What Did You Do In The War, Davey?

    This morning, February 3, 2021, I was yakking on the phone with David Sampson when I heard the grinding of airplane rotary engines. A pair of Corsairs was flying over together with what was apparently a photography plane. We had heard that somebody is making a movie about the Korean War, using those planes and our environment of north central Washington state for a backdrop.  When I told David about the noise, he told me about his near deployment to Korea. 

    David had left Oregon State University under a bit of pressure from the administrators who had a problem with students' drinking beer. He was drafted for a two-year period, and found out that he would be sent to Korea. He had a choice:  If he agreed to serve an extra year, he would be sent to training to learning typing and secretarial skills. He signed up.  

Shortly after David had signed the bottom line for his third year of service, the training program he had been promised was cancelled, and he was assigned to on-the-job training, instead. He was taught how to set up field post offices to assure that American soldiers would get mail at any deployment; to be denied mail service was significantly demoralizing to the troops. It was easy duty and he had every weekend off. 

That's when the Cuban Missile Crisis broke--Russian missiles were found on Cuba, just 90 miles from Florida--and while the Kennedy government tried to negotiate for removal of the missiles, with citizens feeling that fingers were too close to the "bomb" button, troops were rushed to Key West.  All personnel in David's unit were recalled, but when the phone rang at the apartment David shared with other men, the roommate who answered said that David was away and wouldn't be returning until Monday. (We didn't have cell phones yet.) I'm not saying whether David got the message; but he did not report for duty.

On Monday, David showed up at work and found his office empty.  He went straight to personnel, where he was informed that he was AWOL during a deployment. That's a serious offense. He protested that he'd been away on free time and didn't get the message. When the officer in charge calmed down, he ordered David to show up at 8 a.m. every day, then he would be released for the day. That continued for three months.

Shortly before his unit returned from Florida, David was reassigned to be the clerk at the office that sold clothing to soldiers. The office was doing no work at all; David would make a sale or two once every three or four days. He believes that his military assignment was the cushiest ever.