Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
6:08 | After he was drafted, Ed Price was surprised to hear he was going to the 101st Airborne. He wasn't going to jump out of any plane! But it was just a training unit so he got the regular basic training and then went to anti-aircraft artillery school.
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Ed Price was stuck in Seattle. While other troops boarded ships for Korea, he and several others had to wait for records to catch up with them. After a couple of false starts, he was finally headed across the Pacific. When he got to his anti-aircraft unit, he was asked a fateful question. Can you type?
Ed Price thought he made a pretty slick move. By becoming a clerk in the personnel section, he wouldn't have to be out in that cold Korean weather. Somehow, he still found himself manning a .50 caliber machine gun from time to time.
He was fortunate that his time in Korea was relatively uneventful. Ed Price remembers a couple of big air attacks, but most were on the level of hand grenades lobbed out of a small plane. Since he was in headquarters company, which had a small amount of privates, he was in for a lot of guard duty.
When Ed Price went for his first guard duty in Korea, he was surprised that some men had nicely pressed uniforms at the inspection. Why? This was a war zone. Then he found out that, each night, one man was selected to be the supernumerary, who got to stay inside where it was warm. He now had a new goal.
Ed price went from squad tents to Quonset huts while he was in Korea. He also went from private to sergeant, which meant he could now go to the NCO club.
What do you do in the personnel section? Ed Price answers that question and then describes some strange and funny incidents from his time in Korea, like the time half the country went on red alert because of a funeral.
Japan was the R&R destination for troops in Korea. Ed Price got an extra trip when he won soldier of the month. In his unit, there was a Japanese American soldier who kept getting mistaken for a Korean, which he would milk for laughs whenever possible.
Ed Price expresses sympathy for those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, who have to face uncertainties that he didn't experience in Korea. He didn't even carry a weapon when he went into town.
