Flashback: Veterans from three wars share their stories

Experiences of WWII, Korea, Vietnam leave strong memories

mrrandall726@hotmail.com

[ Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in the Nov. 11, 2008 edition of the Times, and with it being Veterans Day, I thought it was well worth revisiting]

Doyle Scott

Doyle Scott still remembers seeing the shadows of where people once stood in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped.

Scott was part of the occupation force stationed in Japan following the end of WWII.

“I was at Ground Zero,” Scott said. “It (Hiroshima) was just barren.”

Although the devastation caused by the atomic bomb was shocking, Scott said he is still glad President Harry Truman decided to use it.

Millions of Americans would almost certainly have died in the invasion of the Japanese home islands, he said.

“When we went in on those LCUs (Landing Craft Utility), they could have wiped us out,” Scott said.

Scott was part of a group of local veterans from three wars who met recently for breakfast at Shoney’s to share their war experiences and to remind residents about Veterans Day.

Scott, who spent 22 years in the military, was drafted into the Army in December 1944. After training at Ft.

Knox, he shipped out with the 41st Infantry Division to Leyte and Mindanao in the Philippines.

“The war had just got over when I got there, praise the Lord,” Scott said. “But they were still mopping up in the hills.”

After the Philippines were secured, the unit was sent to Japan and occupation duty on the island of Honshu just outside of Hiroshima, arriving the day before his 18th birthday in October 1945.

“We would go up in the hills and bring down ammunition and destroy it,” Scott said.

Scott left the Army when the unit was disbanded in 1946 and went back to Earle. But with work hard to find, Scott found himself back in uniform in 1947, this time with the Navy.

“I tried to find a job,” Scott said. “But you couldn’t even buy one. It was terrible. A recruiter came by at the right time. I was sitting around the pool hall without two nickels to rub together. And after I talked to him for 15 minutes, I was on my way to Memphis.”

Scott hoped to be assigned to duty on a destroyer, or

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Photo by Mark Randall THREE VETERANS (cont.)

“tin-can,” but was instead assigned to the “Seabees,” the Navy’s construction battalion where he did utility work in Bermuda, Cuba, Newfoundland, the Bahamas, then shore duty in Philadelphia at the Navy Yard where he worked in the commissary cutting meat, and finally, Guam and Midway Island where he retired after 20 years of service.

Tom Music will never forget the bone chilling cold of Korea.

When he arrived in Korea in January 1952 it was 50 degrees below zero.

Vehicles wouldn’t start.

And hands and toes froze.

“I’ve never seen a place as cold in my life,” Music said.

“It was cold all the time.”

Music came from a military family and joined the Air Force rather than wait to be drafted “I didn’t even know where it (Korea) was,” Music said.

“But I joined to keep from being drafted. They were either going to draft you or you could enlist. So I just enlisted.”

He was a noncommissioned officer in charge (NCOIC) of a dental clinic with the 5005th Hospital at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska.

“That’s where all the people came back from Korea,” Music said. “It’s a short flight to Korea from Elmendorf.”

Over in Korea, Music was attached as a combat medic to a tank corps and saw combat during the Battle of Kumsong in July 1953.

“It was the last big offensive over there,” Music said.

Music remembers the hollering as the North Koreans came in wave after wave and the cries of “Medic!

Medic! Help me!”

“They were everywhere,” Music said. “They don’t give you a rifle when you are a medic. They give you a helmet with a cross on it and a vest with a cross on it. They always tried to kill the medics. And they were tough fighters. They were dedicated and really fight for their country.”

Music said it wasn’t like the television show M*A*S*H.

“M*A*S*H is just Hollywood,” Music said.

“The only thing you could do was treat a bullet wound.”

He was discharged in 1955 with the rank of airman first class. While he doesn’t miss anything about Korea today, he is concerned that given the behavior of the North Koreans, that a shooting war will flare up once more on the Korean peninsula.

“We’re still there. And they still have troops on the 38th Parallel,” Music said.

“You’ve got the same thing going on now that was going on then.”

As for the war itself, Music said most people today don’t even know there was a war in Korea.

“They don’t study history any more in school,” Music said. “It’s been forgotten.

And if it’s not already forgotten, it will be forgotten in another five or ten years. There’s not many of us left. World War II veterans are dying faster because they are older. But it won’t be long before it will all be forgotten.”

Eddie Carlock is still feeling the effects of the Vietnam War.

He’s got prostate cancer, diabetes and neuropathy, at least in part as the result of exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange. He also suffers from post traumatic stress disorder which has left him as a 100 percent service-related disabled veteran.

After 43 years, he still has nightmares — mostly about

Continued on Page 3 THREE VETERANS (cont.)

getting captured.

“That was one of the biggest fears we had,” Carlock said. “I tried to get help for it (PTSD) in Vietnam. Back then they didn’t know what it was.

They just gave you some pills.”

Carlock joined the Army in March 1969 right out of high school in Dyess.

“I had two birthdays over there,” Carlock said. “I turned 18 in Vietnam.”

He was assigned to the 25th “Tropic Lightning” Infantry Division and arrived at Cu Chi in August 1969. The 25th was one of the first American divisions to serve in Vietnam and one of the last to leave.

The mechanized division repeatedly fought North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units in an area known as the “Iron Triangle” north and west of Saigon.

Carlock went out on his first combat patrol in September 1969.

“I was the point man and walked into an ambush,” Carlock said. “They had their guys tied up in the trees. They had to do or die.”

Ten men were killed on that mission.

He was later wounded en route to his unit’s night defensive position in March 1970 when the armored personnel carrier he was riding on hit a booby trap.

“We were in an artillery field and we went out to pick up somebody who had tripped a shell,” Carlock said. “It ran over it. I was sitting on top at the time. It killed my best friend, Marvin Ringoen, who was from Minnesota.

He was killed by shrapnel.” Carlock was hit in his right arm by shrapnel and lost his hearing. Two others in Company A were also

Photo by John Rech THREE VETERANS (cont.)

killed.

His tour in Vietnam was up in October and he was flown back to the United States to Oakland and then caught a flight to Memphis. Carlock said he didn’t really think about the politics of the war when he was in Vietnam — then or now.

All he cared about was making it home in one piece.

“I was just a 19 year-old kid serving my country,” Carlock said. “I didn’t really know why we were there. I just knew that I was

there.”

It’s been half a century since the last one, but the City of West Memphis will witness revival of Veterans Day observances with a parade.

The Parade will move out from Lehr Arena at 10 a.m. today, and make its way down West Broadway and South Avalon to the West Memphis-Marion VFW Post 5225.

Solemn ceremonies will be observed there honoring military veterans at the traditional time on the 11th hour of the 11th day, of the 11th month, marking the 103rd anniversary of the end of World War I.

The West Memphis Veterans Day Celebration Committee enthusiastically planned the event.

“We want to celebrate these brave men and women with the honor, respect and appreciation they deserve,” said the group’s media release. “We want you there.”

The announcement came not only to draw spectators but also participants to round out the parade. The committee appealed prospective participants including marching bands, color guards, ROTC groups, military grade vehicle owners, classic car and truck groups, motorcycle groups, and walking groups. The parade will feature floats loaded with veterans.

And to cap off the special day, the praise and worship orchestra Jubilation Jazz featuring vocalist Shelly Hardin will celebrate all veterans at the West Memphis High School Performing Arts Center with a free concert for the community.

An honor guard from Boy Scout Troop 721 will present the colors to start the 6 p.m. concert. The community is invited