that he was 18 when the war started and they were running away from the north koreans and one day, these soldiers came to the refugee people and started to take all the guys to send them off to battle. He's only 18 but he was so tall that they thought he was in college and took him off, sucks for him!
He got trained for like a month. When they found out he was really smart (he was studying law at the time), they made him an artilliery officer, so its the guy who stands in the front lines but doesn't shoot a gun and instead radios the artillery to shoot at an (x,y) location.
Pretty soon found himself up in north korea (this is the time when the ROK and UN forces were raping the north koreans, see the big picture)
When the chinese came down the UN forces started to retreat. And in one really large battle, he lost ALL his friends. He told me that when he called for artillery barrage, he'd go hide in a foxhole. When he came out, all the communist guys were dead
but then behind them there would be like another wave of soldiers.
I learned something funny and its that the chinese officers forced their soldiers to smoke opium and make them really high so that they wouldn't be scared to run forward in gunfire.
After this big battle, the veteran got so scared that he applied for the air force, which was looking for korean candidates to fly P-51 mustangs. He got picked (and told me that getting picked saved his life)
So what he did as a p-51 pilot was that he took pictures in it. Sounds boring but he said it was actually scary. So first, the bombers and everyone else would blow up their target, and then he'd fly in and take pictures. He said that it was scary because there were still some anti-aircraft guns that would fire at him.
One time, his plane got shot and the AA gun ripped off like half his wing but managed to get back to safe territory
you can't imagine what would happen to him if he got caught by the communists
he also won the highest military honor of south Korea which would be the equivelent to the medal of honor in the US. Its pretty cool because the Korean government hands him $150 per month for his service in the Korean army.
Its a rarity to meet a Korean war veteren who was also in the US 8th army, serving in the US air force too. And he's the only one left alive.
when you guys see a veteran, somebody who fought for justice, hope you thank him/her
Its hard enough to shake hands with a Korean war veteran and have dinner with him. Its even harder to shake hands with a Korean war veteran who also served in the air force.
So he says that he was 18 when the war started and they were running away from the north koreans and one day, these soldiers came to the refugee people and started to take all the guys to send them off to battle. He's only 18 but he was so tall that they thought he was in college and took him off, sucks for him!
He got trained for like a month. When they found out he was really smart (he was studying law at the time), they made him an artilliery officer, so its the guy who stands in the front lines but doesn't shoot a gun and instead radios the artillery to shoot at an (x,y) location.
Pretty soon found himself up in north korea (this is the time when the ROK and UN forces were raping the north koreans, see the big picture)
When the chinese came down the UN forces started to retreat. And in one really large battle, he lost ALL his friends. He told me that when he called for artillery barrage, he'd go hide in a foxhole. When he came out, all the communist guys were dead
but then behind them there would be like another wave of soldiers.
I learned something funny and its that the chinese officers forced their soldiers to smoke opium and make them really high so that they wouldn't be scared to run forward in gunfire.
After this big battle, the veteran got so scared that he applied for the air force, which was looking for korean candidates to fly P-51 mustangs. He got picked (and told me that getting picked saved his life)
So what he did as a p-51 pilot was that he took pictures in it. Sounds boring but he said it was actually scary. So first, the bombers and everyone else would blow up their target, and then he'd fly in and take pictures. He said that it was scary because there were still some anti-aircraft guns that would fire at him.
One time, his plane got shot and the AA gun ripped off like half his wing but managed to get back to safe territory
you can't imagine what would happen to him if he got caught by the communists
he also won the highest military honor of south Korea which would be the equivelent to the medal of honor in the US. Its pretty cool because the Korean government hands him $150 per month for his service in the Korean army.
Its a rarity to meet a Korean war veteren who was also in the US 8th army, serving in the US air force too. And he's the only one left alive.
when you guys see a veteran, somebody who fought for justice, hope you thank him/her
