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Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project
Oral History Interview
Veteran: Paul Bailey
Interview Length: (01:09:36)
Interviewed by Dr. James Smither
Transcribed by Chloe Dingens
Interviewer: We’re talking today with Paul Bailey of Grand Rapids, Michigan and the
interviewer is James Smither of the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project.
Okay, Paul, start us off with some background on yourself and begin with where and when you
were born?
I was born in Lansing, Michigan. My father was a tool and die maker in a factory.
Interviewer: Okay, what year were you born?
1936.
Interviewer: Okay. So, had you father had steady employment in the thirties?
Pretty much, tool and die maker; my whole family was mechanical, my grandfather was a
blacksmith. So, everybody built things so becoming a tool/ die maker was natural for him.
He quit school in the eighth grade and went to work in the shop. And he was never
unemployed as far as I know, he always had work as a tool and die maker.
Interviewer: Alright now, you were a little kid during World War II. Do you remember much
about life at that time?
(01.00)
�Yeah, I do. I remember my father was an air raid warden captain and he had these big
steel helmets that people had to wear during air raid warden time. And when they would
have these blackouts in the city of Lansing, everybody had to turn all of their lights out and
if they had a light on, they were supposed to cover it with a blanket. And then the air raid
wardens would go out and check on the residents who might have a leaky light coming in
somewhere that they forgot to turn off. But then after the war we remember playing with
those white helmets. They were steel helmets, they were very heavy, but as kids you play
with those helmets. They were white and had that civil defense symbol on the front of them.
That was kind of interesting times growing up.
Interviewer: Now, as you were getting older and towards the end of the war, were you kind of
following at all the news of the war? What was going on?
(02.03)
Not really because I would’ve been in junior high school or elementary school at that time
and well my brother who was ten years older was in the war. He was in the navy all during
that time. He guarded prisoners in Jacksonville, Florida; German prisoners that had been
brought to this country.
Interviewer: Alright, now let’s see, so when did you finish high school?
1954.
Interviewer: Okay, now so you had been in high school during the time the Korean War was
going on?
Yes.
Interviewer: Alright, now while that was going on, were you expecting it to last long enough for
you to be drafted and go in it? Or did you not think about that?
�I never thought about that, I just felt it was sort of my duty to join the army and get it over
with. So, I enlisted before I... while I was in high school, so that I graduated on Friday night
and left for the army Monday morning.
(03.01)
Interviewer: Okay and then that’s back in 1954, so that’s the year after the Korean War
Armistice is in place anyway, at that point; was there still a lot of people getting drafted at that
time?
There were, there were a lot of people in my first companies that were draftees and so I
had sort of wanted to become a member of the Michigan State Police, but that wasn’t in the
cards at that time. So that's when I opted to become a military policeman. That was my
goal.
Interviewer: Okay, now was that preference that you indicated when you enlisted? Or did you
decide on that later?
I decided on that before I enlisted. I wanted to go to the military police school. So of course,
they sent me to Camp Chaffee Arkansas for basic training. Then when we had two weeks
off and then we went to work in Fort Gordon, Georgia.
(04:07)
Interviewer: Okay, well back up and talk a little bit about the basic training experience. What
was personally Camp Chaffee like?
Hot! Being from Michigan, it was hot. I never got… my skin used to just prickle from the
heat. We trained, we had to get up at two o'clock in the morning to go to training because
after ten or eleven o’clock, it was just absolutely too hot to train. I remember even when we
did train, they lined us up, made us take our outer shirts off and just t-shirts then they’d
�hose us down with water to keep us from... keep us hydrated and so on. At that time, they
had Lister bags full of salt water the thing was you had to take and drink salt water that
tasted terrible. But they said we need to drink it to remain hydrated. One night it went
down to 70 and we closed all the windows and were freezing it went down to 70 it had been
in the 90s and 100s all eight weeks that I was there. Very, very hot and in Michigan we
don’t have hot weather like that. I was… I remember trying to write a letter home and the
sweat just rolled down my arm to my elbow and the paper I was writing on was all wet. Of
course, there wasn’t that much air conditioning, nothing was air conditioned in those days.
I mean there were a few things that were air conditioned, but nothing like we have today.
(05.32)
Interviewer: The barracks weren’t air conditioned or anything else like that?
No, the barracks weren’t air conditioned.
Interviewer: All right, now what did the actual training consist of?
A whole lot of marching and learning to shoot and you know rifle marksmanship and
physical fitness and you know it was pretty- it was tough training. But the toughest part
was the heat and you had to lay down and the rifle ranges had cinders that you laid down
in the daytime those would get very, very hot. They were still hot early in the morning
when we would go out to train. And you know the road marches where you’d put all your
stuff on your back and carry it. They actually limited some of those because of the heat.
(06:21)
Interviewer: How easy or hard was it for you to adjust to life in the army?
�I don’t really remember that being a big adjustment. I guess my hall was fairly well
disciplined and so getting in the army I just accepted taking orders and I never was very
resistant to anything, I just kind of went with the program.
Interviewer: Did you notice any of the other recruits having problems either with the physical
side or the discipline or anything else?
There were some issues with some of the other guys, some of the fellows had not been used
to taking orders and they had some resistance issues with the drill sergeants which didn’t
go over well with anybody. Sometimes the whole platoon would be punished because of
somebody that stepped out of line and didn’t do something right.
Interviewer: At the time you were going through, did you have any black recruits training along
with you? Or where you a white?
You know I’m trying to think back, I don't think there were any blacks in basic training. I
think in MP (military police) school there was. Not in basic training.
(07.36)
Interviewer: Alright, so again tell us how long basic training lasts?
Eight weeks.
Interviewer: Eight weeks, okay. Then Fort Gordon Georgia was your next stop?
Eight weeks.
Interviewer: And that’s your advanced training now?
For the military police.
Interviewer: Okay so what did that consist of?
That consisted of a lot of learning Judo hand to hand combat. Training in the 45 pistol and
some laws and rudimentary things about apprehension. How to handle ourselves in
�difficult situations. That was also very rigorous physically because the school thought we
needed to be tough. If you’re going to be a military policeman you’ve got to be able to stand
up to anybody and you don't just take any crap from anybody. You have to stand up and
you might have to put them down. Physical fitness, I remember before we could eat, we had
to do chin ups and the first time I showed off and I did 17 chin ups and so the next time I
went to eat he said now you have to do 19. And I said that was dumb, I shouldn’t have done
17 the first time because every time I went to chow, they made you do more than you did
the first time. And if you didn't do more than you’d drop down and do 20 pushups or 30
pushups. If they thought, you needed more they’d give you more pushups. Before you could
go eat! And one of the things there sometimes at the end of the day, after a day’s training,
they still needed somebody to go on and sort of be KP for the night. They would go through
and if you had just a little fold in your pocket that would be enough to send you to KP.
When they couldn’t find anything wrong, they would ask you to turn your belt buckle
inside out and if you sweat that day, it’d be a little corroded and give you KP. So, they'd
always have to find something to get someone go on KP every night. And you just hoped
somebody got nicked before you did. They’d go down the line and of course of you had a
pocket flap that was unbuttoned they’d come down and rip the pocket flap off and say, “get
that sewed up before tomorrow.” It was a spit and polish outfit. Because we had
everything, everything we had had to be polished, and so some of the guys would polish one
set of boots and really make them stand tall, put them under the bunk and leave them that
way. Well they wanted you to wear one pair one day and one pair the next, so they’d
marked them, then if they’d come in that morning and if your marked boots were there
then you got gigged and sent for KP that night. Because you had to switch, you had to keep
�all your shoes polished. And they had the foot lockers, had to be laid out just so. Every item
in the foot locker was a diagram and every item shaver, toothpaste, everything had to be in
a very- your socks, everything had to be just exactly in the right spot. And so, our barracks
were inspected every day. And I remember one night I had guard duty I think it was and
that night and I walked in one night. And so, my… I carried my rifle and when I got in that
morning, they said you were in charge of quarters, so they always left one soldier back as
everyone went to training. So, if you went back if that was your job to spiff up, do the lastminute polishing on everything in the barracks so that it would pass inspection, we were
inspected every day. So, I got the barracks all ready for inspection and lo and behold my
company commander was teaching a class on how to inspect that morning so he had a
bunch of students, he had a bunch of lieutenants that he was bringing through and showing
them how to inspect. And he says, “for example, Bailey get your rifle out and show them
your rifle.” Well I knew my rifle wasn't cleaned because I had been out in the elements all
night and so there was just a hair of rust on it, I mean you couldn't hardly see it, but they
noticed it. And then he put white gloves on and he went over all the windowsills and doors
to see if there was any dust that I had missed. I had already- I had knew he'd do that so I
had already dusted everything- cleaned everything, everything else was right, so the only
thing he found wrong was my rifle and it’s just because I was working as fast as I could to
get it ready and they came in kind of unexpected for the inspection so I wasn't quite
finished yet. And my rifle was the only one in the rack since everybody else was out
training yet. So, I remember that very distinguished. Then when I went to eat lunch, the
commander called me over to his table and I thought oh I was going to get it again. Then he
said- then he apologized to me, he said “we took unfair advantage and you were on guard
�duty all night. And you… once the inspections over you can go back to bed and sleep.” So,
he apologized for catching me off guard and making me feel kind of stupid on the spur of
the moment. He said, “we won't hold that against you.” But MP school was supposed to be
very tough and very demanding… and because we were expected to be a really good
examples of the military.
Interviewer: Right
Like I said our uniforms are supposed to be impeccable at all times and we’re just
supposed to be tough. That’s all there was to it.
(13.34)
Interviewer: Okay, now while you’re at Fort Gordon did you get a chance to go off the base at
all? Or did you just stay there?
Never did, never did. Never left the base and I- I didn't do it in basic training either and I
never left the base and then I think, I think I went right from there to Fort Jackson, South
Carolina.
Interviewer: Okay so that’s your first regular assignment then?
First regular assignment.
Interviewer: So, what was at Fort Jackson at that point?
Actually, The First Airborne Division was there. The Screaming Eagle.
Interviewer: Okay, so the 101st?
The 101st yeah. The only- I did regular MP duty there, but because it was my first
assignment, I worked with a Sergeant, he taught me the ins and outs of MP patrol and that
sort of thing. And I do remember one really humorous incident there. Was for some reason
or other the army always paid in cash. So, we had… before pay day there was, they'd bring
�in just a huge amount of cash and just set it on the table, they didn’t have vaults for it or
anything. And they- some other recruit who just ... who didn't know anything about the
army I don't think I mean it was very basic recruit. They told him to go to the finance
building and guard the money. Well it’s pretty boring on a military base at night because
things are very very quiet, and this guy decided... And they gave him what’s called a
military grease gun which he was not trained in. And about two o’clock in the morning, he
decided to experiment with the grease gun and he shot and hit one of the fire extinguishers
which was one of those soda acid fire extinguishers and bounced it off the wall and made a
mess in, in there. And I was on duty that night and we get a call, shots fired at the finance
building. So, we had all kinds of MPs, every MP that was on duty proceeded to the finance
building and when I got there, I was on the outer perimeter patrol and when I got there
they had him in custody already and he was just apologizing and he was just scared to
death of what he had done. And because we had commanders and colonels and generals
and everybody showing up at the finance building, finance officers, what could possibly go
wrong? And some guy just got bored in the middle of the night and shot the fire
extinguisher and that’ll get your attention. So, that was kind of humorous when it was all
said and done.
(16.19)
Interviewer: So, what were your regular duties at Fort Jackson?
Well just, we patrol, patrol the base and if somebody was speeding, we’d stop and write
them an apprehension of- a disciplinary report and send it to their company. And we
would check vehicles and if there was like I say a traffic accident that was our
responsibility. We didn’t really have a lot of crime, once in a while there was a crime.
�Deputy sheriff from the local town chased someone onto The Fort Stewart one time. He
said the guy was shooting back at him and they called us in, those of us that were off duty
got called in that day and told ya know, grab a car and start looking for this guy and I
don't remember if we ever found him, but we decided that the sheriff had shot his own car,
that the guy didn’t shoot at him. All the bullets were on the fender of that old Chevrolet
and they were all within inches apart, so we figured he was shooting out the window and
shot his own car. But that was kind of humorous.
Interviewer: Did you have any problems with any of the soldiers fighting or getting drunk or
things like that?
(17.40)
Once in a while- once in a while but usually our presence would... they knew that they were
in trouble when we got there. And even though the army wasn't segregated, it was as far, at
that time, and as far as the military police. Because when the black MPs went into the
black community we were told to stay out. We didn’t- unless they called us in there we did
not go into the black community.
Interviewer: Okay so this is if you’re going off base to bring back people?
In Hinesville Georgia and other places, maybe surrounding communities around Hinesville
Georgia or black MPs or black soldier might live or might be. But the black soldiers handle
the black soldiers at that time.
Interviewer: So, by this time, was it you were definitely noticing being in the segregated south at
this point?
Oh yes.
�Interviewer: Okay, had you observed that being in other places? Or really is it only when you got
to South Carolina that you noticed it because you got off base?
(18.38)
Again, in South Carolina, I didn’t get off base much, and- but I did notice that there was
segregation mean the remnants of it, if it wasn't there it was- you know it was evident, well
in Georgia there was white drinking fountains and whites only and colored was around the
corner so I did notice that and...
Interviewer: And did they have that kind of thing on the bases? Or just off base?
No no no just off base, no things like that on the base. And you know we lived with black
soldiers in the barracks and... Cause in 1956 I got married and so we were living in married
housing and so there were no problems of course as far as married housing.
Interviewer: But it’s still a situation that in the 50s the south is still segregated... Jim Crow is still
in place, but it doesn't affect, but the army is already past that.
We were pretty well integrated at that time yeah.
Interviewer: How long did you wind up spending at Fort Jackson?
I think just a few months. Maybe two or three months because… let’s see that would have
been… probably a few months, probably because I left Fort Jackson and went to… to
Korea.
(19.56)
Interviewer: Okay, alright, now were you expecting to get an overseas assignment, or did it just
come out of the blue?
Well this, this was kind of funny too because I walked in, they said there’s, there's some
opening if any of you want to go to the Far East. And I thought Far East man, I was
�thinking Japan. And I heard so much, so many good things about Japan and I thought I'd
like to go to japan. So, I went in to sign up and the sergeant said, you're already signed up,
you were going anyway. So, it was a fore got conclusion. So, when I got to Fort Lewis
Washington, I was in J company and J company meant you were going to Japan. Well Fort
Lewis Washington there’s thousands of soldiers. And they asked about while, probably
fifty or a hundred of us to go down and work KP and consolidated mess hall. So, we went
down to the consolidated mess hall about five o’clock in the morning and about nine
o'clock at night we got back and when we got back he said all you guys are in J company
are not in K company. Pick up all your stuff and you’ve got three blocks down the street to
go and when you see a big barracks and it says K company that's where you're going to be.
And I said J company, K company there’s a big switch here. And then the rumor was true,
we were all going to Korea. So, when we got on the- finally got on the boat. All these same
guys that were on the boat going to J company were on the boat with us. And then there
were guys going to Alaska, so our ship when we left Fort Lewis Washington was going to
Alaska, dropped off a bunch of troops in Alaska. Which is a site I'll never forget because
the snow was so deep, they were shoveling it with dump trucks. They literally backed into
the snowbank and brought it down and dropped it in the ocean. You’d see these little
specks up there and you’d see the tops of a Quonset hut sticking out and all these little
specs were shovels. There's two or three hundred guys up there shoveling snow, so it was
deep snow. So, we got through that, but it was a beautiful country but just the snow was
really deep. So then from there we landed in Sasebo, Japan and they let us off the troop
ship for a while and we got a little tour of Sasebo, so we found out that they drive all horn
and no brakes. And so, I went to the telephone exchange, I think that’s what they called it
�back then. And they had these sound proof booths that I could call home and say I’m in
Japan and so I called home and it cost, at the time it seemed like it cost $35.00 for my
phone for my call collect and that was a lot of money for a three- or four-minute phone call.
But I wanted to; it had been a long time since I'd called. Anyway, they suffered because the
phone call caused them a big bundle and then from there on, we landed in Incheon, Korea
and they loaded us on cattle trucks, open cattle trucks. And we stood with our- we got in
there as tight as we could, we stood with our sea bags in front of us with everything we
owned in the sea bag and then a guy yelled I think we can get six more on here, pull ahead
and jam on the brakes. So he pulled ahead and jammed on the breaks and we all slid
forward, just a foot or so, and a few inches but that was enough to get six or more guys on
there and then we went to the- from there we went to some kind of distribution hub and
then they put us on trains and I got to the 7th Division, they sent me to the replacement
company and the seventh division. They said, “where are ya headed” and I said, “I’m an
MP.” “Well they’ll be down to get you tomorrow morning. You're going to stay here for
the night, besides you’re on guard duty.” He handed me a M1 rifle and about fifty rounds
of ammunition and my instructions that night where to shoot anything that moves. And
here I was just ya know an eighteen-year-old kid just out of high school handed an M1 rifle
and all this ammunition and a bandolier of ammunition and told to shoot anything that
moved. And I grew up hunting and I said I don't shoot anything unless I got a target, ya
know I just don’t shoot. And they put me guarding a POL dump which is just a bunch of
barrels of diesel oil and gasoline and it was probably fifty feet square maybe, and they said,
“you guard that was down on the bottom of a river bed.” And it was a full moon night, I
could see good down there in the middle of the night and about one thirty, two o’clock in
�the morning some guy up on top of the hill started shooting: “boom boom bang boom bang
boom bang.” Then he yelled down to me, he said, “it’s coming your way,” I could see clear
there was nothing coming my way, but I was, you know, I was ready to shoot if I had to but
I didn't see anything to shoot at, so I didn’t shoot. When my shift ended, I got up there and
the guy said, “didn’t you see him?” And I said “no, nothing came down that riverbed I
can tell ya I could see that clear as daylight, nobody came down that riverbed.” Well he’s,
he was really angry with me that I didn't shoot. And I said I’m not gonna shoot that, I
wasn’t gonna shoot… unless there was a target. But we were- when we first got there, we
were infiltrated with slicky boys from Korea that came in and would steal everything we
had, they'd steal you blind. And so that was my opening night in Korea was hearing all that
gun fire and it went on all night long. I mean, after... you're on two hours you’re off four
hours, you’re on two hours or two and two something like that and everybody else fired
their rifle but I never fired a shot because I didn’t see anything to shoot at and I wasn’t just
going to shoot to.
(26.17)
Interviewer: Now what time of year was it when you got there?
March. March in the spring and they always had their floods in May. Their monsoon
season in April and May.
Interviewer: Okay alright, so were you just there at that depot overnight and move on to your
unit then?
Yeah, I got to my unit the next morning. And then they give you orientation at the unit just
kind of put you in a Jeep and drive you around, show you everything. I think my other
experience was these, we lived in tents and our water came in five-gallon water, military
�water jugs. And I had a canteen with a cup and I poured the water into the canteen and
said there was a bunch of stuff floating around in there and I went to pour it out and a guy
goes “don’t pour that our, that's what we drink.” So, I said “well mine has a bunch of
hunks in it.” And he said, “it all has hunks in it, that’s your drinking water.” So, I drank
the water, didn't throw it out, or I did throw that last little bit out, but the water wasn’t
exactly pristine, let's put it that way.
Interviewer: Okay well was this just stuff from the inside of the container or was it …?
(27.36)
No, I think- I don’t know where they got the water, someone said they got it out of the river
and then they ran it though kind of a purification deal, but it was canvas bags with stuff in
it and then, and then it went into one of the big water tanks. Each company went over and
got their water tank filled and then they’d bring it back and they'd fill these five-gallon
jugs from that water tank. Each barrack had a five-gallon water jug. I think when I first
got there, we didn't have showers either and so then they built a shower and then we could
go take showers and that helped a lot to get that in there. There wasn't much water when
we first got there. All our milk was in cans. Everything was pretty spark less put it that
way. And they announced one time that the PX down near the headquarters company was
going to have ice cream and that was several months after I’d been there, they announced
ice cream. And so, I think I was on duty that day and they said we need at least twenty-five
MPs down there because these troops are really getting anxious about having some ice
cream or milkshake or something like that. So, it was kind of, it got a little testy there for a
while and the military people pull a rank so if a private’s in line, and a sergeant comes
along, and they say get back I’m getting in there first. Well we went down there, and we
�tried to sort that all out and nobody was happy. And I think there was some, there was
some fights, we had to make a few apprehensions and then I got assigned to the desk, so I
was a desk, like a desk sergeant for a while. We ran out of Sergeants we didn’t have any
sergeants so they, if you were a specialist, they pulled you off and made you a desk
sergeant. Even though you didn’t have the rank even though there were desk sergeant. So,
everybody that was apprehended or whatever had to commend me, and I'd do the
paperwork on them.
(30.06)
Interviewer: Okay, now were you close to the DMZ where you were?
Yes. Well, yeah, the DMZ runs at a funny angle across Korea, so we were, we figured six
miles the way the crow flies to North Korea. I don’t know how long the DMZ is or how
wide it is but there were minefields all over the place that were still there that had never
been cleared and so there was a few people that got killed in mine fields while I was there.
But just knew better than to step out there. In fact, a major came in and borrowed one of
our shotguns to go pheasant hunting and he shot a peasant and went down in the minefield
and the guy knew better, don't walk on a mine field to get a pheasant it isn’t worth it, and
it blew him up and killed him. And so, it’s you know… people did some dumb things. As
far as minefield, I had two experiences in the minefield; that one and a guy took a
prostitute down to a mind field and they all blew up and some, a couple of them survived
but the one guy lost his man hood for sure and the one guy will never- well the one guy was
dead and one lost his manhood and a woman lost a hip and I was personally involved in
that one because I had to go out and help them extract the remains out of there and it was
at night and we couldn't see and so we had flashlights and a bayonet poking the ground
�and making sure you don't hit something and you hit a stone and you sort of sweat in all
joints. But the medics were there, and a couple of engineers were there and they probed it
and staked it out and then we extracted the bodies all out of there. But just people did some
dumb things when they…
(32.12)
Interviewer: Alright, now was there villages or a town nearby? People go off base and get
themselves in trouble or?
Everything around us was considered off limits.
Interviewer: Okay
So, we patrolled those areas. So, any time and of course they were inhabited by prostitutes
and we knew we put a bunch of twenty thousand soldiers over there they’re going to look
for women so it’s a no-win situation. The nearest town to where I was in Camp Casey was
Dongducheon and the nick name for it was little Chicago. And when… in order to get into
the town by the road off the MSR, main supply route it required four-wheel drive and low
range. I mean, it was so pitted and bottomed out that there wasn’t, there wasn’t any
smooth road, it was up and down and then when you got in there the roads were okay, the
streets were okay, but we patrolled those mostly on foot and we’d take our jeeps as far as
we could go and then we'd just look for any evidence of GIs being in there and then we’d
find them apprehend them, take them out of there but there were other villages I don't
know their names but a lot of the little villages around the hills that we also went looking
for people…
Interviewer: Straying soldiers?
(33.48)
�Straying soldiers, right.
Interviewer: Alright, now were the North Koreans making much trouble at this point?
Occasionally when I first got there we would get unidentified flying aircraft coming
through and we actually had a pillbox in our compound and when we’d get a call of and
unidentified flying object or an unidentified airplane we were required to go get out fifty
caliber submachine gun and set it up on the tripod and arm it and of course by the time we
did all that that plane was south of Seoul probably, and we were twenty-eight miles south
of Seoul, so we had to go through that routinely and it was kind of, that’s where the
physical really comes in because a fifty caliber submachine gun I don't know how much
weight, but it seems like about a hundred pounds. And you carry that from the arms room
a couple hundred yards to the pill box and you set it up and then we got it too, so we didn’t
load it. We just carried the ammo because we figured by the time, we’d see that plane it’s
all over anyways. We were just too close to North Korea like, but I said by the time you get
the warning it'd be all over with.
Interviewer: Okay, but as far as you know where the North Koreans doing any snipping or
sending any artillery shells your way or anything like that?
(35.15)
They had skirmishes with the South Koreans at the DMZ, there were several little
skirmishes where they would just tough each other and shoot back and forth across the
DMZ but it wasn’t- you didn’t hear too much about it. You'd hear about it in a hind sight
but the news, it was very slow with something like that but if somebody tried to escape and
go to North Korea then we pulled out all the plugs and we, we would, the US army would
really come to a full alert if there was somebody making any kind of an aggressive move
�towards North Korea. Every once in a while somebody would say “I’ve had it with the US
army or whatever and I’m going to North Korea.” Well we would do everything possible to
stop that from occurring. We would hunt that person down and catch them.
Interviewer: Do you know if there were any that actually made it?
I don't think anybody made it. We did, we lost one of our MPs and he got off on his own
and I think he was captured by the North Koreans, but he made a lot of bad moves and we
found his Jeep and that’s all we ever found of him. Never heard what- never heard what
happened to him or anything.
Interviewer: Alright and then how long did you spend in Korea?
Sixteen months from shore to shore.
Interviewer: Aright and then over the course of that time what particular events or things stand
out in your memory that we haven’t talked about yet?
(37.00)
Oh I think the flood was interesting, when it was flooding our whole intersection flooded
and we were at T intersection in which we had a traffic control post up on a tower like and
we would signal the traffic so on, and so during that flood I got flooded in and so I realized
there was about three foot of water below me that wasn't there when I climbed up in there.
And that was a little tricky to know where the ditches were and where the road was
because I had to walk a couple hundred yards back to my compound. The compound was
dry but between the compound and the road it was under water. The other- the other crazy
thing that happened, this was before the flood, I'm up there directing traffic one time and I
see this two and a half ton truck come by and there's a guy I went to high school with in the
back of the truck and he was with the quartermaster company which was just over the hill
�because we had an air strip right there with a small reconnaissance plane you know 19s
now 20s but he was in the quartermaster companies just across- wasn't that far away. That
was kind of funny. One other story about Korea that I remember vividly, we went- we went
on big whack so we’d been on the big whack and they said okay we’re moving and so we
moved, it was at night, we got to this new place at night, set up our tents at night.
Everything was at night, so we all went to bed and soon got our tents set up. And then early
in the morning, I guess we were there a couple of days. The first morning I got up and I - I
walked out to the road didn't have any idea where we were because we... from there we
didn’t get out of our compound that much, so we were out in the middle of nowhere as far
as I was concerned, but still in Korea of course. And being an MP I see this jeep coming
down the road just absolutely speeding, really flat out. And so, I stepped out into the road
and I flagged him down and here was a man severely injured laying in the front of the
Jeep. And I knew that there was a medic station right there where we were, so I said, “we
got medics right here.” So, I rushed him in there and he said, “we need a helicopter.” So,
we had these cranks via field telephones and we were on bivouac and we had new code
names on bivouac. So, I knew the code name because I’d called a helicopter before. I knew
the code name was Nashville, so I said, “give me Nashville” and they said, “we can't do
that” and I said- they said, “it’s a term we can’t use” I said, “don't give me any crap I have
an injured man and I need a helicopter right now.” So, he talked to somebody and said put
him through to Nashville, so he put me through to Nashville. With a helicopter attachment
1212 back to the hospital in Uijeongbu. And he said, “so what do you need.” I said, “I've
got a man down.” He said, “where are you?” I said “about ten/ twelve miles west of
Uijeongbu on this road there's this a school across the street that we built. Looks like a
�brand-new school.” And he said, “we’re on the way.” So, I hung up that field telephone, I
looked at my watch and it was ten o'clock in the morning exactly, he said- and then the
guide told me to throw out a smoke flair to signal the helicopter, so I went over to the
medics and said, “you got a smoke flair?” “Yup.” I said, “hand it to me.” So, I'm standing
there waiting to pull the pin on the smoke flair. While were all standing there, they're
working on this guy, getting him ready to go to the hospital and by the time I heard the
helicopter, it was over us. So, I pull the pin on the smoke flair and flew it out, he may want
it’s help to set this helicopter down. The medics loaded him on, they had ladders on both
sides of the bell helicopter, they loaded him on and he said, “okay, we’re on our way” and I
looked up and he was on the way. I looked at my watch and it was ten after ten. In ten
minutes, they were on their way.
Interviewer: They’d gotten good at that. Alright, did you have Koreans working on the base?
Oh yes.
Interviewer: And what kinds of work did they do?
Mostly kitchen and housing keeping service. Of course, they had- one as a servant in the
office quarters. He got into trouble, he urinated in their orange juice. They looked for him
and we never did find him because... (laughter). He was given the death sentence, they
wouldn't have killed him, but they probably would have tried, but they weren't too happy
about that.
(42.00)
Interviewer: And did you have any Korean soldiers who were assigned to you.
Yeah we had what you called Katusas and yeah the Katusas, they drank in the same
barracks with us, we got along great with the caduceus. They were wonderful Korean
�people and at that time I didn't like Korean food, and they would come back smelling of
Korean food, you could smell them when they’d come in the barracks, “what have you
been eating?” “Oooh good kimchi,” yeah well, they didn’t use breath mints either and so
you could smell those guys when they’d go on out leave and come back, because oh man
they reeked, and I’ve since learned to love that food myself, so it’s… it’s very healthy for
you. But, but when it was Korean help, I noticed their diet was almost- almost one
hundred, almost 100% rice. I mean they would eat a wash basin full of rice for lunch and a
few vegetables but mostly rice. They’d bring rice in by big bags and they’d cook it
themselves and use chopsticks they’d eat a lot of rice the help did.
Interviewer: Now were these guys also working as MPs?
(43.24)
The Katusas were MPs, we worked with them and it was nice, I really appreciated working
with them because they could work enough English so that we could get by and they taught
us a little Korean so that we could understand a little Korean.
Interviewer: If you went patrolling in the village and things would they come along?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, and they were- they were good ambassadors but they were also, they saw
something that was wrong, they would- they would make the Koreans toe the line I mean
they didn’t- they didn’t take any nonsense from anybody but they were very friendly and
the people were friendly towards them and they sort of knew who the Koreans that were
troublemakers. And they would say “that bad person” or something like that. And we
didn’t really, we didn't have too many conflicts because they settled all those conflicts.
�Interviewer: Right. Now you mentioned when you were there that the first night about the people
who would try to come in and steal things and so forth, was that going on on the days… was that
going on on the base?
Yeah, they were, that's why we had perimeter guards, all our compounds had perimeter
guards. And some of the help would steal things, even the help would… and when the help
would leave, the MP company stayed, the MP company was right next to the MSR so all
the people in the divisionary, the help would walk past our guard shack leaving. And it, it
became routine for us to check, they would steal, they would take stuff like grease
drippings from the bacon, they’d have a whole pail of just grease or cooking leftovers and
our routine was to take a stick and poke those buckets because often times there might
have been a pistol or a rifle parts, or some other contraband in that grease down at the
bottom. And so, then we apprehend those and turn those over to the Korean police. We had
a good relationship with the Korean national police. They were-they were extremely brutal,
the Korean national police, the corporal punishment was routine and if you stepped out of
line, they would kill you, there was not no ifs ands or buts about it. They would shoot and
ask questions later. And I stood next to a Korean policeman who was aiming at a Korean
who was running and the guy standing next to me bumped him just as he shot and it really
made the Korean policeman angry, because he knew it, we didn’t want to just stand there
and see someone shot, but he said that that guy was a gangster and he needed to be shot
and so he was angry with us for not letting him kill him and we were just, we were just too
easy going I guess at that point.
(46.29)
�Interviewer: Now did you get to go any further? Than the local towns. Did you get into
Uijeongbu or Seoul or anywhere?
Well I went to Uijeongbu with just a national police station and then one on a Sunday
afternoon because I was admitted to go into the village. I took my camera and sort of made
it a- a of course at that time you take thirty-five-millimeter slides. I took about a hundred
slides of typical Korean when I was there, and I’ve been thinking about getting those
transferred onto a CD or something because there’s a way you can do that, or something
like that. But I got a nice little trip that showed Koreans in their natural habitat and I had
one other instance when I, I almost cry when I tell it, but we’re one patrol at night and
there was a group of us, MPs and we had- we had these guys sort of cornered so there was
probably ten of us MPS and we were moving in to make an apprehension. And just as we
came out of the corner there were little Korean children by a small light. They were
singing, “jingle bells” in Korean, “nahhnoonahhh” and we just stopped, all of us just
stopped. We just pulled out C rations and gave them candy bars, forget the guys. We just
sit and sat there and talked to those, I mean they couldn't speak, they couldn’t speak any
English but of course there was a lot of, what do you call it, Eurasians or something you
know. The children of GIs and they were outcasts of Korea they... Koreans didn’t want
them, so it was a real real problem… but children left over from the GIs of the war and
some of them wouldn’t have been there when I was there. I mean cause I wasn’t there that
long.
Interviewer: Yeah
(48.33)
�But that was a very touching story and I’ve told it a lot of times, we just we forget, we quit
chasing the bad guys and we sat there with those children and we melted to hear Jingle
Bells, when we haven't heard anything like that in months! Even though they were singing
in Korean, we understood what they... we knew the tune. That was one of those night time
experiences.
Interviewer: Alright, and did you get any leave time or R and R or anything like that?
We did, we- I got to Japan and that was a very very nice experience at the special
experience I got to go to a services hotel. The second time I got to go to Japan, our orders
came in late in the day and so we’re hitchhiking to Inchon to Kimpo to get a flight out to
Japan to Inchon and the military kind of shuts down in the evening so here comes this
Korean civilian Jeep and we were kind of apprehensive, and the guy sitting in the front seat
says “jump in, where are you going?” and I said, “we’re going to Kimpo.” Well he says,
“my name is Dr. Charles W Choi” and he says, “I went to Syracuse University I’m a
professor…” and he went on and he was a professor of engineering or something like that
and I thought well this is great and he said, “I'm going to Seoul but my driver will take you
on out there” he said, “I did a lot of hitchhiking when I was in your country.” He said,
“when you get to Japan look up my family because I’ve got a couple of daughters.” I said
oh boy just an old boy from Alabama and, this is really a set up. So we got to Japan and I
made a call and called his family, they invited me out, I had to take a train out there, found
the family, they invited me in, of course I had to take my shoes off at the door and that sort
of thing, in the military you wore your boots all the time. I took my boots off at the door,
then they fed me some banana stuff I’d never eaten before, but it was alright I mean… and
he said, “my daughter will take you around and show you the sights of Tokyo.” So, I went
with her and she ordered a cab driver, it wasn’t really a date, it was sort of an excursion.
My buddy from Alabama, he didn’t go, it was just as well because he kind of stayed drunk
most of the time while we were over there, and I think he would have spoiled the whole
thing. But for me it was very educational, experience, I really appreciated the family and it
was nothing sexual or anything about that encounter. It was just a very nice family and
they took us in and it was just very very nice to me and so that was a very interesting
experience when you’re scared to death to get in a civilian, Korean civilian Jeep, because
you don’t know who... who’s back there because the people who can afford a jeep can be
really bad people at that time. And we were unarmed cause we’re going… most of the time
we carried out arms with us all the time but when you’re going on an R and R and you
have to check your arms- in the arms room. But yeah that was a- that was an experience to
meet a professor from Syracuse University. We’d taken his training there.
(52.08)
Interviewer: Now how much communication did you have with people back home while you
were in Korea?
�Mostly letters and then my mother would send packages and send cookies that always went
over good, sometimes if... they were, they were mostly crumbs by the time they got there
but if she sent them on aluminum you could make a funnel out of it and eat the crus. But
they didn’t survive the bouncing around at the military post office.
Interviewer: Alright, now do you also, aside from pictures, picked up at least one souvenir out of
Korea, and you’ve actually got it over here and if you wanted to pick it up and... Hold it up high
enoughThere was a Korean craftsman who came around andInterviewer: could you hold it up a little bit higher? There we go, yeah.
And he said, write down on a piece of paper my name and what I want on it and he said for
two cartons of cigarettes I’ll do this. So, he said you give me one carton now and when I
come back, give me another carton, so I did, and I kept this ever since.
Interviewer: Alright so it’s got your name on it, identifies your unit and it’s got the US flag and
the UN flag and the South Korean one on it. What else have you got on the bottom there?
Just the years I was there, oh that’s the hourglass divisions is the 7th Division patch, and
they cross pistols are indication of the MPs and then the(53.44)
Interviewer: Right, you’ve got your dragon through the whole thing. Alright, we got that okay.
Alright so when do you then get to leave Korea?
When did what?
When did you get to go back to the states?
I got back in June of ‘56.
Interviewer: Okay and how much time did you have left on the enlistment?
�Seems like about a year, so I went there then I went to Fort Stewart Georgia and resumed
military police patrol duties.
Interviewer: Okay now was that when you got married when you were back in Fort Stewart?
Yes
As opposed to being in Fort- because you mentioned being married back at Fort Jackson.
Well between Korea and Fort Stewart.
Interviewer: Okay, so did you- did they give you some leave time when you got back from Korea
right?
Yes, I got I think I got, I don't know how much I- we got.
Interviewer: Okay, alright and so what was that last year at Fort Stewart like?
Well that was just normal police duties and of course driving cars, which I’d been driving
Jeeps for six months now I get a car, that was different. Again, the military police is fairly
well disciplined place so if somebody steps out of line, you know you’re right there, you
writing them up. Then of course we also had civilian traffic at Fort Stewart, so we, we
apprehended a lot people who were hunting on the military reservation illegally and then
the federal majesty would come in hold court and we'd have to go and testify that we
caught this person and he was- the fines for hunting illegally on military reservation was
very steep, even at that time. In fact, they would confiscate their shotguns, their rifles and
sometimes it’d be a thousand dollar fine and I’ve seen them pulled a thousand dollars out
of their wallet and pay their fine, but I didn’t see- I never seen anyone go to jail but
trespassing on a military reservation was...
Interviewer: So, these were not just poor people looking for dinner?
(55.56)
�No, these are… well I don’t think those people we caught, that was two hundred eighty
thousand acres down there in that Fort Stewart and we did- there were some illegal
moonshining going on out there in the reservation and I wasn't involved in catching it but
we went out there one time to try to apprehend people who were, who had a still back
there. But by the time, by the time we got the word they were going on the raid, they, they
had the word that we were on the way and they were long gone. There was- you can’t
surprise anyone down there that’s in that business, they, they have a second sense that
they've been caught, so they flee long before we get there. But it was a large military
reservation and there were some bad accidents down there and that sort of thing but other
than that...
(57.00)
Interviewer: Okay and then your wife was living with you on the base with you at that point?
Yes, we lived in married housing.
Interviewer: Okay did she have a job of some kind?
She worked on the base at the health center, she was a secretary in the health center. She
had to get used to the differences in languages of people down there and people said, “go
out and roll your glasses up” and she said “glasses?” And they meant the windows in the
car, they were referring to the windows in your car. There was a lot of little terminology
that we had to learn moving to a different part of the country.
Interviewer: and did the army make any effort to encourage you to stay in?
Oh yeah, they really put the heat on at the very end. They give me all kinds of incentives,
and I said no I don't think so. You know, so I said, I would reenlist if they would send me to
CID school, criminal investigation. “Well that school’s been full for several years they only
�take so many candidates.” I said, “that’s it, that- if you promise me that,” “well we’ll put
you on the list.” “No not on the list, I gotta have sure orders that I’m going there, without
those orders I’m out of here.” But my company commander, my first Sergeant, I went to
church with them down there in that chapter. So, we weren’t strangers, in fact in the
chapter we were kind of buddies, but then once we get back to the unit, we understand the
chain of command. But one little addendum to all of this, in 1993 I got a chance to go back
to Korea. With a group of pastors from Michigan and that was a real eye-opening
experience because I did get a chance to go back to Dongducheon because what used to
only be four-wheel drive then is now a four lane freeway coming in from the south. So, to
see that country, the difference between the 1950s and 1993 was daylight and darkness.
There were no tall buildings left in Seoul in the 50s, everything was destroyed or knocked
down and now we ate dinner in a sixty-story Hyatt Regency hotel building in 1993 and they
were getting ready to host the Olympics shortly thereafter and they had a great deal of
publicity about how good their country was. And they didn’t underestimate it, they had
done a tremendous job of rebuilding that country.
(60.00)
Interviewer: Alright, now when you’re leaving the military did you know what you wanted to do
next?
Well I wanted to get back into police work, but God had different plans for me, I felt called
to ministry so I kind of, after a couple of police administration and public safety, I opted
for ministry and went off to a college and became a united Methodist pastor.
�Interviewer: Alright, okay well i think that’s about to the end of the story and it’s also the end of
the particular tape. So, I’m going to close out here by thanking you for taking the time to share
the story.
Thank you very much.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
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1914-
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
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eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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RHC-27_BaileyP2116V
Title
A name given to the resource
Bailey, Paul (Interview transcript and video), 2017
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-18
Description
An account of the resource
Paul Bailey was born in 1936 and opted to join the Military Police after graduating high school in 1954. Bailey attended Basic Training at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, and then Fort Gordon, Georgia, for advanced training to become an MP. His first regular assignment was at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, during which he noticed the pervasive racial segregation of the south. He was then sent to South Korea where he was statationed six miles from the DMZ and border with North Korea. Bailey returned to the U.S. in 1956 and spent his last year of enlistment at Fort Stewart, Georgia. After leaving the service, he worked a couple of police administration and public safety jobs before entering the united Methodist ministry in which he studied to become a pastor.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bailey, Paul F.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Format
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video/mp4
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Source
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Veterans History Project collection, RHC-27
Rights
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<a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401.
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Language
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eng