Children – even adult children – often don’t start asking questions until it’s too late. Important questions about the stories their parents and grandparents carry with them, but don’t necessary bring up at the dinner table.

I’m so grateful to have a giant (acid-free) folder of photos from my dad’s time in Japan and Korea. With long conversations over the phone, often punctuated by texting photos to his iPad to jog specific memories, Dad and I were able to piece together these recollections.

Dad’s wedding gift from the Army was his orders to ship out. It had taken a lot of convincing up the line, but he was finally granted a three-day pass to get married on November 4. When he returned, the orders were on his bunk.

The orders included a 10-day leave at Christmas (“It went by so fast,” he remembers) but in the new year it was time to say good-bye. Dad’s best man (and Mom’s uncle) Pip drove the newlyweds from New Haven to LaGuardia Airport in New York.

The first leg of the trip was to Chicago in a Lockheed Constellation, a passenger plane known as “the star of the skies.” The second flight, though, wasn’t quite as posh.

“There was no heat in the plane. We refueled in Wyoming.”

They landed in Seattle and enjoyed overnight accommodations. Dad recollects some of the lads went to a French restaurant, where he tried frogs legs for the first time. “They were wonderful,” he remembers.

Next, he went shopping at Bon Marche and shipped a gift to his bride. It was a copper chafing dish. Plans for their future life together.

After a night’s sleep it was time to climb aboard the USAT General Simon B. Buckner, a transport ship.

Climb, indeed. Thankfully, they’d learned the ropes in basic training.

It took about ten days to cross the Pacific. Dad remembers how serene it was at night, looking out over the endless sea. He saw flying fish by day and luminescent fish by night.

Sometimes the water was choppy. “There was only so much railing to lean over,” he recalls. “We had to take turns to go up on deck and throw up.”

There were ten levels of hammocks in the sleeping quarters in the hold of ship. The soldiers preferred calm waters.

Their first stop was Camp Drake near Tokyo. Every veteran who served in the U.S. Armed Forces during the War in Korea was assigned a Military Occupation Specialty (MOS) number. Dad’s MOS was 1745; he was a Light Weapons Infantry Leader. Staff Sergeant.

All that changed during their Assignment Meeting at Camp Drake.

Dad was called out specifically, and asked the following two questions:

• Are you a college graduate?
• Were you an English major?

The answer to both questions was “yes.” And so Dad was told to turn in his gun and get on a train. His assignment was now with the Public Information Office.

Dad was a writer, a reporter, and editor for the Army. He was in Japan for about half a year and then at a former POW camp at Pousan (now called Busan), South Korea.

I was a bit hesitant to ask Dad to compare his experience to the antics on the TV show M*A*S*H. The question seemed lacking in gravitas.

But a photo like this was like a big fat permission slip:

Side note: In the early 1970s, I had to talk Dad into watching M*A*S*H for the first time. He was quickly hooked on the comedy situated around a fictional Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in South Korea. When the show’s two-hour finale aired in February of 1983, I was married and living in Indiana. Dad called from Connecticut to be sure I didn’t miss it. We ended up staying on the phone, chatting, the whole time.

Here’s a photo of a cake break (it says “Happy Birthday Gus”) with some of his friends from PIO and Special Services.

Dad says Gus was “a character … a good guy.”

The duties of the Public Information Office for the Army’s 24th Infantry Division included assignments to research and write articles for the division newspaper and putting together “hometown news” about individual soldiers to send back to the States.

There were also some major assignments for their department (not Dad’s specifically, but the photos are too cool not to share):

Sifting through hundreds of photos from Dad’s time overseas, I have to say this is my favorite by far:

The Army’s 24th Infantry Division was the first to respond following the outbreak of the Korean War. I thank God that my Dad returned home safely. Sadly, thousands didn’t. Today is Veterans Day, time to reflect on all the good men and woman who’ve sacrificed so much to keep us safe and free.

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